Power Automate has revolutionized the way businesses handle approvals. From document signoffs to project and compliance validations, its approval workflow streamlines processes efficiently. But there’s a catch—approvals automatically expire after 28 days. Once expired, responses are no longer registered, and the approval link becomes unusable.
This limitation can lead to overlooked approvals, delayed responses, and missed opportunities. To solve this, we built a Power Automate flow that monitors approval statuses and sends follow-up emails directly in the original approval thread, maintaining context and ensuring better visibility.
The challenge
– Power Automate approvals expire after 28 days.
– Expired approvals can’t be acted upon—even if the user replies.
– There’s no native way to reply to the original approval email for context.
– Delays and oversight happen when reminders are not systematic.
The solution
We implemented a scheduled flow that identifies pending approvals and sends threaded reminders before expiration. This improves tracking and ensures responses are captured while the approval is still active.
How it works
- Schedule the flow
Set up a scheduled trigger to run daily, ensuring timely checks on approval statuses.
- Retrieve approval records
Use ‘Get items’ (for SharePoint) or ‘List rows’ (for Dataverse) to pull approval data.Â
Apply filters based on your requirement. For instance, fetch records created within the past 25 days to preempt expiration.
- Filter pending approvals
Use ‘Filter array’ to identify approvals that are still in a pending state.
- Process Each Approval
Use an ‘Apply to each’ loop to process each pending item.
For each approval:
Capture a unique subject from the original email.
Use ‘Get emails (V3)’ to search emails from flow-noreply@microsoft.com with the same subject.
If found, use ‘Reply to email (V3)’ to send a high-importance reminder in the same thread.
Final thoughts
This approach keeps your approval processes responsive and visible. By staying within the original email context, it reduces confusion and helps stakeholders act before the approval expires. Simple yet effective, this method ensures your workflows stay on track.
