TL;DR: Beat the 30-day Power Automate approval timeout by having the flow restart itself via a SharePoint TriggerFlow flag, either send a fresh approval each cycle, or keep waiting on the same approval by storing its Approval ID.

Approvals that run longer than 30 days are far more common than most makers expect. Contract sign-offs, budget and procurement requests, legal reviews, complex HR cases, or multi-level management chains routinely sit in someone’s queue for weeks. Then, quietly, the flow run just times out at day 30, the approval task goes stale, nobody gets notified, and the whole process silently dies in the run history. This tip gives you two reliable patterns to keep those approvals alive for as long as you need.

💡 Challenge

Standard Power Automate approval actions (“Start and wait for an approval” / “Wait for an approval”) have a hard 30-day action timeout. When that limit is hit:

🔸 The flow run stops and is marked as timed out in the history.

🔸 The approval task and email link go stale, approvers who finally react get nothing back.

🔸 There’s no built-in way to “keep waiting” or automatically resume the process.

For any business process where a decision legitimately takes longer than a month, this is a showstopper.

✅ Solution

Let the flow restart itself before or after the timeout, using a small SharePoint list as a control table. Two helper columns drive everything:

🔸 TriggerFlow (Yes/No), controls when a new run may start.

🔸 ApprovalID (single line of text), stores the current approval so a later run can keep waiting on it (only needed for Method 2).

From there, pick the pattern that fits your process:

🔸 Method 1, New approval each cycle: every timeout starts a fresh approval (new email + new task). Best when you want a recurring reminder.

🔸 Method 2, Same approval, silent restart: the flow restarts in the background but keeps waiting on the original approval task, so the first email link stays valid. Best for a clean approver experience.

🔧 How It’s Done

1. Prepare SharePoint and the trigger

🔸 Add a Yes/No column TriggerFlow (default Yes) and a single-line-of-text column ApprovalID to your SharePoint list.

🔸 Use the trigger “When an item is created or modified” with the trigger condition @equals(triggerOutputs()?['body/TriggerFlow'], true) so the flow only runs when TriggerFlow is Yes.

🔸 Make the very first action after the trigger an Update item that sets TriggerFlow to No. This prevents edits during the run from re-triggering the flow and creating infinite loops.

2. Method 1, a new approval each time

🔸 Add “Start and wait for an approval”, configure Title and Assigned to as usual, and set a Timeout (e.g. P29D = 29 days) in the action settings so you restart before the hard 30-day limit.

🔸 After it, add an Update item that sets TriggerFlow back to Yes, with Configure run after set to run only when the approval has timed out. Flipping the item starts a new run that sends a fresh approval email and task.

🔸 On the is successful path, put your real post-approval business logic and leave TriggerFlow at No so the loop ends.

3. Method 2, keep waiting on the same approval

🔸 Add a Condition checking whether ApprovalID is empty. If empty → use “Create an approval”, then Update item to write the returned Approval ID into ApprovalID. If not empty → use Compose to read the existing ApprovalID so it can be reused.

🔸 Below the condition, add “Wait for an approval” and supply the Approval ID, so every run waits on the correct, original approval task.

🔸 Add an Update item with run after: has timed out that sets TriggerFlow to Yes, this restarts the flow silently while the original approval email/link stays valid.

🔸 Add a separate is successful branch on “Wait for an approval” with your post-approval logic, and finish with an Update item that clears ApprovalID and keeps TriggerFlow at No so the loop ends cleanly.

4. Test the restart cycle

🔸 Temporarily set the Timeout very short (e.g. PT5M) to prove the timeout → restart handoff works before going live with P29D.

🤔 Which method should I choose?

  Method 1, New approval Method 2, Same approval
Approver gets A fresh email + task each cycle One persistent task; no new emails
Feels like A recurring reminder A single, uninterrupted approval
Extra column TriggerFlow only TriggerFlow + ApprovalID
Best for Chasing slow approvers Clean UX, audit-friendly processes
Approvals center Multiple entries over time One stable entry

🎉 Result

Your approval flows now run without a hard time limit, each timeout simply restarts the flow instead of killing the process. Depending on the method, approvers either get a fresh nudge every cycle, or work with a single persistent approval that stays valid while the flow quietly restarts in the background. No more decisions lost at day 30.

🌟 Key Advantages

🔸 Removes the 30-day approval timeout as a failure point in long-running processes.

🔸 Two patterns: stronger visibility (repeated reminders) or a cleaner single-approval experience.

🔸 Uses only standard SharePoint and Approvals capabilities, no premium licenses or custom connectors.

🔸 The TriggerFlow guard prevents runaway/infinite loops by design.

🎥 Video Tutorial

🛠️ FAQ

1. Why can’t approvals simply run longer than 30 days? Approvals are subject to Power Automate action limits, and long-running actions time out after 30 days. That’s a platform limit you can’t raise, so you need a restartable pattern to keep the process alive.

2. Why does Method 2 split “Create an approval” and “Wait for an approval”? Splitting the actions exposes the Approval ID. Storing it in SharePoint lets later runs reuse it, so the same approval task is tracked across restarts instead of creating a new task each time.

3. How does TriggerFlow prevent endless retriggering? The trigger condition only fires when TriggerFlow is Yes, and the first Update item immediately sets it to No. Only the dedicated timeout branch that sets TriggerFlow back to Yes can start a new run, so exactly one controlled restart happens per cycle.

4. Won’t the run history fill up with timed-out runs? Each cycle is a separate run, so yes, you’ll see periodic entries. That’s expected and harmless. Set the Timeout close to the limit (e.g. P29D) to minimize the number of restarts, and use the item’s status column to track where the approval stands.

5. Can I use Dataverse instead of SharePoint? Yes. Any data source with an “on create/modify” trigger and update action works, replace the SharePoint list with a Dataverse table and use the equivalent trigger condition on your TriggerFlow column.

6. Does the approver get spammed with emails? Only with Method 1, and only once per cycle (e.g. every ~29 days), which is usually the desired reminder. Method 2 sends no new emails on restart; the original approval task and its link stay valid.

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Marcel Lehmann

Marcel Lehmann

Microsoft MVP Microsoft MVP

BizzApps MVP from Switzerland 🇨🇭 - PowerPlatform Expert & Evangelist & MVP - Turning passion into expertise

MVP since 2023 • Power Platform Expert since 2017
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