Hello everyone,
First off I apologize for a lack of screenshots, I wanted to insert pictures to help me describe each part but it keeps giving me errors when I try to upload images unfortunately.
Anyway, I have created a flow for my workplace to handle our automated approval processes during busy seasons. I managed to get it working through multiple stages of approval and it is able to handle rejections through every approval stage (there is about 7) through some layered functions.
First, when a new list item is created it initializes an integer variable, starting at 1.
Next, everything else is contained within a 'Do Until' function which tells the flow to keep going until its status column is marked 'Approved' which happens after the last approval stage (set to timeout after 1 month).
Within that Do Until function, there is another 'Switch' function that switches the integer variable to different stages of the flow when an item is rejected or accepted.
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Eg. the flow starts at variable 1, then when an item is approved, it switches the variable to 2 and that sends the item to the second approver.
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The second approver can then approve the item, which will set the variable to 3 and moves the item forward to the next approver, or reject the item, which sets the variable back to 1 and moves the item backward to the previous approver.
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These options repeat at each approval stage until it reaches the final approval stage and the status is set to 'Approved'
Now, I am quite proud of getting this to work and it does work excellently through the actual process, but there is one problem.
I believe the problem is rooted in approvals that are left behind:
Eg. if someone creates an item on the list and they accidently put the wrong link or a wrong approver, they have to delete that item and re-create it with the correct information. But that first version of the item they created still lives on as an approval, essentially in limbo. Now, I was under the impression that these limbo approvals would simply stop working when the 1 month timeout period ends.
What seems to be happening instead however is that at the end of the timeout period, whoever was the approver that the item got left with will get spammed with identical approval emails for that item (and I am talking about hundreds) sending over the course of 1 hour straight and usually in the middle of the night, like between 2am and 5am.
So my question is, has anyone experienced this issue and how can I avoid this happening?
Any help would be appreciated.
