Flow Approval Reminder Notification every "x" hr

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Posted on by jaina

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Hi.

Good Day!

I have an approval flow using MS Flow in Sharepoint List. I wanted to set a condition where as the approval email will notify for example every 5 hrs and will only stop unless the approver have responded. Is it possible? Thanks! 🙂

-Jaina

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ScottShearer 25,280 Most Valuable Professional on at

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@jaina:

I demonstrate one technique of sending approval reminder emails below.
My example uses a loop and an approval action in parallel. I also use a variable. After the approval is complete, the variable is updated to "Complete. The loop runs in parallel with the approval and runs until the variable is equal to "Complete".
When the loop starts, it waits 5 hours. If the variable equals "Pending", a reminder email is sent. This will continue until action is taken on the approval.
The email should include a link to the approval center (same link for everyone).

Please post here if you have additional questions.

If this solves your issue, please mark your question as Solved.

Scott

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jaina 517 on at

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Hi @ScottShearer thank you so much for this solution! 🙂

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PrasadAthalye on at

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@ScottShearer
This looks interesting. I have a question. I have 2 levels of approvals.. So I can not terminate the flow if first approver takes action. Also My flow loops back if 2nd approver has approved.

In such cases how to exit parallel branch?

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SamuelFerreira 5 on at

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@ScottShearer Awesome Solution!

I've tried a lot of different ways and tutorials,
This was the first that worked perfectly!

Tks!

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ScottShearer 25,280 Most Valuable Professional on at

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@SamuelFerreira

Thanks!

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Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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The only issue with this, is that your approval can have up to a 5 hour delay, as potentialy the delay just kicked in as the user approved. It will then have to wait the 5 hours before checking the loop value again and ending the loop.
Also I am not sure people appreciate getting a reminder every 5 hours.

An alternative is to just put a 5 minute delay inside the loop instead. Then you should place the condition after the loop and set the timeout of the loop to the amount of time you want to wait before checking to send a reminder, to avoid spamming people. You would have to do this for each reminder though.

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singletrackvale 16 on at

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The problem with this solution and many I've seen similar to this is what happens if you have items after these in the flow that need to happen after approval. The do loop has to complete and cancel out before anything else will run in the workflow. So in a real example where the delay would be 1 or more days, if an action needs to happen after approval, it won't be hit until that delay is complete and the do loop cancels out.
There are also problems when you have multiple levels of approval needed.
MS needs to have approval reminders as part of the approval widget so they can work smarter.

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Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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I've got this working however, I have an issue when there are multiple approvers. I already set the variable as an array which will send it to multiple reviewers (list is dependent to what company is requesting for approval). The missing part is to check whether the approver responded or not.

Is it possible that I will only remind the one who didn't respond yet? If yes, how can you do it?

Thanks!

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teylyn1 362 on at

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@singletrackvale , @Anonymous I have created an approach that eliminates your concerns. The status of the approval is checked every hour (for example), but the email is sent only once a day (for example).

Check out how to do this in my blog https://teylyn.com/2020/01/07/timing-microsoft-powerautomate-approval-reminders/

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darsh 9 on at

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I have an approval flow that send an email to approver when a new item is added into sharepoint list. I need to forward the approval process to second approver if first appover doesn't respond after 5 days .
Please help i need urgently .

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