Approvals that don't stall: reminders, escalation and an audit trail

An approval flow with no timeout waits until the run limit kills it, and nobody is told. Here is how to add a deadline, reminders, escalation to a second approver, and a record of every decision.

Power AutomateFix · Tutorial6 min read

5 sources · Updated 7 Oct 2026How we write guides

The default approval flow has one weakness: it trusts the approver to answer. If they're on leave, the request sits in their inbox. After about a month the flow run hits its time limit and fails, and the person who asked is never told what happened.

This tutorial builds an approval that can't stall. It has four parts:

A deadline on every approval.
Reminders while the approver hasn't answered.
Escalation to a second approver when the deadline passes.
An audit trail of who decided what, and when.

The example is a purchase request in a SharePoint list, but the pattern works for any trigger.

Why approvals stall

A flow run can't wait forever. Microsoft's limits page gives a maximum run duration of 30 days, including time spent waiting for an approval; after that, pending steps time out. Its approvals known-issues page describes a flow waiting 28 days before it fails. Design for the shorter figure.

When the run fails, the approval itself doesn't disappear. It stays in the approver's list in the Power Automate action center with no flow waiting for it. Someone then has to find and delete these abandoned approvals by hand.

Warning

Never rely on the run limit as your timeout. Set your own deadline, well inside it, and decide what happens when it passes.

Step 1: give the approval a deadline

Add Start and wait for an approval as usual. Then open the action's Settings and set Timeout to an ISO 8601 duration:

You want	Timeout value
2 days	`P2D`
3 days and 12 hours	`P3DT12H`
8 hours	`PT8H`

When the deadline passes with no answer, the action ends with the status TimedOut instead of waiting.

Step 2: escalate when the deadline passes

Add the escalation steps after the approval, and set them to run only on a timeout:

Add an action after the approval, for example Get manager (V2) from Office 365 Users, to find the approver's manager.
On that action, select Configure run after. Clear is successful, and select has timed out.
Add a second Start and wait for an approval, assigned to the manager, with its own timeout, for example P2D.

The flow now has two paths:

Answered in time: the first approval succeeds, the escalation steps are skipped, and the flow carries on.
No answer: the first approval times out, the escalation runs, and the manager gets the request.

Tip

Put the requester's name, the amount and a link to the item in the Details and Item link fields of both approvals. A manager receiving an escalated request needs the full story without opening the flow. The Details field accepts Markdown.

Decide what happens if the escalation also times out. Common choices:

Reject automatically, and tell the requester to resubmit.
Notify a shared mailbox or a Teams channel that owns the process.

Don't let the second timeout end silently.

Step 3: remind the approver before the deadline

Reminders need the approval to be created without blocking the flow, so this step swaps the single action for two:

Create an approval. It creates the request and sends the notification, then lets the flow continue.
Wait for an approval. It waits for the response to that request. Put your timeout on this action.

Then add a parallel branch next to Wait for an approval, containing:

Do until the approval is complete, with inside it:
- Delay for one day.
- A check that the request is still pending, and if so, a reminder email or Teams message to the approver with the item link.

Set a variable such as varDecided to true right after Wait for an approval finishes, whether it succeeded or timed out. The Do until loop tests that variable, so the reminders stop as soon as there's an outcome.

Note

Check the Do until limits under Change limits. It stops after 60 iterations by default, and the underlying engine's default loop timeout is one hour. A daily reminder loop needs a timeout longer than your approval deadline, for example P3D.

Microsoft's approval actions compare like this:

	Start and wait for an approval	Create an approval + Wait for an approval
Blocks the flow until there's an answer	Yes	Only the Wait action does
Allows steps (such as reminders) while waiting	No	Yes
Responses and comments as outputs	Yes	Yes, from Wait for an approval
Requester can cancel it from the Sent tab	No	Yes, with Create an approval (v2)

Step 4: keep an audit trail

Every approval is stored in Dataverse, and the approval action's outputs include the Outcome and Responses (who responded, their decision, their comments and when). Copy the essentials to the item being approved, so the record lives with the business data:

Column on the request	Value from the flow
Decision	The approval's Outcome
Decided by	The responder's email, from Responses
Decided on	The response date, from Responses
Comments	The responder's comments
Escalated	`true` if the escalation path ran

Update these columns in every branch: approved, rejected, escalated and final timeout. A request that ends with an empty Decision column is exactly the stall you're trying to prevent, so it should be easy to spot in a view.

Tip

Add a view of requests where Decision is empty and the item is older than your deadlines combined. It's a one-minute daily check that catches anything the flow missed.

Longer processes

If the whole process can take longer than about four weeks, a single flow run can't hold it. Microsoft's guidance is to split it:

One flow sends the request with Create an approval and ends.
A second flow reacts to the response and runs the business logic.

Keep the request's state in Dataverse or your list so either flow can pick it up.

Checklist

Every approval has a timeout well inside the 28-day limit.
A timed-out approval escalates to a named person or a shared owner.
The escalation has its own timeout and a defined final outcome.
Reminders stop as soon as there's a decision.
The decision, decider, date and comments are written back to the request.
A view shows requests that never received a decision.

The steps follow Microsoft's documented behaviour for Power Automate approvals and flow limits. The escalation and reminder design is our own recommendation.