Approvals lost in email: how to stop chasing sign-offs

Short answer: approvals get lost because the request and the decision both live in someone's inbox. Move the request into one shared list with a Status, an Approver and a decision date. Then let an approval flow ask the approver and write the answer back to the list. The list becomes the record. Email becomes only the doorbell.

At a glance

Swipe sideways to see all columns.

Item	Number	What it means for you
List view threshold	5,000 items	A view that must scan more than this many items at once can be blocked. Filter on indexed columns.
Items in one list	30 million	Far more than a request list will ever need, so size is not the concern.
File attached to a list item	250 MB	Larger files belong in a document library, with a link in the row.
Flow that keeps failing	14 days	A cloud flow with a trigger or action that fails nonstop is turned off. Check run history.
Flow with no trigger activity	90 days	A flow not triggered for 90 days might be turned off. Owners get a notice 30 days before.

The sign-off buried in an inbox

It starts with a simple email. "Can you approve this?" The approver is busy. The message sits under forty others. Two days later the requester asks again. Then a third time, now with "Just checking in."

Nobody is being lazy. Email was built to carry messages, not to track decisions. A message has no status. It has no owner who is answerable. It has no "waiting since" date that anyone can sort by.

Who approved what?

The harder problem shows up later. Someone asks, "Did we approve that?" You search your inbox. You find the request. You do not find the answer. Maybe it was a reply, maybe a chat message, maybe a hallway yes. You write to the approver to ask what they decided. Now you are chasing a decision you already thought you had.

Signs this is happening in your team:

Requesters ask "did you see my email?" more often than they do their own work.
Approvers forward old messages to find what they agreed to.
The same request is approved twice, or not at all.
A manager keeps a private list of what is waiting on whom.
Nobody can say how many sign-offs are open right now.

What this costs, in plain words

There is no need for made-up numbers here. The cost is easy to see in your own week.

Time spent chasing. Each reminder is a few minutes for the sender and a few for the reader. Count the reminders you sent last week.
Work that waits. An item that needs a sign-off cannot move. The delay is paid by the person who is blocked.
Weak records. When an auditor, a customer or a boss asks who approved something, a search through email is slow and may fail.
Stress. People dislike nagging and dislike being nagged.

A good test: pick one approval from last month. Try to find who decided and when. If that takes more than a minute, the process has a hole.

The fix in one picture

The fix has two parts that work together.

A SharePoint list that holds every request, so there is one place to look.
A Power Automate approval flow that asks the approver and records the answer in the list.

The requester adds a row. The flow sends the request to the approver. The approver answers. The flow writes the answer back and tells the requester. Nobody chases. Everybody can see the state.

Step 1. Make the list

Create a list in SharePoint (Microsoft Lists works too). One way to start is with these columns:

Title: a short name for the request. (The Title column is required by default. Rename it to something like "Request" or turn off Require on it.)
Requester: a Person column.
Approver: a Person column.
Status: a Choice column with Submitted, Approved, Rejected, Cancelled.
Requested date: a Date and Time column.
Decision date: a Date and Time column.
Approver comments: a text column.

Keep it small. Add columns only when someone needs them.

Step 2. Add views people use

Make a view called "Waiting" that shows only items where Status is Submitted. Sort it by Requested date, oldest first, so the longest wait is on top. Microsoft says [Today] and [Me] need the classic view editor (Edit current view, then Filters). For blank and "is not equal to" filters, we also use the classic view editor. That part is our advice, not a Microsoft rule. The exact names may differ in your version.

A calculated column cannot use today's date, because SharePoint blocks [Today] in formulas. If you want "days waiting", use a view filter or a flow instead.

Views are not security. A view that hides rows does not stop someone with access from seeing them in another view. If some requests are private, set permissions on the list or a library, not on a view.

Step 3. Build the approval flow

Microsoft documents this pattern with a worked example. It uses a vacation request, but the shape is the same for any sign-off. This is what Microsoft's page describes:

Sign in to Power Automate and select New flow, then Automated cloud flow.
Pick the trigger "When an item is created" for SharePoint, and choose your site and your list.
Add the action "Start and wait for an approval" from the Approvals connector.
Choose an Approval type, then fill in Title, Assigned to and Details.
Add a Condition that checks the approver's response, for example "Approve".
In each branch, add a SharePoint "Update item" action to write the Status and the comments. Add "Send an email (V2)" to tell the requester.

Microsoft says the Site Address, List Name, Id and Title fields are required on the Update item action. Menu and action names change over time, so exact names may differ on your screen.

What Microsoft documents about approvals

These points come from Microsoft's own pages.

Approvals are saved in Dataverse. In the default environment the database is created for you. In another environment, the first approval flow may need an admin to run it.
The approvals connector is a standard connector. Microsoft says any license that grants access to Power Automate and standard connectors is enough to create approval flows. Check with your admin what your company has.
If your flow might run for more than 30 days, Microsoft says to store approvals in Dataverse and use two flows, built on the "Create an approval (v2)" action.
The person who sent a request can cancel it from the Approvals page, on the Sent tab, using Cancel. The History tab shows canceled requests. Microsoft says cancel is supported on "Create an approval (v2)".

Step 4. Test with one real request

Add one item to the list yourself and assign it to a colleague who knows it is a test. Check four things:

The approver got the request.
The answer changed Status in the list.
The decision date and comments were written.
The requester was told.

Then run one rejection and one that nobody answers. See what the list shows for each. Fix gaps before you tell the team.

Step 5. Change one habit

The tool will not help if people keep approving by reply. Pick one rule and say it out loud: "If it is not in the list, it was not asked." Then, when someone emails you a request, answer with a link to the list. After a few weeks, the habit holds.

What to avoid

Do not build for every kind of request at once. Start with one type.
Do not add ten columns on day one. Each extra column is something people must fill in.
Do not let approvers answer by email reply and skip the flow. The record then splits again.
Do not use a view as a lock. Use permissions.
Do not send a reminder every hour. Many messages get ignored. One per day is enough. For late items, see "Late tasks nobody notices: setting up late alerts".
Do not skip the rejected and cancelled paths. Most broken approval flows only handle "yes".
Do not trust a flow you tested once. Check it again after you change the list.

Where the guides go deeper

This page is the overview. These guides cover one kind of sign-off each, so you can go straight to yours.

Purchase requests stuck waiting for approval: how to see them and move them
Requests lost in a shared inbox: add an owner and a status
Time-off requests in email: one list, one approver, one calendar
Vendor onboarding takes weeks: how to see every stage and speed it up
Invoice approval with Power Automate: a tracker and a flow that record every decision
Expense approval with a SharePoint list
Document approval in SharePoint: built-in approval or a flow?
Teams approvals vs email approvals: which is better for your team?

If you are starting from a spreadsheet, see "Replace a spreadsheet tracker with a SharePoint list".

For the full approval flow, built at a fixed price, see "A Power Automate approval workflow in Teams, at a fixed price".

Honest limits

A list and a flow do not make a busy person answer. They make the waiting visible, so you can see who the request is stuck with and for how long. If approvers have too many requests, or the rules for who can approve are unclear, the queue will still be slow. Write down who approves what before you build. Also, a flow depends on its owner and on your Microsoft 365 setup. Name a person who looks after it. A flow run lasts up to 30 days. A request nobody answers will time out, so plan a reminder and a backup approver.

When to get help

You can build all of this yourself in Microsoft 365. If you would rather have it built and tested for your team, I do that. A tracker like this is a fixed price: $5,000 for one, built in 2 weeks. See "What a SharePoint tracker costs". Bring one example of the problem to a free call.

See a working one with made-up data: Delayed Shipments demo

Tell me what's still manual

I am Al Davies. I run 250 High Street LLC and build SharePoint trackers and Power Automate flows for operations teams. I work remotely. The first call is free, and I will not try to sell you anything.

See trackers I built: Tools I built

FAQ

Updated 2026-10-27.

Do approvers need to open SharePoint?

No. Microsoft documents that approvers can respond from an Outlook email, a Microsoft Teams adaptive card, or the Power Automate action center, if they hold a suitable license. The list is for everyone else to see the state.

What if the approver is away?

Plan for it before it happens. One way to start is to name a backup in the list and let the requester or a manager reassign the item. The "first to respond" type lets any one of several approvers decide.

Can more than one person need to approve?

Yes. Microsoft describes an "everyone must approve" type and a sequential type where approvers answer one at a time in order. Start with one approver and add more only if the rule really needs it.

Will old email approvals be in the list?

No. The list holds new requests from the day you start. For old ones, add only the ones still open, and leave the rest in the inbox.

Do I need Power Automate, or is a list enough?

A list alone already gives you one place and a Status. The flow adds the ask, the answer and the record of who decided and when. Start with the list. Add the flow when the list is in use.