Microsoft Approval : won't send multiple approvals at once until the first one has been answered

[msecordel]

Hi there, 

I have an Excel sheet with a date column, email address column and specific information attributed to each row. I have a scheduled daily cloud flow where it checks the list rows present in a table to see which rows match today's date. I then generate an Approvals flow (Create and wait for an approval - Customs responses - wait for one response) where whichever email address is listed in the row receives an approvals request. Based on their response, their corresponding row in the Excel table is updated with their outcome. 

The issue I am encountering is that when there are multiple entries with the same date per line (all with different unique identifiers), Microsoft approvals will only send one approval notification at a time. So if I have 3 different rows, with 3 different emails, Microsoft approvals will send one approval notification to the first recipient. Then, only when the first recipient has responded, does it second an approval notification to the second recipient. Otherwise, if the first recipient does not respond, the other ones to not trigger.

But, these approvals should all be independent of each other and should occur simultaneously. Does anyone have any recommendations on how I should adjust my flow ? 

Thank you in advance

[David_MA · Accepted solution]

Do not initiate the approval within your daily flow. Instead, create a child flow and call it from the daily flow to send the approval. Handle everything about the approval in the child flow. Just respond back to the parent flow that the flow has started. This way, a separate flow instance will be created for each approval, and you will not need to wait for the approval to complete before the next item can be processed. This method will require the flows to be in a solution.

Another option would be to create the approval with the trigger When a HTTP request is received. Your daily flow will use an HTTP request to trigger the approval flow. This requires you to have a premium Power Automate license. Here is a blog post that explains how this can be used: Power Automate: When an HTTP request is received Trigger - Manuel T. Gomes (manueltgomes.com)

[msecordel]

Thank you David, I put my flow in a solution and created a child flow as you suggested, it worked perfectly. Thank you again !