Question: Approval Email Notification Only

Susan Fioribello

My flow with multiple Approvals is working great! Thanks to @Austen Brown and @Alex Wong!

The problem is that my Team feels that they are receiving too many notifications. The Approval appears in Teams AND they each receive an email. Most of my TEAM would prefer to only receive an email.

I did a little research and see that it is possible to get a straight approval using “Email with Options”, however, I am not sure if this will accomplish what I need.

Background, this is a simple description of the flow:

1. When a form is submitted the Verification Team receives an Approval Notification that includes:
   1. Donor Name
   2. Donor Email
   3. Estimated Value
   4. Donation Description
2. If the Verification Team “Rejects” an email is sent to the donor with comments from the approval explaining the reason for the rejection and the Excel line corresponding to the form submission is updated with:
   1. Verification Outcome
   2. Verifier's Name
   3. Verifier's Comments
3. If the Verification Team “Approves” then a second approval is sent the Finance team for Final Approval. Their notification includes:
   1. Donor Name
   2. Donor Email
   3. Estimated Value
   4. Donation Description
   5. Verifier's Name
   6. Verifier's Comments
4. When the Finance Team approves or rejects the donor is sent an email and the Excel line corresponding to the form submission is updated with:
   1. Verification Outcome
   2. Verifier's Name
   3. Verifier's Comments
   4. Finance Outcome
   5. Finance Approver's Name
   6. Finance Approver's Comments.

Would the “Email with Options” process allow me to capture all of this information?

Is there a way to keep my current process but send the approval notification via email only?

Is there a way to send the notification in Teams only?

Alex Wong

@Susan Fioribello
there is a good video for this and you can then decide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zRdDqHxgE0

if you use Approval, it will do email and team, can't be one or the other.

Susan Fioribello

@Alex Wong
Thank you. This was exactly what I needed.

Ben Regier

@Susan Fioribello

You can turn off Teams Approvals notifications in Settings in Teams. It's something each person on your team would have to do themselves - I don't think you can do it for them. But it would mean they'd only get the email notification. You can find this in Settings > Notifications and Activity, and then scroll down to the Apps section. It gives you quite a bit of control over which notifications you want, and how you want them delivered.

Alternately, if you just want the Teams notification but no email, you could have them set an Outlook rule to automatically move the approvals emails to another folder, or even delete them. Again, each user would have to set this up themselves.

The one other thing to keep in mind is that both of these methods would apply to ALL Approvals notifications, not just the ones from your process.

Susan Fioribello

@Ben Regier
Thank you so much @Ben Regier.

I just showed one of my Team members and it is exactly what they needed.