Deal Desk 365 ships with the escalation schedule switched off, so nothing runs in your tenant until you connect and enable it. This one-time setup takes about five minutes and is done by a Power Platform administrator.
What you are enabling
A scheduled cloud flow, Deal Desk - Escalate Stale Approvals, runs on a recurrence (every hour by default). Each run calls one Dataverse action, Escalate Stale Approvals, which finds approval requests that have been Pending longer than their policy's escalation window and routes them to the next approver tier.
The flow holds no business logic of its own; it is simply the timer that wakes the escalation engine. Everything runs inside your environment, and no approval data leaves your tenant.
Before you begin
- Deal Desk 365 installed in the target environment.
- A run-as account for the schedule. A dedicated service account is recommended. It needs a Power Automate-enabled license and the Deal Desk Approver security role, so it can invoke the escalation action.
- Permission to edit solutions in the environment (System Administrator or System Customizer).
- At least one approval policy that sets Escalation Hours; otherwise there is nothing to escalate. See Approval policies and escalation.
1. Open the Deal Desk 365 solution
- Go to the Power Apps maker portal.
- Use the environment picker at the top right to select the environment where Deal Desk 365 is installed.
- In the left navigation choose Solutions, then open Deal Desk 365.
Check that the environment name in the picker is the tenant you intend to configure. Enabling the flow in the wrong environment is the most common setup mistake.
2. Create the Dataverse connection
The schedule runs as a stored connection. Create one now, signed in as the account that should own the job.
- In the left navigation open Connections (under More if it is not pinned), then choose New connection.
- Search for and select Microsoft Dataverse.
- Choose Create and sign in as your run-as service account.
Every run of the schedule acts as this connection's identity. Using a dedicated service account, rather than a person's account, keeps escalations running when staff change and keeps the audit trail clean.
3. Bind the connection reference
The solution ships an unbound connection reference. Point it at the connection you just created.
- Back in the Deal Desk 365 solution, select Connection references.
- Open Deal Desk Dataverse (Escalation) (
cwt_dataverseescalation). - In the Connection field, choose the Dataverse connection from step 2, then choose Save.
4. Turn on the flow
- In the solution, open Cloud flows.
- Select Deal Desk - Escalate Stale Approvals.
- Choose Turn on.
The flow is delivered off by design. Until you turn it on, submitted approvals still route and lock normally; they simply will not escalate automatically.
5. Adjust the schedule (optional)
The default cadence is once every hour, which suits most escalation windows. To change it, open the flow, choose Edit, select the Recurrence trigger, set the Interval and Frequency you want, and save.
Run the schedule at least as often as your shortest escalation window. An hourly run cannot honor a policy that escalates after 30 minutes.
6. Verify it runs
- Open the flow, choose Edit, then Test → Manually to trigger one run, or wait for the next scheduled run.
- Open the flow's Run history and confirm the latest run succeeded.
A successful run returns two values in the run details: EscalatedCount, the number of approval requests moved up a tier on this run (often 0 when nothing is due, which is normal), and Message, a short summary of what the run did. The Escalation Last Run On environment variable is also stamped on each run, which is a quick way to confirm the schedule is still firing without opening run history.
If something is not working
- Runs fail with a privilege or "principal lacks access" error. The run-as account cannot invoke the escalation action. Assign the Deal Desk Approver role (or a role that includes it) to the account that owns the connection from step 2, then run again.
- The flow runs, but nothing ever escalates. Either no approval requests are past their window yet, or no approval policy sets Escalation Hours. Open your policies and confirm an escalation window is configured.
- The connection reference is blank after install. This is expected on a fresh install; the connection is never shipped with the app. Complete steps 2 and 3 before turning the flow on.
- The flow will not turn on. A flow cannot be activated until its connection reference is bound. Finish step 3 first, then return to step 4.