SOLVED

Deleting Approvals

Brass Contributor

Am about to start using the Approvals app in Teams. In the course of setting it up and demonstrating the process I have accumulated a number of "test" approvals. I cannot see how I can remove these approvals so they are not cluttering up the list when we start using this process in real work. My Internet searches on the topic have not provided any useful information. Is it possible to delete them?

17 Replies
best response confirmed by dBrent (Brass Contributor)
Solution
Hello, sorry not possible to delete "bot messages" in Teams just yet. But at least it's on the backlog..

https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/18684091-delete-bot-messages

@ChristianBergstrom Thank you for the response. I do appreciate knowing at least.

Hey, just a heads-up on the topic. There’s a bit cumbersome workaround including enabling team owners to delete all messages (teams messaging policy). If it’s not disabled by an admin and the default team setting is enabled, a checkbox under team settings, you should be able to delete them. Haven’t verified it but heard another member do it this way instead of waiting for the above UV request. Perhaps worth a shot?
Ok. I'll look into it. Thanks.

@dBrent did you manage to delete those 'test' items finally. 
I have recently started using Approvals and have the same issue.
Thanks in advance

@dcoxgeraldcom unfortunately I have not yet seen an option to delete approvals.
Hello, you can delete the approval bot post if you are an owner of the team with the team setting "owners can delete all messages" checked. This option can be made visible by an administrator using Teams policies. Either per Team or User. I actually just now set up a new Teams org. incl. new teams and the above setting is not turned on by default.
Thank you @ChristianJBergstrom. This is true, and helpful, but doing so does not delete the approval from the actual Approvals app. This was the concern of my original post.
Oh, sorry about that. I tend to answer too many questions sometimes and get confused! I actually noticed my previous account already had the proper answer to this one then :D

@dBrent 

I was looking into this for the same reasons and found that the approval records are stored in Dataverse tables.  Go to Power Apps > Dataverse > Tables and look for Approval, Approval Request, and Approval Response.  You can remove records by editing the table data in Excel under Data > Edit in Excel.  If you haven't done this before you may be prompted to install the Excel add-in that connects to the Dataverse tables.  After the records are removed from there, they no longer appear in the Teams Approvals app.

@Rob Fontaine Thanks very much for this response. It is helpful.

I totall agree that we should be able to delete bot messages.  This is a problem across all of teams and leads to a very messy screen, when testing things out. @dBrent 

What if you are using the approvals app outside of a team? How can you select the option to delete a test approval that is just messing up your views?

Hi @Rob Fontaine,

 

Thank you for this. It's just what I've been looking for. Unfortunately, I don't know how to complete this procedure after deleting the undesired approvals. Is there something you press in the Excel sheet to sync it back to Dataverse or do you need to reimport this spreadsheet into dataverse?

 

Sorry for the silly question. Thanks for your help!

 

Regards,

 

Daniel

@D-Rum_123 

 

Hello! I was just testing this issue out myself and I found that you need to keep the "Microsoft Power Apps Add-in" connector panel open. After you delete the data - click "Publish" in that panel. This should sync the data back to Dataverse. I did have a error due to permission settings, but otherwise this should resolve the issue.

 

Can anyone else confirm that this will solve the issue?

Will this proposed solution help with deleting an approval request posted in the General channel? I'm the channel owner but I can't delete it and I would prefer not to ask the IT Admin until I'm sure...

@ChristianBergstrom 

 

The URL is no longer valid, so maybe they aren't considering this anymore.

1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by dBrent (Brass Contributor)
Solution
Hello, sorry not possible to delete "bot messages" in Teams just yet. But at least it's on the backlog..

https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/18684091-delete-bot-messages

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