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Start and wait for approval - First to Respond - Issue

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Posted on by MC-14041959-0

Hello,

I have a Power Automate flow that when a form is submitted, the response and attachments (if there are any) are held pending an approval (Start and wait for approval - first to respond). If approved, the form response is then posted to a Sharepoint list (and the submitter gets an email stating it was approved), if rejected, nothing happens (submitter gets an email saying it was rejected and why).

I have two emails listed as approvers, both are notified at the same time via Teams and Outlook that there is an approval request. Whoever responds first, that action is taken, however the other person is still able to respond to the approval request with a reject or approve. If the post was already approved and they respond with reject nothing happens, but if the post was already rejected and they respond with approve then the form response is posted to the sharepoint list, but is missing some details and attachments (if applicable).

I thought that the 'First to Respond' option wouldn't allow anyone to respond after the first person has responded. Why are they still able to respond? (In Teams specifically)

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SudeepGhatakNZ 14,394 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi there,
The expected behavior in your case is that the approval task should update its status based on the action taken by the first approver. It should clearly indicate who made the decision. Are you using the default Approval app, or have you implemented a custom Adaptive Card for approvals?

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MC-14041959-0 25 on at

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Yes, we are using the default approval app. It is updating based on the first approver and shows who that was, but the second person can still approve or reject after the first person already responded.

In the example above, I rejected the post and my coworker was still able to approve it from Teams afterwards and the post went through to the Sharepoint list, but missing certain data fields. So even though the final status shows rejected and that I rejected it, it still allowed my coworker to approve it after me and it was posted (but missing submitter name and attachment)

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David_MA 12,982 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Please share a screen shot of your flow and specifically how the approval action is configured. I have probably at least 100 approval flows and have never experienced what you describe. Are you sure the other person can still respond after the first person has responded, or are you just going by the history in Teams:

If you are going by what is shown in Teams, it is normal that it shows the people who did not respond and the person who did. If the other people assigned the task try and approve it, they will get a notification that it has already been completed. Based on the image you shared, everything appears to be working as it should since it shows the final status.

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MC-14041959-0 25 on at

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Please see screenshots below:

Yes, myself and my coworker are working closely together to test this flow to ensure it is ready to go. We have tested it several times and we are both able to approve/reject after the other one already has approved/rejected. (The approve/reject buttons are still available in the approval in Teams and they function, no error is given). We have tested where one of us rejects and then the other is able to click approve afterwards and the item does get posted to the sharepoint list (just missing attachments and the submitted by field). If one of us approves first and then the other rejects, the post is still there and nothing happens (which is good) but I don't understand why the second person even has the option to approve/reject or why it doesn't give them an error message as it has already been responded to.

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David_MA 12,982 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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I don't see any issues looking at the approval actions. They look correctly configured to me. Maybe someone else will notice something I don't see.

I did notice one difference between your screen shot of a completed approval and mine. Your screen shot says "No response needed" where mine says "No response" after the final status value.

I don't know if this is a clue, but like I've said I have never had someone be able to complete an approval after the first response is received and the approval is set to the first to respond. I do usually do something slightly different than you, and maybe this is why I have not had an issue. I use two actions for the approvals, the Create an approval action followed by the Wait for an approval action. You could try that to see if it resolves the issue:

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David_MA 12,982 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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I did notice one thing unrelated to your current issue. You have set the value for the requester field in the approval, which is fine. However, you have the condition that checks the outcome to where the outcome does not equal reject. The person who the approval comes from can cancel the approval request:

If they do, then how you have the condition will treat this as the request being approved when in reality it was canceled. Maybe that is fine, but I just wanted to point this out. Normally I use a switch on the Outcome for approve/reject and then use the default path in the switch for handling a cancellation. I find that this rarely happens, but sometimes people do cancel an approval.

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MC-14041959-0 25 on at

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Thanks David, I appreciate the advice! I will try what you suggested and let you know how it works for me

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MC-14041959-0 25 on at

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I have tested changing from 'start and wait for approval' to a 'create approval' followed by a 'wait for an approval' but am still running into the same issue.

My coworker who is testing this with me is still able to either approve or reject an approval request that I have already responded to. Do you think this has anything to do with the fact that we are co-owners of the flow?

In the Teams approval now is does say 'No reponse' for my coworker rather than 'No response needed' but he was still able to approve/reject after myself.

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MC-14041959-0 25 on at

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Thanks for all the help everyone. My coworker who was working on this with me realized they had another flow on that was causing them to get approvals twice and once shut off the approval process is working as expected.

I thought I was going crazy as I couldn't find anything wrong with my flow.

Thanks again!

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