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How can you delegate approvals?

Wills Ogus 31 Reputation points
2025-07-25T15:31:32.5833333+00:00

There are directions on the support site that suggest there is a way to delegate approvals when you are out of office.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/guidance/business-approvals-templates/setup-out-of-office-and-delegation

I am not able to find this option in the approvals app and there is contradiction information on this site in this post.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5424625/ms-approvals-app-delegated-access

What is the true answer, is delegation possible or not? If it is not possible can the documentation that states it is a feature be updated, this is misleading.

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  1. Vy Nguyen 7,575 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2025-07-29T21:03:54.3266667+00:00

    Hi @Wills Ogus,  

    Good day! Thank you for your detailed feedback and for sharing your concerns regarding delegation in Microsoft Teams Approvals. I appreciate the opportunity to clarify and provide a clear path forward that best suits your environment. 

    Currently, the native Microsoft Teams Approvals app does not have built-in functionality to delegate approval requests directly within the app interface. Microsoft understands this is important for many organizations, and the absence of this feature has been noted. 

    This issue has been acknowledged by others in the Microsoft community as well. Since it’s an expected behavior in the current design, I recommend submitting feedback in Microsoft 365 Feedback Hub   Go to: Microsoft 365 Feedback Hub →Send Feedback→ Describe your proposal in detail   

    User's image  

    Your feedback is important, Microsoft actively monitors user input to prioritize improvements. The more feedback they receive on this issue, the more likely it is to be addressed.  

    In the meantime, here is a clear step-by-step summary of the options and their implications to help you decide the best way forward:   

    1. Since you already have multiple stable approval automations working across your environments, continuing with your current approval flows is a reasonable choice. This approach avoids introducing unsupported or preview features that may cause inconsistencies or require significant reconfiguration.   
    2. Microsoft offers a Power Automate Approvals Kit designed to support delegation, including out-of-office scenarios. However, this solution is currently in preview and requires additional setup and integration efforts. It is not integrated into the built-in Teams Approvals app and may not be suitable for production environments requiring high stability.  
    3. If delegation is essential, one possibility is to develop custom Power Automate flows with manual delegation logic. While flexible, this requires design and maintenance effort and should be approached with care to avoid disruption.  
    4. We recommend monitoring official Microsoft Teams release notes and documentation for updates regarding delegation features built directly into the Teams Approvals app. Microsoft is continuously improving the platform and may introduce native delegation in future releases. 

    Please consider these options and assess which best aligns with your organizational priorities and operational requirements.  

    Thank you again for your understanding and for working with us. Please let me know how you would like to proceed or if you have any further questions.

    If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment”.   

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    1 person found this answer helpful.

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  1. Vy Nguyen 7,575 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2025-07-25T16:47:28.2833333+00:00

    Hi @Wills Ogus, 

    Good day! Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A forum and sharing your experience.  

    I understand how important it is to ensure that approval workflows continue smoothly, especially when someone is out of office or unavailable. I’d be happy to walk you through how delegation works and how you can set it up based on your needs. 

    Currently, the Microsoft Teams Approvals app does not support direct delegation through its interface. However, you can achieve delegation using Power Automate’s Approvals Kit, which is designed to handle out-of-office scenarios and delegate approvals to another person. 

    Here’s how you can set this up: 

    1. You can try to access the Approvals Kit 
    2. You can configure Out-of-Office settings 
      • Once installed, you can define your out-of-office period. 
      • You’ll be able to assign a delegate who will receive and respond to approval requests on your behalf. 
    3. After configuration, we recommend testing the flow with a sample approval to ensure it behaves as expected. 
    4. If you don’t have access to Power Automate or the Approvals Kit, your IT administrator may need to assist with installation and permissions. 

    For more information that you can concern: 

    • This solution is flexible and works across various approval scenarios. 
    • If your organization already uses Power Automate, setup should be quick. 
    • If you’re unsure whether the Approvals Kit is already in place, I’d recommend checking with your IT team. 

    If you’d like, I can help you review the steps together or assist in checking whether this setup fits your current environment. Please let me know how you’d like to proceed. I’m here to help! 

    Thank you again for your patience and for choosing Microsoft Q&A forum. Please let me know if there’s anything else I can assist you with. I’m here to support you every step of the way. 

    If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment”.   

    Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
  2. Wills Ogus 31 Reputation points
    2025-07-29T12:00:37.2433333+00:00

    Sorry this is not relevant to the issue we have. We already have dozens of automations that use the built in approval, on multiple environments. This has been working well and I do not want to integrate a preview application that is not officially supported and may not work as expected. If this were functioning and out of preview then maybe, but the simple fact that the GitHub site has not been updated since last year, and there are known issues does not make this a good solution. Why would we introduce inconsistent unsupported software into our production environment? This seems like bad advice. Thanks for checking and I appreciate the help but this is a no for us, based on the lack of production ready software, and needing to install and configure something in multiple environments and then redo all of the flows that we have using approvals. The effort and lack of support does not seem worth it at all.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
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