Approval requestor instead of Creator

[bruce_gibbins]

HI. I have seen that FLOW has been upgraded in late August 2018 to allow the workflow creator to specify the "REQUESTOR" when creating an APPROVAL ACTION. In the past all emails from an Approval workflow indicated to the recipient that the approval request had originated from the 'workflow creator' and not the person who triggered the workflow. This is a great and I imagine a much anticipated feature improvement.

However, I cannot seem to find a way to update an existing workflow to use this feature as the 'Requestor' element of an existing Approval Action is missing. If I create a NEW Approval Action I can see the "Requestor" element. The screen shot shows this best.

How do I go about editing an existing "Approval Action" to include the "Requestor" element? I have tried exporting and modifying the underlying JSON definition but did not have any luck importing it as a new flow that I could test whilst the original stayed in production. Plus this seemed to be a problematic way to attempt it in any case.

Also, there would be a lot of work to delete the original Approval Action and create a new one due to the dependant downstream flow conditions and actions.

Any ideas?

thank-you in advance

[Pieter_Veenstra]

Hi @bruce_gibbins,

Have you tried adding a new approval action, copy all the fields across and then delete the original?

[bruce_gibbins]

yes, but I the issue is that a downstream object such as a conditions with branches on those conditions seems to be hardwired back to the original approval action object. Thus, you can't associate these with the new approval action object.

Keeping in mind I am very new to the FLOW designer. So perhaps there are drag and drop or keyboard actions that allow you to assign the new action to the existing condition and this would then allow you to delete the original approval action.

[v-yuazh-msft]

Hi @bruce_gibbins,

For your question to delete the original Approval Action and create a new one due to the dependant downstream flow conditions and actions,I afraid that the only way should be delete the dynamic content of the "Start an approval" action in your dependant downstream flow conditions and actions, and then delete the "Start an approval" action and add a new one.

Best regards,

Alice

[bruce_gibbins]

Hi and thanks.

Whilst that is helpful that is a lot of work especially when the downstream actions have all been tested.

And I am not sure as I have not tried but the next action is a condition that has two branches. Whilst there may be dynamic content explicitly from the Approval action used beyond the condition it still means the condition and this all of its children would need to be deleted because the condition itself is dependent on the original action item.

I must be missing something because this would be an obvious issue if the existing action needs to be deleted to make use of the new requestor element.

[Pieter_Veenstra]

I understand and for me it just worked with old approval tasks. I have seen however replacing the actions sometimes work.

[GabrielStJohn]

Hello, @bruce_gibbins!

Thank you for posting on the Flow Community Forum! Have you had an opportunity to apply @Pieter_Veenstra‘s recommendation to adapt your Flow? If yes, and you find that solution to be satisfactory, please go ahead and click “Accept as Solution” so that this thread will be marked for other users to easily identify!

Thank you for being an active member of the Flow Community!

-Gabriel
Flow Community Manager

[bruce_gibbins]

Hi

Thanks to  @Pieter_Veenstra and @v-yuazh-msft your suggestions were useful. However, I did find that I needed to create a separate Approval Action in parallel to the existing and then create the same conditions and the copy&paste as much as I could from the original downstream actions across to the new Approval flow and its child actions. Some, I had to recreate as the Copy was difficult and sometimes would not complete correctly. 

luckily the Flow was small with only a few downstream actions. If this had been larger and more complicated then the end result could not be guaranteed as I am sure something would get missed.

My suggestion to Microsoft is to allow either

a) cloning a complete branch in parallel to provide at least a template to work from or....

b) allow us to edit this element in an existing action item

thanks again

[v-yuazh-msft]

Hi @bruce_gibbins,

Your requirment couldn't be achieved in microsoft flow currently.

If you would like the functions that you mentioned should be supported in microsoft flow,please submit an idea to Flow Ideas Forum:

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Flow-Ideas/idb-p/FlowIdeas

Best regards,

Alice