Timely Reminders to approvers if they don't take action on the request for 24 hours

[Mangesh_Mundhe]

Hello Reader ,

I have workflows set up in my app it is 4 level workflow...so now the requirement is to send the reminder email to approver if approver does not act on the request which is in their queue for more than 24 hrs since the time that request came to the queue..

The approval levels of the app are :

Requester >>> Head Of Unit >>> Functional Director >>> HRBP >>> L&D >>> O&HR Director....

for your information , I have these columns in the app

Request Status

Approval of Nth approver : Yes or No (Enum type)

Nth Approver Acted on : DateTime format

Email of Nth Approver : Email

there are 4 levels of approval so N is 1/2/3/4 according approver level

Requirement is to send the reminder email to  approver(may it be any level) if that approver does not act on the request which is in his or her queue for more than 24 hours.

finding this difficult to execute...

Could anyone help me to get this done....that will absolutely great!!

Thanks in advance!

waiting for your response 

[Suvrutt_Gurjar]

I think for possible solution/workaround you may want to add the following details.

Do 24 hours mean all 24 hrs of the day or working hours?  If those are 24 working hours , does it mean 3 working days (8AM to 4 PM every day for example) ? Will variation of + 2  or +3 or + 4 hours will do? or exactly 24 hours are required?  Are weekly holidays, if any are included? If N1 level approves on Friday and if Saturday, Sunday are weekly holidays, does N2 level have to approve it even on a weekly holiday? Are any other public holidays included?

[Mangesh_Mundhe]

first of all really appriciated about what you have asked here..

for now only consider normal 24 hours we will exclude holiday and stuff....

could you please tell me what should be done?

Thanks in advance!

[Suvrutt_Gurjar]

Could you be specific with answers to possible scenarios asked? Tolerance in time etc.?

Anyway , I think one approach will be to create say 6 or 8 daily scheduled BOTs, (spaced at 3 or 4 hours each) for working days and include all the non approvals in that BOT for past 24 to 27 hour or 24 to 28 hours in those BOTs. 

So a BOT running at 8 AM will have all non approvals for the previous day between 4 AM to 8 AM.

The next BOT running at 12 PM will have non approvals on the previous day between 8 AM to 12 PM and so on.  If BOTs are scheduled 4 hours apart, you will need 6 daily BOTs, and accuracy will between 24 to 28 hours. If BOTs are scheduled at 3 hours apart, you will need 8 daily BOTs and accuracy will be 24 to 27 hours.

Another practical approach will be to create just three daily BOTs running during the day time working hours,  as running BOTs during odd hours  like 12 AM etc may not have much records to send.

[Mangesh_Mundhe]

Yes , but i m struggling to write those expressions only like how can specify the that 24 hrs gap for the requests which are pending,,,,

once i understand that then i can replicate the same in other bots...I tried several ways but could not get it working

[Suvrutt_Gurjar]

Yes, I think your expressions to include records in BOT will be somewhat complex. You have 4 levels , so you will need to ensure you include employees of one level next of approval level that took place 24 hours ago. 

Also I think you will additionally need to keep a flag in each record of emails sent by levels ( So if email is sent for level 1,  next time it should be sent for only level 2 for that record and so on) 

[Mangesh_Mundhe]

finding it bit difficult as nothing like this i have done earlier...

do you have anything similar to refer like template app or something by anychance ,

that would be a great help

[Suvrutt_Gurjar]

No , sorry. I do not have anything similar readymade.

[Mangesh_Mundhe]

No worries thanks for the answers

[Suvrutt_Gurjar]

Hi @Mangesh_Mundhe ,

It sounds that you have opened two email threads on teh same subject. May we request you not to do so. 

https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/AppSheet-Q-A/regarding-the-reminder-mails/m-p/426646#M169061

[Mangesh_Mundhe]

Ohh , I did not realised...appologies!

but if needed how can we bring up the older issue to the people if we need?

[Suvrutt_Gurjar]

No problem. It would have been better if you had put a link to the older thread while starting a new one so that community knows the previous discussions on the topic.

[Mangesh_Mundhe]

okay , from next time onwards if needed i will put the link of the older thread if i need to create one

Thanks!