#PowerPlatformTip 166: 'Check if a Person Is Out of Office Before an Approval'

TL;DR: Use the standard Office 365 Outlook → “Get mail tips for a mailbox (V2)” action with the automaticReplies option to see whether an approver is away - no HTTP, no app registration. Need the exact on/scheduled status or a future window? Fall back to Graph GET /users/{upn}/mailboxSettings/automaticRepliesSetting.

An approval lands in the inbox of someone who left for a two-week holiday this morning. The flow waits. The requester is blocked. Nobody notices until the deadline is gone. The information you needed was there all along - the approver had an out-of-office reply switched on - you just never asked before routing the task.

💡 Challenge

Approvals silently rot in the mailbox of an absent approver. A “Start and wait for an approval” can wait up to 30 days (see #144), so a single person on leave can freeze an entire business process - and you only find out when it’s already too late to reroute.

✅ Solution

Before you assign the approval, check whether the approver has automatic replies turned on. The simplest way needs no HTTP action and no app registration: the standard Office 365 Outlook connector ships a Get mail tips for a mailbox (V2) action that returns the recipient’s automatic-reply MailTip - including the reply text. If you need the precise on/off/scheduled status (or a reply that is scheduled but hasn’t started yet), fall back to Microsoft Graph mailboxSettings.

flowchart TD
    A["Before assigning the approval"] --> B["Get mail tips for a mailbox (V2)"]
    B --> C{"automaticReplies.message<br/>non-empty?"}
    C -->|Yes| D["Approver is away<br/>reroute to deputy/manager"]
    C -->|No| E["Assign approval as usual"]
    B -.->|"need exact status or<br/>a future scheduled window"| F["Fallback: Graph mailboxSettings<br/>automaticRepliesSetting"]

🔧 How it’s done

1. Read the mail tip (standard, no-code).

🔸 Office 365 Outlook → Get mail tips for a mailbox (V2). Set the mailbox to the approver’s address and request the automaticReplies option. The connector runs under its own signed-in connection - no app registration, no HTTP action.

2. Decide whether the approver is away.

🔸 Check the returned automatic-reply message, e.g. body('Get_mail_tips_for_a_mailbox_(V2)')?['automaticReplies']?['message']. A non-empty value means out-of-office is active - and you even get the reply text to quote in your escalation note.

3. (Optional) Get the exact status.

🔸 If you need to distinguish disabled vs alwaysEnabled vs scheduled, or spot a reply that is scheduled for the future, call Graph via HTTP with Microsoft Entra ID (#138): GET https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/users/jane@contoso.com/mailboxSettings/automaticRepliesSetting. Read body('HTTP')?['status'] plus scheduledStartDateTime/scheduledEndDateTime (each carries a dateTime and a timeZone), and compare against utcNow() to see whether the window is active right now.

4. Branch the approval.

🔸 If the approver is away, point Start and wait for an approval at a deputy or their manager (GET /users/{upn}/manager) - otherwise assign as usual. Optionally add the out-of-office text to the approval details so the backup approver has the context.

🎉 Result

Your approval flow now checks availability before it assigns anything. Absent approvers are detected up front, the task is rerouted to a deputy or manager automatically, and no request sits frozen in an empty mailbox for weeks.

🌟 Key Advantages

🔸 Zero setup: the Office 365 Outlook “Get mail tips” action needs no app registration and no premium HTTP action.

🔸 Reusable context: the automatic-reply text comes back with the tip, ready to drop into your escalation message.

🔸 Optional precision: the Graph mailboxSettings fallback adds the exact status and reveals replies scheduled for the future.

🔸 No more frozen approvals: availability is checked before the task is ever assigned.

🛠️ FAQ

Q1: Which action exactly?

Office 365 Outlook → Get mail tips for a mailbox (V2). It surfaces MailTips such as automatic replies / out-of-office and mailbox-full status. Note it isn’t available in GCC High or Mooncake environments.

Q2: Which permission do I need?

The connector action runs under the signed-in Office 365 Outlook connection (the underlying Graph getMailTips uses Mail.Read). The Graph mailboxSettings fallback needs MailboxSettings.Read.

Q3: MailTip or mailboxSettings - what’s the difference?

The MailTip only returns a message when the automatic reply is active now. Graph mailboxSettings/automaticRepliesSetting also exposes a reply that is scheduled but hasn’t started yet, plus the explicit status and both the internal and external reply texts.

Q4: The message is empty but the person is away - why?

External-only replies or remote-domain settings can suppress the automatic-reply MailTip. When in doubt, use the Graph mailboxSettings fallback to read the definitive status.

🔗 Related Tips

• #PowerPlatformTip 144: Infinite Approvals, why a waiting approval can hang around for weeks.
• #PowerPlatformTip 138: Graph API via HTTP with Microsoft Entra ID, the auth-free way to run the mailboxSettings fallback.
• #PowerPlatformTip 126: User Context for Automated Tasks, the flip side - setting out-of-office replies centrally.