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Is it possible to send multiple email with options without waiting for a response?

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Posted on by tverticchio

I have a SharePoint list of jobs to be completed. The list contains columns for requested date, requestor, and status, among additional details for the job. I would like to send an email to each requestor the day after the job is scheduled to ask if the job was completed, partially completed, or cancelled. I created a flow looking for any job with a request date less than today. I added a send email with options and an update to the list recording the status supplied in the email. However, this will only work if there is only one job requested/day. There could be multiple jobs each day for several requestors. Is there a way to send the email with options to all requestors that had a job that day without waiting for the first person to respond? Is there a different process in Power Automate that should be considered, a different way to look at this? I also looked at using the approval process, but that seems to wait for a response as well before sending the next email.

Thank you!

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Pstork1 68,717 Most Valuable Professional on at

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There are two easy ways you can achieve this.

1) If you know how many emails you need to send you can put each one in a separate parallel branch. That way they all go out simultaneously.

2) Put the Send an email with options inside an apply to each loop that loops through the emails you need to send and processing the response. Then Go into Settings and enable Concurrency. That will send all the emails out without waiting for the reply to each email. By adjusting the degrees of parallelism you can handle up to 50 concurrent emails that way.

I suspect the second approach is what you are looking for.

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tverticchio 64 on at

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Thank you - I will try your solution.

One follow up question - can a still use an Update item after the send email to update the status on the correct list item? What happens when a new batch of request for update emails goes out the next day? Are there any conflicts to be concerned with?

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David_MA 12,982 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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If you use one of two suggestions fromPstork1, be sure to add error-checking to handle a timeout on the response. You don't want your entire flow run to fail just because you didn't get a response from one person.

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tverticchio 64 on at

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What does error checking on a timeout look like? Not sure how to capture that...

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Pstork1 68,717 Most Valuable Professional on at

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As long as you include the update item inside the loop or in each parallel branch you can update the item each time the response is returned. If the responses are cumulative you'll need to either append the responses to a variable and update things when everyone has responded or store the current state in a variable so you can update the item with all the responses that have been made so far.

A second set of emails the next day shouldn't be a problem unless responses will conflict with responses being made to today's items. If they are responding to the same thing then you may overwrite responses from the flow that is still running.

The timeout problem mentioned by @David_MA shouldn't be an issue unless the flow runs for more than 29 days. But error checking is always a good idea.

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David_MA 12,982 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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The wait for an approval action is similar to the e-mail with options action in that it waits for a response. This is an example of adding error checking:

You add parallel actions under the Send e-mail with options so that one side is configured if it is successful and one side to handle the flow in case it times out. For my process, if the approval times out it considers it a rejection. For you use case, you may want to consider one of the options as the default response if it times out.

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tverticchio 64 on at

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Thank you both. I think this is exactly what I was looking for. I hope to try and implement today.

One more related question:

Can you include a text field for comments on the email in addition to the choices? I would like to allow comments and map them to the Comments field on the List.

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,433 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi

its a little hard as people are putting in a lot of time and you keep asking for more without selecting their hard work as the answer.

New questions should go into another thread versus stacking them back to back in the same one, as your question has already been answered.

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Pstork1 68,717 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Send an email with options doesn't include the ability to add comments. Start and Wait for an Approval with Custom Responses does include a Comment field. The email it provides is about the same.

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