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Creating a multi-user approval flow where some reviewers do not respond.

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Hi.

I have created a process flow for automating a document review and approval/concurrence process that is conducted concurrently by at least 3 assigned people; upwards of 20 assigned people when fully implemented. It is using the 'Wait for Approval' process step. The process flow works fine when all of the assigned reviewers have done their review and indicated their approval/concurrence or not.

The process fails when some of the assigned reviewers complete the review/approval action and others do not respond. For example, out of the 3 assigned reviewers that receive a request to review and approve/concur only 1 completes the action. The other two reviewers do not complete the review.

It is using the 'Wait for Approval' process step with a timeout of PT2M (2 minutes for testing purposes); and configured the subsequent step to run after the wait for approval has succeeded or timed out.

I have tried to use a condition statement to check if the 'Outcomes' is not null.

However, every time it runs:

1) the one reviewer takes the action to approve/'Concur'

2) the other two reviewers take no action

3) wait for approval process step times out after 2 minutes

The 'Outcome' value always comes back as null and doesn't register the one approval/’Concur’ action that occurred.

So the action of getting and updating the record in the tracker never occurs. Subsequently the completion email goes out; but doesn't display the 'Response Summary' value.

What am I missing or can do differently so that I can process the approval actions that do occur; even if all of the reviewers have not responded?

Thanks!

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Building flows

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edguerre Microsoft Employee on at

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@Anonymous

So what you want your approval to do is:
- Not everyone assigned needs to approve,
- There is a time limit of X minutes,
- If someone rejects, it should be immediately rejected,
- If one or more people approve, without rejections, it will be approved,
- If no one takes action in X minutes, another acction occurs.

Is this it?

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Community Power Pla... on at

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Hi @edguerre. Thanks for the response. What I want the approval to do is:
Everyone assigned is supposed to take an action (concur / no concur)
Responses (concur / no concur) and comments received are updated in a tracker (SharePoint list)
No actions are required to reject or approve based upon responses received
There is a time limit for each review (2 weeks; 2 minutes for testing purposes)
Email generated at the end to indicate review period is closed and to review the tracker to see the responses and any comments received.
What is happening is that some of the assigned reviewers completed the action/approval step; while others took no action to respond. So the approval step times out the 'Outcome' value returns null and doesn't register the reviewers that completed the action/approval step. As a result, the tracker doesn't get updated.

I am trying the suggestion of using the Apply To Each step to process each reviewer through the approval action that @ @v-bacao-msft suggested in the 'Timedout Approvals (get responses, if someone respond on time)' posting. Still testing; but looking favorable.

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Community Power Pla... on at

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The 'Apply To Each' step to process each reviewer through the approval action that is suggested in the 'Timedout Approvals (get responses, if someone respond on time)' has been tested and appears to solve this issue.

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