Team Flow only coming from Creator

[Anonymous]

I have a Flow that utilizes the approval process to send a link to a SharePoint document.  The approver then approves or rejects the document after reviewing.  The flow then either continues to the next approver or goes back to someone to process differently if rejected.

I'm having the following problems:

1.  Every email (outlook) that the approver receives has a large (i'm talking like 5 x 7) photo of my head.  Its quite hysterical, but on the serious note I have to figure out how to get rid of it.  Its always my head (creator) regardless of who starts the flow.  The photo comes from my profile picture stored in outllook.

2. Once the photo issue is resolved, I want the flow to appear to come from the user that starts it...not me the creator...so the email should come from the person who kicks off the flow.

Any help much appreciated.

Thanks

Shelly

[v-yamao-msft]

Hi slatkinson,

How is your flow configured? Could you show me a screenshot of your flow?

Are you using the “Office 365 – Send approval email” action?

Please show me more details to help reproduce this issue on my side.

Best regards,
Mabel Mao

[Anonymous]

Mabel:

Thanks so much!  I don't see where I can upload a docx...so I took some printscreens and i'm uploading them.  THis is not the complete flow...its multistep approvals...

Shelly

[v-yamao-msft]

Hi slatkinson,

About issue1, please try to use the action “Get user profile” but not “Get my profile”.

About issue2, do you mean that the “Requested by” in the email is still the one who created the flow but not the one who triggered the flow?

A screenshot likes below. This flow I created has been shared with a team member, though he triggered the flow on his side, but Requested by in the email address was still my email address.

Are you getting the same issue with me?

Please show me more details about this.

Best regards,
Mabel Mao

[Anonymous]

Thank you Mabel. I will test and get back to you.  Shelly

[Anonymous]

@v-yamao-msft Mabel:  I made the change to "get user profile" instead of "get my profile" but is is erroring out when I do that.  What dynamic content do I put into that part?  The "user" will change depending on who starts the flow?  When I put a user's information in that box the approval email that comes still shows a 5x7 photo of my head in the email?  So I tried just taking out that step completely...oddly the flow still works....but again...my head fills the screen!  SO I created a new flow that simply is an approval for a file and I still get the huge picture of my head (see bottom screen shot)  help please

 

[Anonymous]

@v-yamao-msft  any update to my issue?

[Anonymous]

Can anyone help me with this?  I'm not getting responses from the person who was replying to me a few months ago!  My deadline is approaching for rolling this out!  Help and thanks

[v-yamao-msft]

Hi @Anonymous,

I have to say that it is a default behavior that when using the action “Start an approval”, the email will be sent out from the creator of the flow but not user who starts the flow.

So in your case, your profile picture will be displayed on the email whenever the flow is triggered.

At Flow Ideas Forum, there is a similar request, you could vote and comment the request at here:
https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Flow-Ideas/Email-content-improvement-for-quot-Start-an-approval-quot-action/idi-p/66272

I have reported it on my side.

Best regards,
Mabel Mao

[crewschuck]

Perhaps I can help get us on the road to an answer. In the past, I've tried something like:

create an admin type profile like "SA-powerappsadmin@yourdomain.com".

make that profile the owner of your flow. I think this at least allows the flow to run under the admin credentials.

But, it does not solve the approval coming from "me" (in Teams) vs. from the sa-powerappsadmin identity.

I think the trick is to somehow remove the "connection" or "connection reference" currently associated with the approval and then "apply" a new connection or connection reference for sa-powerappsadmin.

I recently tried just login in as sa-powerappsadmin and then recreating the approval step (and updating all subsequent field use in the flow). I thought that had worked for me in the past.

But, this time it did not appear to work. It still send the "approval" from ME.

I'm going to keep trying and if I find a solution, I'll post it here. 

But, maybe this will trigger an idea from someone.

BTW, We don't have "test" and "prod" environments or use managed solutions. we just develop and run prod all in the same environment. so, exporting and importing into "prod" and changing connection reference then won't work. it has to be something we do in the current environment.

[RobElliott]

@Anonymous @crewschuck approval emails and normal emails (using send an email (v2)) will always go from the creator of the flow as it uses that person's connection. If you trigger it from Power Apps then it will use the connection of the person triggering the flow so will use their connection and come from their email.

Rob
Los Gallardos

[crewschuck]

ok. I actually solved this just now after testing. as I mentioned, we have an sa-powerappsadmin@yourdomain.com user that we ultimately use to run our "prod" flows. as stated above, initially when I create the flow, the teams approval comes from ME. 

I just changed this so now the approval request in teams comes from our sa-powerappsadmin.

the way I did it was to log in as the sa-powerappsadmin ID, go to the flow in question, find the approval step, click on the 3 dots, and choose + new connection reference.  A new connection reference is created under the sa-powerappsadmin ID.  Save the flow and boom!

then, the teams approval comes from the sa-powerappsadmin ID.

btw, as mentioned, sa-powerappsadmin has already been designated as the owner of the flow.

I actually like the setup for troubleshooting in the initial go live so that, during initial go live, the approval comes from ME so I can see that it's working.  Then, after 30 days or so and the flow is working, I can change it so that sa-powerappsadmin is now the teams approver "sender" and I don't get the notifications any further.