Configuring Automated Approval Reminder Notifications for Finance Requests

Modified on Wed, 15 Apr at 10:28 AM

1. Summary

Sparkrock 365 includes a built-in Email Reminder framework that can automatically send follow-up notifications to approvers when Finance Requests remain pending beyond a configurable number of days. This covers all three Finance Request sub-types:

Payment Requests
Purchase Requisitions
Expense Claims

The reminders are sent in addition to the initial approval notification and do not replace it. They are triggered by the Process and Send Reminders report (Report 23020151), which should be scheduled to run automatically via a Job Queue Entry.

2. Prerequisites

Before configuring reminders, confirm the following:

Approval workflows are active for the Finance Request document types (Payment, Purchase, Expense). The reminder engine reads open Approval Entries — if no workflow is running, no entries exist to remind on.
SMTP / email is configured in Business Central under the Email Accounts setup.
User Setup records have email addresses populated for all approvers, or External User Setup records have email addresses for external approvers.
The user configuring the Job Queue has SUPER or equivalent permissions to create and schedule Job Queue Entries.

3. Step 1 — Configure the Reminder Setup

The Reminder Setup page is where you define when and how often reminders are sent.

3.1 Open Email Reminder Setup

In Business Central, use the search (Alt+Q) and type Email Reminder Setup.
Open the Email Reminder Setup page.
Click New to create a new reminder line.

3.2 Fill in the Fields

Field	Recommended Value	Description
Reminder Type	Finance Request	Covers all Finance Request sub-types: Payment, Purchase, and Expense.
Start Date Formula	<2D>	How many days after the approval was sent before the first reminder is fired. Must be greater than 0. Example: <2D> = 2 days after submission.
End Date Formula	<0D>	The upper date boundary beyond which no further reminders are sent. <0D> means reminders continue until the approval is resolved or Max Attempts is reached.
Reminder Frequency	<2D>	How often to re-send the reminder after the first one. Example: <2D> = every 2 days.
Max No. of Attempts	5	Maximum number of reminder emails to send per pending approval entry. Set to 0 for unlimited.
Recipient Email Preference	Company	Which email address to use for the approver: Personal, Company, or Both.
Enabled	Yes (toggle on)	Activates the reminder rule. The system will validate that Start and End Date Formulas are filled in before allowing this to be enabled.

NOTE: You can create multiple lines for the same Reminder Type with different Start Date Formulas to send escalating reminders (e.g. first reminder at 2 days, second at 5 days). Start date windows must not overlap.

4. Step 2 — Schedule the Job Queue Entry

The reminders are sent by running Report 23020151 — SRP Process and Send Reminders. To automate this, schedule it as a recurring Job Queue Entry in Business Central.

4.1 Create the Job Queue Entry

Search for Job Queue Entries (Alt+Q) and open the page.
Click New to create a new entry.
Set the Object Type to Run field to Report.
Set the Object ID to Run field to 23020151 (SRP Process and Send Reminders).
In the Description field, enter a meaningful name such as Daily Approval Reminder Notifications.

4.2 Configure the Schedule

Field	Recommended Value	Notes
Recurring Job	Yes (toggle on)	Ensures the job runs on a schedule rather than once.
Run on Mondays – Fridays	Yes (all days checked)	Check all weekdays. Uncheck Saturday and Sunday unless weekend approvals are expected.
Starting Time	07:00:00	Set to run early in the morning so approvers receive reminders at the start of their workday.
No. of Minutes Between Runs	1440	1440 minutes = 24 hours (daily). Adjust to 2880 for every 2 days if preferred.
Earliest Start Date/Time	Today’s date at 07:00	Set this to prevent the job from running before your intended go-live date.

4.3 Set the Report Parameters

On the Job Queue Entry card, click Set Report Parameters (or Report Request Page).
On the request page for Report 23020151, enable the Finance Request toggle.
Leave other toggles (HR Management, Time Entry, Pay Statement) off unless those reminder types are also configured.
Click OK to save the parameters.

4.4 Activate the Job Queue Entry

On the Job Queue Entry card, click Set Status to Ready (or use the Change Status to Ready action).
The entry will now run automatically on the configured schedule.

NOTE: The Job Queue requires the Business Central server service tier to be running and the user account set on the entry must have permissions to run the report. Consider using a dedicated service account.

5. How It Works

Each time the report runs, it:

Reads all Reminder Setup lines where Reminder Type = Finance Request and Enabled = Yes.
Searches for open Approval Entries linked to a Purchase Request Header (covering Payment, Purchase, and Expense sub-types) where the Date-Time Sent for Approval is older than the configured Start Date Formula.
For each matching entry, checks the Reminder Log to determine whether a reminder was already sent recently (based on the Reminder Frequency) and whether Max No. of Attempts has been reached.
If conditions are met, sends an email to the approver (internal User Setup email or External User Setup email) and logs the attempt in the Reminder Log Entry table.

NOTE: Reminders are sent to the current pending approver only — not to all approvers in the chain. If an approval is delegated or re-assigned, the reminder will follow the current approver on the open Approval Entry.

6. Monitoring — Email Reminder Log Entries

You can review all sent and pending reminders in the Email Reminder Log Entries page. Search for Email Reminder Log Entries using Alt+Q.

The log shows:

The document the reminder was sent for.
The recipient and the email address used.
The date the reminder was sent and the next scheduled reminder date.
The number of attempts made so far.
The reminder status (Sent, Failed, etc.).

NOTE: If a reminder shows as Failed, verify that the approver’s email address is populated in User Setup or External User Setup, and that the SMTP email account is correctly configured.

7. Important Limitations

IMPORTANT: The Finance Request reminder type does not allow filtering by sub-type. Enabling it will send reminders for all pending Payment Requests, Purchase Requisitions, and Expense Claims together. There is currently no configuration option to enable reminders for only one of these sub-types individually.

Additionally, note the following:

The reminder frequency and date windows apply globally to all Finance Request types. You cannot set different frequencies for Payment Requests vs. Expense Claims within the same reminder type.
If multiple Reminder Setup lines exist for the Finance Request type, their date windows must not overlap. The system will reject overlapping configurations.
The Purchase Invoice approval workflow (the standard Business Central workflow, not the Finance Request workflow) is a separate reminder type (Purchase Document) and is configured independently.