This is a confirmed known issue that others are also hitting. Here's what's happening and how to fix it.
The inline approve/reject buttons in Outlook approval emails are powered by Microsoft's Actionable Messages feature. When users stopped seeing the inline buttons and got a redirect link instead, it's almost always one of these causes:
1. Outlook Desktop version too old: Actionable Messages require Outlook Desktop build 16.0.12228 or higher. Users still getting the old style are likely on newer builds; users getting the redirect are likely on older builds. Check the Outlook version for affected users.
2. Actionable Messages disabled at tenant level: Run this PowerShell to verify:
Get-OrganizationConfig | ft ConnectorsEnabled, SmtpActionableMessagesEnabled
Both should be $true. If SmtpActionableMessagesEnabled is $false, that's your fix:
Set-OrganizationConfig -SmtpActionableMessagesEnabled $true
3. Email routing delay: Microsoft docs confirm that if there's an SMTP delay of over 1 hour between Power Automate and the mailbox (common with email filtering services), actionable messages expire and fall back to the redirect link. Check if affected users have email passing through a filtering service.
4. Guest users: Microsoft docs explicitly confirm: "Actionable Approval mails in Outlook are not supported for Guest users." If any affected users are guests, they will always get the redirect.
The Actionable Messages Debugger add-in for Outlook can diagnose this per user: install it from the Office Add-in store and it shows exactly why the actionable message failed to render.
Best regards,
Valantis
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