Approval email (with different layout) redirects to make.powerautomate.com - which is a problem for approvers who don't have a license

[Femke1]

Hi everyone,

Hope someone knows a solution for this problem: I've built a flow that is asking approvals to people in our tenant. Some of them don't have a license for the Power Platform.

There are 2 types of layouts in which the email appears (in exactly the same conditions). Sometimes everything looks 'normal' in the layout and people can approve or reject directly from the email. But once in a while, the same people receive an email that looks different (the buttons are 'Power-Automate-blue' instead of 'white with a blue border'). The situation is exactly the same (same inbox, same email platform, same computer, same flow, etc). If the email has the blue buttons, they are redirected to make.powerautomate.com for approvals. Then they get an error, because they don't have a license (or the email was redirected and people are not logged in with the right account for example).

So sometimes it is caused by the fact that they are logged in on a different (Microsoft) account, or they are redirecting our email to another (private) email platform, etc. That's causing some trouble. Logging in to the Outlook on the web in an InPrivate or Incognito browser, sometimes helps, sometimes it won't. The last escape that I use is to ask them to log in to Teams and give the approval/reject response there. Sometimes it seems like these above situations are not the case and I can't discover the cause of these problems. Until now, the solutions I suggest are working (InPrivate/Incognito browser, webmail or Teams).

But what I'm looking for, is a solid solution: why does this happen and what can I do to prevent it? Why does it sometimes work and seconds later it doesn't with the exact same conditions? My ideal situation would be that everybody can approve/reject directly from the email without any problems.

BTW: I'm using the 'Start and wait for an approval' action.

Thanks in advance, help is much appreciated 🙏

Femke

[smorph]

Hey @Femke1 ,

sounds a bit confusing for me.

Would you please send a screenshot of your flow and especially for the "Start and wait for approval" action?

As well the emails which are different. Please make sure, that if a mail is redirected to e.g. a private inbox, plese get the mail of private inbox and company inbox of that user, to be able to compare these ones.

Please make sure you blurr every sensitive content.

Thanks in advance.

[Femke1]

Hi @smorph,

Thank you for taking the time to help me.

Off course, now that I try to replicate it, I'm not getting the 'wrong' layout email... So I've tried to Google for an image that best resembles it.

My action in the flow

I have different flows with this action and I get this result in any flow with this action. So, this is just 1 example. This is a big flow, so you can only see a portion of the flow:

'Good' layout

This is what it looks like if all goes well:

'Wrong' layout

This is what it sort of looks like if the user is being sent to make.powerautomate.com (I had to search for this images online, so they are not mine, but I've taken away any user-information):

Did I give you all the information you need?

Femke

[learnpowerapp20]

hi,

I have just noticed the same issue. Same flow, no changes, yesterday the layout was like in the furst image, today the layout is like in the second one

[Femke1]

Yes! That is what it looks like! With also a blue circle on the left if I remember correctly ;-). Thanks for adding the info.

I really hope someone knows why this happens (and how to prevent it) 🙏

[smorph]

@Femke1 

Thanks that get the things a bit clearer.
It would be great if you could get an email forwarded which has the "wrong" template.

Right from what you shared, the first one is send from flow-reply.[..].
The second pic, which you took from the internet has another sender.
The receiver email is everytime within your M365 tenant?

Not sure if that causes the issue but it could be.

The other thng is that the ones who receive the "wrong" layout are redirecte to make.powerautomate.com, could you please check with your it which licenses these users have assigned M365 or O365, is power automate for O365/M365 activated? Do they have a teams license?

It could be that this issue is caused because of missing licenses and rights.

[Femke1]

Hi @smorph,

I will make a screenshot as soon as I see the 'wrong' layout appear 🙂

Yes, in my own case (but this happens with our users in our tenant as well) the receiver email is within our tenant and is the same every time. I have a test email account that I have added to my Outlook Desktop via Account Settings. So I have a second 'inbox' and I open the approval mails from there. If it happens in this setting, I have to switch users on my computer, go & log in with this test account, go to Teams and approve (or open Outlook in the browser and go from there).

Yeah, I already know that when it happens to these people, they don't have a license. They do have a license for Teams. But the thing is: why does someone sometimes receives the 'wrong' layout email which redirects them to make.powerautomate.com, while in other times, they can handle the approval request from within their email? It isn't consistent and I want to find out why and what can I do to prevent it?

Thanks again!

[Femke1]

Found it (in my test archive) 🥳

Same flow, same address, exact same conditions (just 1 day apart). One email arrives with a 'good' layout - I can handle the approval directly from the email. The other one arrives with the 'wrong' layout - I cannot handle the approval from within the email - I'm redirected to make.powerautomate.com...

Good layout:

Good layout

Wrong layout:

Wrong layout

Femke

[smorph]

Hey @Femke1 ,

thanks for double checking.

Let me check that with my approval flow, which only is needed one or two times a year.

[smorph]

Hey @Femke1 ,

checked now the mails which are received.
I can confirm that the layout will be different.

My testing:

I created a flow which is triggered manually and after that there will be "Start and wait for an Approval" action.
The connection was setup with my credentials. That means the approval is created on my behalf.
As receiver I added myself and someone else within my tenant.

The other receiver forwarded me the mail he got.


After comparing the mail I got and the receivers mail they defintly be different. The receiver got the "wrong" layout and myself the "right" layout.

By looking more closely the layout deepents on who gets the mail.
Me as a requestor and approver of that approval just getting an information mail (right layout), because you should know what you created as an approval request (even it's created automatically). Therefore you only get, in my case the "submit" button with a comment section.

The other receiver who's not the approval requestor gets the other layout (wrong) to be informed who request the approval. And therefore he can, in yur case "approve" or "reject" your request.

That means, if you are the creator of that approval you get the "right" layout and anyone else the "wrong" one.
If you're getting anytime the "wrong" layout, than you are not the approval requestor, it will be anyone else.


That others will be forwarded to make.powerautomate.com depends on the license they got, if there is no teams license available they can still approve via their power automate login, which seems to be activated within your O365 license.

[Femke1]

Hi @smorph ,

Thank you for your time and effort 🙏. But, that is not the case and my question is not about that. The other receiver who's not the approval requestor gets the good layout most of the time too ;-).

I can run THE SAME test twice with just a second in between. So, the details are exactly the same. I sent the approval to another account than my own account. The first approval mail will arrive to the other receiver in the 'good' layout. A second later the approval mail will arrive to the other receiver in the 'wrong' layout. If I have to guess, the wrong layout will appear every, like 50?, approval emails.

Still hoping to solve this 😇

Femke

[smorph]

Hey @Femke1 ,

if it's randomly and not any like my described situation, then it could be a general issue with the flow.
That would mean to fully recreate it.

If that doesn't help, I have to be honest and I'm having no other idea what it could be.

Hopefully any other in forum may find a solution.

Best

[Femke1]

Thanks for your effort @smorph, I don't think it's a general issue with the flow - I also see others describing this problem (but I don't see an explanation or a solution anywhere).

Still hoping for an explanation/solution at one point 🙏

[VictorIvanidze]

Hi @Femke1,

if each your approvers has Office 365 license, you can try to use this approach:

https://ivasoft.com/sendemailwithnativeapproverejectbuttonsflow.shtml

[Femke1]

Hi @VictorIvanidze ,

Thanks for your suggestion, but that is also not an option, since a lot of our users are approving from their mobile phones and/or a Mac device 🙂