Reminder email for approval, want to move to next action.

[lcwidak]

I have a flow where I have a create an approval and want to send reminder emails to the approver. I want to send a reminder email after 1 week (just one reminder) and then send daily reminders after this one-week reminder (so daily reminders after the approvals been out for a week). I thought I had it but when the approver approves the approval the do until loop keeps running until that first delay is up and then the second delay as well. But i want it to where if they approve it, then the whole reminder section is disregarded so it can move to the next action below which would be another scope.

@ChadVKealey @Pstork1 

[Anil_g]

@lcwidak 

Are you setting the variable to false after the approval is given?

cheers

[Pstork1]

The key to doing this is to replace those long delays with do until loops that iterate a counter and run until the counter reaches its max or the variable is set to say the approval is complete.  For example, for the 7 day initial delay do a do until loop on a counter set to exit when its >= 168 or the approval success variable is true 168 is 7 X 24 hours. Then inside that loop do a delay of 1 hour.  If the approval finishes early the loop will finish its one hour run and then exit the loop and move to the next step.  If the approval doesn't finish it will loop after an hour and keep looping until 7 days are completed.

Do the same thing for the other delay.  Whatever the shorter delay is set to in the do until loop will be how long it will take the flow to move on after its approved.  If you need shorter delays then simply increase the counter values accordingly.

[lcwidak]

My set variable is set to true after the approval. So would that make sense because I want the do until to stop when the approval is approved therefore when it's approved the value is set to true and then the do until should stop but it won't just stop. 

[lcwidak]

I'm a little confused, are you saying do two different do until loops and for the 7 day one I would put the delay as 168 hours and then add a delay for 1 hour after that 168 hour delay and email to send the approver. Do you have an example? I kind of get what your saying but then lets say that approver approves that message after 3 hours lets say then wont the do until look still go until that 168 hours is done?

[Anil_g]

@lcwidak 

Can you open flow run page and check if condition is going to false at all…looks like it is not

also…because of the delays inside may be the loop already executed the statement and is waiting inside loop now ..so for next iteration it would work…if you want it to run faster then make the delay again inside a loop and check the variable value is set to true then dont wait else wait till defined time ..

cheers

[Pstork1]

Let's concentrate on just the 7 day one.  You would replace the current 7 day delay in your flow with a Do Until loop set to run until either the Approval is marked as complete (a variable) or the counter reaches 168.  Then inside that loop do a delay of 1 hour and increment the counter.  If the approval is completed after 3 hours the do until loop will exit after 4 hours.  If its not completed it will run for 168 hours (7 days).  The size of the delay inside the loop is the maximum amount of time you'll need to wait before the flow moves on.  Something like this

[lcwidak]

So, this is what I have. How did you increment the counter? What you have in your picture is going to wait for approval and if it is approved it will stop the do until after an hour, and if its not approved then it will wait 168 to send the reminder?

[lcwidak]

When I run the flow, it will stop the delay and mark as checked but that's after the time period of the delay in the loop which then in my loop it will still send that reminder email after the delay unless that's where that increment variable helps or what are you using the increment variable for?

[Pstork1]

You increment the counter by incrmeneting the value of the variable.  There is an action for that.

But you need an outer loop around your current loop. The outer loop has the Send email in it.  The inner loop just loops each hour and increments the counter to replace the one long delay that can't be stopped with a lot of shorter delays that will stop when needed.

[Pstork1]

These screenshots are from one of my demos. Its only a single layer approval, but does have a full reminder loop.  

The overall flow

The Reminder loop

[lcwidak]

Sorry I'm just trying to get this to work. This is what I got and this is what is happening. I set my delay to 1 min to test but it would be 1 hour from what you said for when I actually use it.