How to terminate a flow post an approval timeout

[JustLearning50]

Hi

I have an approval flow set up. Very occasionally the approval requests are missed and time out. The flow status is set to fail, but actually it seems to continue on to the next approver. 

I have tried to remedy that so that if the approval times out, the flow will end. 

This is what I have at the moment. 

The end result from the last condition is that varStatus is set to Approve or reject. The next step is another condition to check if varStatus  eq 'Approve' and if not send an email and change varStatus to 'Reject'. If it is 'Approve' other actions need to be competed. 

My problem is if the approval times out, the varStatus is updated to 'timed out' but the approval flow continues on. However the overall flow status is set to failed as there are no dependent actions from the timed out loop?? 

The 'No' outcome of the initial condition is that an email is sent out. I' not even sure if that initial condition is required as I do not think the flow loops back to it (but maybe I'm wrong). Having the 'or' statement included doesn't seem to have the desired effect at any rate.

As it is in a 'For each' loop, I cannot include a terminate action after the timed out action.

My question is - is there anyway to terminate the flow from the timed out action? 

Thanks for your help.

[VictorIvanidze]

Hi @JustLearning50, 

1) Can you modify the flow to avoid using  "For each" loop?

2) If not - can you use "Do until" loop instead of "For each" loop?

[JustLearning50]

Hi @VictorIvanidze ,

The 'For each' loop was added in automatically as I have more than one approver. It is a small array, and depends on who the creator of the item picks. I'm not sure if I could avoid this. I will have a go at changing to a Do Until, but would I run into the same issue when I have multiple approvers - I'll check it out.

Thank you for replying.

[VictorIvanidze]

The fact the 'For each' loop was added in automatically doesn't mean you cannot avoid it.

[JustLearning50]

OK, I'll try it again leaving out the foreach loop. 

[AdrianTorres]

To end the flow without failing, use the “Terminate” step under the “Flow Control” section. This will let you choose if the Flow will end Successfully, Canceled or Failed.

I hope this helps

[VictorIvanidze]

Hi @AdrianTorres,

unfortunately you cannot use Terminate in the body of the cycle. 

[AdrianTorres · Accepted solution]

@VictorIvanidze Sorry, I just checked and you're correct, I had even created a Flow in the past with this same issue haha.

@JustLearning50 From my experience, you can continue the Flow by adding "Compose" actions on both sides of your parallel branch, then click "Add an action" to reconcile your flow run and set your varStatus to all of the Compose Outputs:

Note: You must configure your Set Variable action's Run after to prevent the flow from failing, see the following screenshot.

This should work since you're putting both Outputs into the variable, one of which will always be empty.

[JustLearning50]

Hi All, thanks for the responses. I've been working away at this, but I'm still having problems. 

@AdrianTorres  I tried your suggestion, and it works fine, but I still cannot jump out of the foreach loop if varStatus = timed out (actually on this test flow it doesn't jump out if rejected either) It is like it is not checking the condition at the start of the loop. Am I doing something wrong here? (i know if it evaluates to false there is nothing there so will error, but that isn't the issue at the moment) See pic.

I have it in a foreach loop as I have an array of approvers, I need to cycle through. I'm aware i could get rid of this and just set up a cascading approval route which I guess would work fine as I can add in the terminate control.  But it would make the flow very long and I would like to avoid that if possible. 

Not sure if it is needed, but here is the flow from the 'Condition - Approve 3'

Any help is appreciated. Thank you. 

[JustLearning50]

Actually while writing the last response, I though I would check if changing the 'OR' in the initial condition to an 'AND' statement would work, and it all works fine!! It makes no sense to me, as I want to check if either not both condition exists, but I'm sure someone can explain this to me. Thanks for all your help.