Flow using multiple approvers from SharePoint List

[swathirajan]

Hi all,

Here is my requirement.

1. The user creates a item in SharePoint list with department and pick multiple approvers.
2. The email is triggered to me administrator to check the details.
3. The approval will go to all the approvers
4. As soon as we receive one approval, the flow is considered complete.

The issues I faced are:

1. When I select multiple people using 'Person/ Group' column, the email is triggered to me multiple times based on the number of approvers.
2. Can you please tell me how to remove "Apply to each" getting added automatically?
3. When I manually enter approvers email addresses, the email addresses are separated by comma. So the approval task is not getting triggered as it is not distinguishing the comma as separate email addresses.
4. How to create cascading dropdowns WITHOUT powerapps?

[ScottShearer · Accepted solution]

@swathirajan 

Please see my example below.

I believe your issue is that a separate approval is being created for each approver.  Flow automatically adds a for each loop when you operate on an array, collection, etc..  Since there can be more than 1 approver, Flow automatically adds the loop.

In my example, I loop through the approvers and add each one to a string variable followed by a semicolon (;). I reference the variable in the approval action.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Also, if you want to edit/change SharePoint list forms, PowerApps is the answer - sorry...

[swathirajan]

Thank you very much for your quick response!!!

I initialized the variable and appended it.

Then I added an approval task where the details of list item is assigned to our team for validation.

Once approved, the task is assigned to Manager for approval.

When I triggered the task, I got only one email as a admin (which is good sign).

But the flow skipped the Manager approval and completed the workflow.

There is no failure notification in the flow for me to check whats the issue.

Can you please shed some light as what am I missing?

[ScottShearer]

@swathirajan 

If your goal is to have a second approval if the the first request has been approved, you need to have a condition that checks the Outcome of the first approval.  If the Outcome is "Approve" then proceed to the second approval. 

If, in th second approval you have a list of approvers to which a single approval is to be assigned, then you need to do the same thing that you did on the first approval - build a semicolon delimited string of approver emails in a variable and reference that variable when selecting approvers in the second approval.  The Flow in your screen shot will assign a separate approval to each secondary approver.  

[swathirajan]

Thank you for your response.

I am able to send email to multiple users by initializing and appending variables.

[Anonymous]

Hi ScottShearer

Maybe you can help. I have made the same as you, but instead of only sending the flows which has reached the deadline with some approvers names on it, it sends all flows with a deadline on it. 

So if I have item 1,2,3,4 I should receive only 1 and 2 but I receive them all eventhough my name is not on the approver list