TL;DR: Replace static Power Automate approvals with Adaptive Cards + Office 365 User Search so each approver picks the next one dynamically.
💡 Challenge
Power Automate’s standard approval action doesn’t let an approver choose the next approver on the fly. For flexible, ad-hoc chains you need a way to pick the next person after each approval.
✅ Solution
Use Adaptive Cards with a Microsoft 365 user picker instead of the standard approval. Each approver selects who should approve next, so the chain builds itself dynamically.
🔧 How It’s Done
🔸 Create a flow that sends an Adaptive Card to the first approver when a request is initiated.
🔸 Add an Office 365 User Search input to the card so the current approver can pick the next approver.
🔸 After the current approval, send the card automatically to the selected next approver.
🔸 Repeat until the chain is complete, logging each step for tracking and transparency.
🔸 At the end, generate a summary of who saw, approved, or forwarded the request.
🎉 Result
A versatile, dynamic approval process that goes beyond the standard approval action, letting users shape the approval flow to fit their needs.
🌟 Key Advantages
🔸 Unmatched flexibility in choosing approvers.
🔸 Enables sequential and conditional approvals.
🔸 Better oversight and transparency of the approval history.
🔸 Smooth user experience through Microsoft 365 integration.
🎥 Video Tutorial
🛠️ FAQ
1. How do I implement Office 365 User Search in Adaptive Cards? Add a people-picker input to the Adaptive Card JSON schema. It connects to Microsoft Entra ID and lets approvers search and select users dynamically.
2. What happens if an approver doesn’t respond to the Adaptive Card? Configure timeouts or parallel branches in your flow to handle non-responses, escalate to a fallback approver or send automatic reminders.
3. Can I include conditional logic within the approval flow? Yes. Use conditional actions in Power Automate based on the approver’s selection or other variables to build branching approval scenarios.
Marcel Lehmann
Microsoft MVP