Power Platform Community Forum Thread Details

I have a flow that runs once/week and will send multiple approvals out at one time. I am using the Concurrency setting to do this with the Start and Wait Approval action. The flow will send approval emails for all jobs prior to today that have not yet been completed. The approval action is asking to update the status of the job (Completed or Cancelled). When the flow runs on week two, it will pick up any approvals that have not yet been completed and send out another approval request. Yet, the flow will still be waiting for any approvals that have not yet been completed yet. I am looking for ideas on how best to handle this.

1. Set the time out to be 6 days so the flow on week one will fail, thus cancelling all the approval requests that have not yet been completed. Are there any ramifications of basically forcing the flow to fail? I assume that it will only cancel the approvals that have not yet been responded to and not roll back the valid responses.

2. Create a parallel branch and add checks to see if that approval has been completed and send a reminder if it has not yet been completed. I think this means I would not be able to do Start and Wait since I would want to set a flag for any approval that was completed. I am just not sure how to make this work with concurrent approvals going out.

Any suggestions?

Thank you for your time!

Categories:

Building flows

Hi tverticchio,

Thank you for choosing Microsoft Community.

Handling concurrent approvals in Power Automate can be tricky, but there are a few strategies you can consider:

1. Timeout and Cancellation
Setting a timeout for the approval action to 6 days can work, but it has some implications. When the timeout is reached, the flow will fail, and any pending approval requests will be cancelled. This approach ensures that you don't have lingering approval requests, but it also means that any valid responses received after the timeout will not be processed. This method is straightforward but might not be the most efficient.

2. Parallel Branch with Reminders
Creating a parallel branch to check the status of approvals and send reminders is a more robust solution. Here's how you can set it up:

Trigger: When an item is modified in SharePoint.

Condition: If the status is "approved".

Start and Wait for Approval: Send the approval request.

Parallel Branch: Create a parallel branch to check the status of the approval.

Parallel Branch Steps:
Delay: Add a delay action (e.g., 3 days).

Check Approval Status: Use a "Get items" action to check if the approval has been completed.

Condition: If the approval is not completed, send a reminder email.

Loop: Repeat the check and reminder process until the approval is completed or a maximum number of reminders is reached.

3. Using a Flag
Instead of using the "Start and Wait for Approval" action, you can use the "Send an email with options" action to send the approval request. This way, you can set a flag in your SharePoint list to indicate whether the approval has been completed. Here's how:

Trigger: When an item is modified in SharePoint.

Condition: If the status is "approved".

Send Email with Options: Send the approval request.

Update SharePoint List: Update the SharePoint list with the approval status.

Parallel Branch: Create a parallel branch to check the status of the approval and send reminders if needed.

Example Flow
Trigger: When an item is modified in SharePoint.

Condition: If the status is "approved".

Send Email with Options: Send the approval request.

Update SharePoint List: Update the SharePoint list with the approval status.

Parallel Branch: Check the status and send reminders.

This approach allows you to handle concurrent approvals more effectively and ensures that you don't miss any valid responses.

I hope these steps help resolve the issue! If you need more specific guidance, feel free to ask.