Approval with external users

[TheSlawekG]

Do Approvals with external users finally work?

I gave up my project for over a month and just came back to it but apparently, it still does not work.

Could someone confirm this, please?

Thank you.

[RezaDorrani · Accepted solution]

Hi @TheSlawekG ,

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/business-applications-release-notes/April19/microsoft-flow/support-...

It only works for external users (not guest users)

external users are users invited to your AD

I just tested this feature out and it works

Regards,

Reza Dorrani

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly

[v-yamao-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @TheSlawekG ,

To send approval emails to external users, you need to invite them as guest users into your organization first.

I have made a test by sending an approval email to an external user, who has already been a guest user in my organization. It works successfully.

Best regards,

Mabel

[TheSlawekG]

Thank you for your confirmations, however, it does not work for me.

I have been an external user before, it didn't work. I have removed myself and invited again (I have admin access to both tenants).

I have assigned a license to myself (I've tried it before without license but since my last trials I get a new error like my account is missing a license).

At this stage of writing this message I wanted to take a screen dump of the error where I have no license, however, it asked me to select my data location (I have done it manually in Azure AD) and I could approve the request. So, success.

It seems to work now.

However, my email is not the same as I send it to my original organization; I mean, I can approve it straight from Outlook, where now with external approval when I press Approve or Reject from the email it takes me to the website. Could you confirm if this is the only way? I mean, do external users cannot approve straight from the email?

Thank you for your help.

[RezaDorrani]

@TheSlawekG 

This is true

External users cannot approve straight from the email but have to go to the approval dashboard to do so

Regards,

Reza

[TheSlawekG]

Thanks for confirming that!

Regards

Slawek

[NgoDuyTam]

Hi  @v-yamao-msft,

thank you, can you support more about:

Can the external user create the approval flow to person in organization.

I tried to test but the system show "Errored, please contact to owner".

Best Regards,

Tam

[CParsons09]

Is there a cost for an external user to be able to approve?

[kchinnock]

I use choices on email to external clients to approve items in a flow instead 🙂

[asdfaf4]

That is so ridiculous. Microsoft is so blind and greedy, they never really make things easy when it comes to "external" or "guests" users as-if companies only works internally.  Cannot easily "collaborate" with their collaboration tools (Power Automate, Planner, Teams, etc..)

[rex-ma]

Hi All, may I ask if the external approver requires extra subscription for reply approval?

e.g. extra power apps or power automate premium plan (user plan)?

[kchinnock]

In the automation we use, no. The external client just receives an email with choices (approve/reject in my case)

[sivakarunanithi]

Hi Rezza,

Do we have any other workaround to send email approve or reject button with commands? or any alternative options?