I’ve seen many people creating flows in Microsoft Flow where there was a need for reminders to be sent. All sorts of complicated loops are developed and it doesn’t really do the job.

Is there an easier way? Yes!

I’m going to start with the following setup.

Microsoft Flow - Send out reminders Microsoft Flow, Microsoft Office 365 2attempts

The first action is the first approval and the second action is my reminder. I’m sure you will have noticed that this results in the second attempt to wait until the first attempt has been responded to. This is not what we want!

For the first approval action I’m going to set a Duration:

Microsoft Flow - Send out reminders Microsoft Flow, Microsoft Office 365 durationsetting

When you click on the little information icon you will find the following help: Specify duration in ISO 8601 format.

The example given is PT1D so I first thought that PT1M would work for Minutes. Assuming that the D stands for Days, but when you try that is doesn’t work.

Microsoft Flow - Send out reminders Microsoft Flow, Microsoft Office 365 errorflow

The string PS1D is not a valid TimeSpan value. So the next attempt using 00:05 for 5 minutes duration. But still this doesn’t work:

Microsoft Flow - Send out reminders Microsoft Flow, Microsoft Office 365 bettertime

This now calls for serious action: So I went to the ISO site but still no luck. A value like 2018-02-16  should be accepted but isn’t.

Then I found the a post helping me a lot better.

So the syntax is : PT then a number and then H, M or S

Microsoft Flow - Send out reminders Microsoft Flow, Microsoft Office 365 60seconds

Why PT1M didn’t work is a big question for me. If you have the answer then please comment below. I guess 60s is the same as 1M so it’s not really a problem for me now.

And now my flow runs:

Microsoft Flow - Send out reminders Microsoft Flow, Microsoft Office 365 flowruns

and after 60 seconds my second approval action kicks in:

Microsoft Flow - Send out reminders Microsoft Flow, Microsoft Office 365 second attempt

 

And now I’m seeing multiple requests in my Approvals overview:

Microsoft Flow - Send out reminders Microsoft Flow, Microsoft Office 365 requests

 

Hmm, this is nice but it would be better if the timed out approval was cleaned up. I’ve not come across an Approval cleanup yet. Hopefully that will be added to Flow soon.

 

 

Avatar for Pieter Veenstra

By Pieter Veenstra

Business Applications Microsoft MVP working as a Principal Architect at HybrIT Services Ltd. You can contact me using contact@sharepains.com

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