Approval workflow with multiple conditions

[emberkrumwied]

I have successfully created a few flows but am seeking ways to consolidate and improve them.  My flows are for the routing of invoices for approval to, at most, 2 approvers.   Once approved, the flow will generate a pdf that captures specific data from both the original invoice routed as well as data from the approvers.  All is working well and as expected.

I went in search of a way to customize the "reminder" emails that were sent to approvers when they didn't respond within the initial response period and a way to only send these reminder emails on weekdays.

For the first part, I added a parallel branch to my initial approval workflow to handle the reminders.  This allowed me to format the email so the approver could see that this was a reminder email and not another new invoice to review.  I tried to use the Send an email with options action, but couldn't figure out how to capture the responses, so I used a second Start and wait for an approval action.  (My approvers appreciate the ability to click an option in the requesting email to approve or reject instead of having to navigate to a SharePoint library.)

For the second part, I added a variable to determine the DayofWeek from the current date/time and then used that result to fulfill a condition to only send the "Reminder" approval if it is being sent on a Monday - Friday.  Things seem to be working okay, except that the parallel branch only sends out the first "reminder" approval email.  For testing purposes I've set all the timeouts to be 1M, but those would change to a longer period once working.  The process is:

1. Flow sends out the first approval email (branch 1).
2. Branch 2 begins with a delay (currently 1M but will be longer).
3. Branch 2 looks to see if a response (from branch 1) has been received and it is a weekday; if no response and a weekday then Reminder approval email is sent.
4. Branch 2 should loop until response (either from original request or from the reminder request) is received.

This is what is actually happening:

1. Original approval email is received - I do not respond.
2. Branch 2 delay works as currently configured.
3. Branch 2 approval email is received - I do not respond.
4. Branch 2 loop - no additional approval emails are being sent or are received (flow thinks the Do until has been completed).

So in the end I am only receiving the original request and 1 reminder.  My goal is to receive the original request and as many reminders (within the total flow timeout limitations) it takes till I get a response.  Below are screen shots of the current flow.  I have played around with the order of the Do until, Conditions, Approval and other Actions as well as played around with changing the Counts and Timeouts for the Do unit and Approval and even played with the Run after configurations.  I fee like I'm close but can't see how to correct.

Sorry for the long post, and thank you for any assistance you may be able to provide.

Do until limits are Count - 60; Timeout PT1M (will be longer once this works)

Start and wait for an approval Timeout (PT1M) - will be longer once this works.

Condition-S1R-ResponseCheck set to run after Start and wait for approval is successful or has timed out.

Note: This flow runs as expected if I remove the first Condition action in the Do until action.  Thanks!

[annajhaveri]

@emberkrumwied , i understand that you are trying to send reminders for the approvals. I would suggest that you create a separate flow to send reminders. You can store the status of approval and date of status change in columns in your SharePoint library to know which stage of approval the workflow is at. You can create a flow with recurrence trigger to trigger once daily, then it gets items from library based on the stage and see when the date of status changed is less than today, then you can send reminder email. 

[emberkrumwied]

@annajhaveri Thank you for the suggestion, I will give that a think over.  Just need to think through how a potential second level approval would work in this case.  Appreciate the feedback.

[annajhaveri]

@emberkrumwied , you could have two status values for both level of approval, the status column can have three values: two status values for two level approval and third one as completed. So in your approval flow, update the status and date in the column just before start approval action.

[emberkrumwied]

@annajhaveri this search began by my users requesting that follow up emails somewhat differentiate from the original request (so they can tell that the "reminder" isn't a new request but just one they still have to complete).  My current flow sends the reminders at the interval needed, but you can't change the format of that reminder, so to an end user, it looks exactly the same as the original.

So in my searching, suggestions to do a parallel branch to handle the reminders was suggested.  This would allow me to modify the reminder email but now I need to figure out how to send an email with options AND capture the responses.  So that the reminder email gives the end user the option to approve or reject directly from the email.

I already capture each approver, their status, the status date and any comments they may have entered.  Just need to figure out how to pull this data from a regular email with options as it is not as straightforward as getting that info from the approval action itself.

[emberkrumwied]

Follow up question...re: email with options - I see how I can capture/record the option selected, is there any way to capture the date that selection was made?  If not, is there a way to capture/record when an action is completed?  My thinking is if I can't pull the date when the user makes a selection, then perhaps I could record when the send an email with options action was completed.  That would give me the date when the user made their selection...maybe???

[annajhaveri]

@emberkrumwied , are you using Send email with options when sending reminder emails? So that users can approve from reminder email and you want to capture date when user selects the option from email, you are doing this in place of approval action response?