Overdue Approval Notification

Hey Sean Sykes, don't apologize! We all start somewhere :) 

Here's a setup that I'd recommend:

Apply rule to: choose if these approvals are on tasks or projects and set the data source

When approval starts

And if approvals > Due date > Overdue (checked off)

Then Add comment or mention and check off approvers + set your default comment

I would give that a test! 

The only part I'm questioning if the "when" and if approval starts means approval has been added - if that's the case, then you should be golden. Also to consider - is your approval due date the same as the task/project due date? If so, we can riff off of that.

Hope this helps :)

Sean Sykes - Ditto to what Anna said, asking questions is how we learn. 

I don't see a trigger for a past-due approval. One thing with rules is they only trigger once when the event happens. If we trigger when an approval starts, the approval isn't past due, so that automation won't trigger (I had the same problem when trying to trigger off a status that hadn't changed in 30 days - it didn't trigger for tasks where the status hadn't changed in >30 days). 

What about riffing off due date or creation date, like Anna Giacobbe suggested? Does the approval start when the task is created? or is the approval due when the task is due? Do you have a special approval status in your workflow? 

We could trigger a rule off a status that hasn't changed in 3 days after a task was created, or if the task due date is past, or if the "needs approval' status hasn't changed for 3 days. 

Yeah Mike, your point about your point about triggering when the approval starts is the issue I came up against.

I like the idea of triggering off a status that hasn't changed in a number of days.

Thought of this some more Sean Sykes and Mike Fank brought up a good point - you can put your task to a specific status (ie. Approval, In review, etc.) and then configure the rest of the automation as I suggested under the conditions for Approval > Due date and check off that Overdue box. Ignore the bit about approval starting :) I was looking at the Approval options for the "when" and it was quite limited.

Otherwise, a great idea to set up something after a few days that a status doesn't change - can serve as a gentle push that the ask is outstanding.

Sean Sykes

Option 1 - set the approval through the workflow. 

If you want to be annoying with the messages, you'll have to set up automation for every time interval you want a message to be sent (3, 4, 5, 7, 10 days, etc.)

Option 2 - without an approval step

Same need to repeat this automation for every time interval when you want an annoying message to be sent. This 2nd method will only trigger at the set time frames, ex. after 3 days. If the approval is not overdue at that point, nothing will happen and the rule will not trigger again. It may be best to leave off the overdue status, and send reminders if it's still pending approval.

Does that help? What am I missing that could be better?

WOW! This humble Orange Belt needs a bit to digest all this.

But thank you so much!