20-25 Approvals in the same flow best practice

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Posted on by EBMRay

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Hello everyone,

I have a requirement to create a flow that will contain around 20-25 level of approvals that is integrated with SQL.

The workflow process is very similar to a state machine workflow to go back and forth based on the decision taken.
For example: When rejected it goes back one or two-level depends on the scenario to fill in what detail is missing...

In addition, I will have another workflow with the same concept copied from the original one to bypass the 30 days limitation and run beyond that. Because some approvals might take some time to take a decision on.

The flow will have many conditions to check:

A valid email address before sending the approval card, from a user's table in SQL.
If he/she already took a decision or not on the same request (flow beyond 30 days).
Outcome condition to perform an update operation to track the responses.
Time out configuration for every level (20-25).

For the above I know that I should use:

Do Until Loop
Switch - each branch is a state
Conditions
Specify where I come from and where I want to go

I don't want to split the process to create many workflows so in total it will be only two:

The original one and the other flow will restart every 30 days.

What do you recommend as best practice to build a good structure for the above workflow?

One more question regarding the licenses:

Power Automate per user plan license will be enough only for the creator of the flow or do I need for every user a license? (The other users that will interact with the flow are around 25 users and just approvers)

Any advice and help will be highly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Categories:

Building flows

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abm abm 32,865 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @Julien2

You probably need a custom database to maintain every stage of your approval process, users, department, lead time for each approval, etc. Once you have your database then think about creating two flows.

First is for looking your custom database/SharePoint list to start the first process. Maintain a Boolean operator Y/N here. Default stet all to false. Once it set to yes trigger the flow and send the request for the relevant approvals.

Second flow is for monitoring the lead time. If it passed it then either delete the flow approval from the database and update the flag from 'N' and back to 'Y'. This will trigger the first approval flow again.

For cancellation of approval flow please see the below one.

Solved: Create an Approval, how to cancel - Power Platform Community (microsoft.com)

Thanks

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EBMRay 1,710 on at

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Hello @abm ,

Thank you so much for providing this wonderful idea and how to cancel the approval flow.

I just wanted to ask you what if 4 different requests are created simultaneously, how the flow will now for which request to set the flag either Y or N?

Looking forward to your response.
Thank you!

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abm abm 32,865 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @Julien2

The serial number we discussed make the same number if you sending more than one requests.

Thanks

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EBMRay 1,710 on at

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Hello @abm ,
Thank you for your reply.
So just to make sure that I have understood, for every request created in SQL a new item should be created in the custom SP list to control the flag of the process step?

If so, I think in that case I will need 3 workflows.
1. When a row is created in SQL -> Create or update an item in SP list to Y.
2. Trigger when Y is updated in the custom list -> send approval.
3. Monitoring the lead time.
Example: Two rows have been created in SQL then in the custom DB the flow will create the below in the custom list?
Did I understand you right? If not, could you please clarify more with a simple example?
Looking forward to your response.
Thanks!

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abm abm 32,865 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @Julien2

I still think you only need two flows for this. Will discuss sometime on Monday.

Thanks

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