Leave Form - Timeout on approval?

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone,

I am currently creating a flow with an approval function. This is basically a leave request for our company. (I tried to add as many english phrases as needed for you to understand the flow).

I am however unsure if that flow would work even after 2-3day or weeks since the flow starts with a form -> starts an approval -> continues when the approval is concluded to send a mail. 

However - since it may be the case that the approval may take some days or weeks to come to an end i was afraid that the flow will time out (where the ??? ??? are).

Can someone give me feedback if that is the case or if i have to implement some sort of loop / different method?

Best wishes 

[tom_riha]

Hello @Anonymous ,

unless you define your own timeout to shorten it, the flow has a maximum run time of 30 days. The users will have 30 days to complete the task, then the flow will automatically end. 

But I can see a problem in your flow - you've got two approval actions, once in each branch of the 'Condition'. But the loop after the 'Condition' will process output only of 1 of the approval task actions, the one you reference as the 'Apply to each' input. If there's only a small difference between the two approval actions, e.g. different approver, I'd initialize a variable, store the approver in that variable in the 'Condition' action, move the approval action after the 'Condition', and assign a task to the user in the variable. That way you'll have only 1 approval action and you can process its output in the existing loop.

[Anonymous]

@tom_riha 

Thanks very much for the information on the timeout period. Is there a way to e.g. manually restart it? E.g. have timeout start again by certain mechanism via another PowerAutomate? 

The idea is that we have one person submitting in January and another in February. So it would be good to extend the first submission-timeout for another 30d so a decision can be made. Does that make sense?

I was already thinking about sending another mail after 2, 3 and 4 weeks to the people that have to approve the request but havent found a smart way to implement that yet.

-

Other then that: The two conditions i have are

1) Which Department? A or B --> 2) If A send to X ; If B send to Z

2) Approved or Denied -> If Approved do all that ; if denied do all that

Makes sense?

[Anonymous]

I think i know what you meant by "loop" now.. 

The idea i had was to see which department someone is and based on that make a condition on who to send it to. However.. that runs into the issue that I now have two DIFFERENT Approval instances running and therefor would need to set up the last condition twice.

Any smart idea how i can make it so that "If employee works in dep. A set 'assigned to' X, Y Z" ; If employee works in dep. B set 'assigned' to K, L, M" and implement that into a SINGLE approval form? 

I would bascially just need to have the "Condition yes / no" -> "Compose A" or "Compose B" and have that result implemented in the "Approval" form.. That basically it. But i got NO idea how to get the "result" from the condition to be implemented in the "Approval" form. 

This is my current workaround - just not sure if that works reliable

[tom_riha · Accepted solution]

Hello @Anonymous ,

you can start the flow again from the beginning after the 30 days, but there's no way to prolong the run time, or to continue in the existing flow.

Your 'Condition' will work, I'd use 'Initialize variable' to initialize a string variable, in the 'Condition' 'Set variable' to the desired email address, and then use the variable as the task recipient in the approval. But your solution is fine too.