dynamic approvers

[vaibhavtandon87]

Dear community,

I am building a flow where we have 2 approvers for maker and checker and they need to approve the flow dynamically. When I say dynamically it means if for item 1 step 1 would be  , approver 1/ 2 has to approve the flow. If it has approved by approver 1 then it has to be further approved by approver 2. If the flow was approved by approver 2 then next step is to be approved by 1. How to build this dynamically basis who approved it first and sequentially it has to be approved by other approver?

Many thanks!

[v-liwei-msft]

Hi @vaibhavtandon87 

1. Put the emails of the two approvers in a string joined by a semicolon.

2. Put this string into the Assigned to of the first approval, and set the approval type to First to respond. (Flow will automatically add a semicolon after filling in the dynamic content in the Assigned to field, please delete it)

3.

replace(outputs('Compose'),first(outputs('Start_and_wait_for_an_approval')?['body/responses'])?['responder/email'],'')

Best Regards,

Levi

[vaibhavtandon87]

Thanks @v-liwei-msft  for the quick response! However, the second approval is getting generated for both the approvers not the one who didnt approve first approval.

[v-liwei-msft]

Hi @vaibhavtandon87 

Could you please show your flow?

Best Regards,

Levi

[vaibhavtandon87]

Expression written - 

replace(outputs('Compose'),first(outputs('Approval')?['body/responses'])?['responder/email'],'')

[v-liwei-msft]

Hi @vaibhavtandon87 

You can add a compose under the Approve action, and use the expression:

first(outputs('Approval')?['body/responses'])?['responder/email'] in the Compose.
Check whether the Compose is empty.

Best Regards,

Levi

[vaibhavtandon87]

It gave output as email of first approver

[v-liwei-msft]

Hi @vaibhavtandon87 

Then please add another Compose input expression:

replace(outputs('Compose'), first(outputs(''Approval'')?['body/responses'])?['responder/email'],'')
Thanks

[vaibhavtandon87]

Expression isnt working - I removed double quotes outside of Approval to single quotes "Approval" to 'Approval'. However the output is both the email id's and its not replacing the first approver

[v-liwei-msft]

Hi @vaibhavtandon87 

Sorry, this was my mistake, there should be single quotes outside Approve.
According to your description: first(outputs('Approval')?['body/responses'])?['responder/email'] returns the correct email, but the replace function is not replaced correctly.
The only possible reason I think is that first(outputs('Approval')?['body/responses'])?['responder/email'] returns a different email address than the one in Compose.

[vaibhavtandon87]

ok, seems replace is not working basis the combination of output of approver 1 and compose containing 2 email id's

[grantjenkins]

Hopefully this is what you're looking for. Note that I haven't handled what happens when the first approval is rejected. I've also just used a manual trigger for the flow as didn't know what you used.

See full flow below. I'll go into each of the actions.

Initialize variable creates a variable called approvers of type Array and adds the two emails that will be used in the approvals.

Start and wait for an approval uses the following expression to join the two emails separated by a semicolon.

join(variables('approvers'), ';')

Switch handles the outcome of the approval. You can just use a Condition here, but I like to use a Switch as an approval can have more than two outcomes, so makes the flow a bit nicer (don't have nested conditions). For this example, I've only handed the case where the Outcome is equal to Approve.

Filter array will remove the email that approved the first approval. It uses the following expressions for the condition.

item()

first(outputs('Start_and_wait_for_an_approval')?['body/responses'])?['responder/email']

Our Filter array will only contain a single email now - the email of the person that didn't respond to the first approval. We use the following expression to retrieve the first (and only) email for the second approval.

first(body('Filter_array'))

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[vaibhavtandon87]

Thanks @grantjenkins  for the solution - however filter step is not filtering the email id's and output is both the email id's

[grantjenkins]

That's really strange - it works successfully when I run the flow. Can you check to ensure you don't have any additional spaces at the start or end of your email addresses.

[vaibhavtandon87]

@grantjenkins  thanks again for your reply! I have checked there are no spaces. If I put compose - first(outputs('Start_and_wait_for_an_approval')?['body/responses'])?['responder/email'] its giving the value of first approver but seems item() not equal to first(outputs('Start_and_wait_for_an_approval')?['body/responses'])?['responder/email'] is evaluating incorrectly . Is there any way to check this?

Also I can see item() icon is getting changed to Sharepoint icon, below after run, is that ok?

[vaibhavtandon87]

anybody else with the solution?

[vaibhavtandon87]

@abm  if you have any idea on what is missing and what the potential solution can be?