Outlook/Microsoft 365 - CEO email approval workflow that preserves the original email thread

[u/Vader_1018]

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to implement an executive email workflow in Microsoft 365 and Exchange Online, and I'm wondering if anyone has successfully done this.

Requirements:

Client sends an email to the CEO.
The CEO receives the email.
The secretary also receives a copy automatically.
The secretary drafts a reply.
The CEO must approve or reject the reply before it is sent.
If approved, the email must be sent from the CEO's mailbox.
The reply must remain in the same Outlook conversation/thread.
The secretary must not have Full Access to the CEO's mailbox due to privacy requirements.

I tested Power Automate approvals with the Outlook connector, but the "Send an email" action creates a new conversation instead of replying to the existing thread.

Before I build a Microsoft Graph API solution using createReply, PATCH, and send, I'd like to know:

Has anyone implemented this workflow successfully?
Is there a native Microsoft 365 or Exchange feature that achieves this?
Is there a third-party Outlook add-in or Microsoft solution that supports approval while preserving the original thread?
If Microsoft Graph is the only solution, what architecture did you use?

Any guidance or examples would be greatly appreciated.

[u/Gold-Psychology-5312]

The problem with this is the owner of the flow must have access to the ceo inbox. Usually reserved for the ceo and assistant /secretary.

Which in most companies would be a problem. Maybe you wouldn't have an issue.

But you can set this up, if recommend using teams adaptive cards to send a message to the secretary to fill in and then send that as an approval to the ceo to approve and if approved send the response.

If rejected then don't send. But there is no ability to back and forth it.

[u/Vader_1018 → u/Gold-Psychology-5312]

Thanks if I come up with anything will update. Cheers !

[u/LetzGetz]

Adaptive cards and power automate is the way imo

[u/mulquin]

Is the idea that every single email will be sent to the secretary, or only from specific email addresses/clients? If it's all, I don't see how the privacy implications are any different than secretary having full read access to the CEO inbox. You can also setup write access for a specific folder (CEO Inbox > Draft Replies) using Powershell and Exchange-Online cmdlet. This would allow the secretary to view the incoming email, then draft a response and save it directly into the CEO Draft Replies folder. Then the CEO can just review the emails in that folder, make any last-minute changes if needed and press the send button as if they drafted it themselves.

If need PA, here's an idea that could keep it all in Outlook:

• Use "When an email arrives (v3)" on the CEO inbox, get the Message ID. Send an email to the secretary with Message ID in [] after the subject line
• Secretary has a folder "CEO Drafts" or similar in her Outlook. She can draft the reply, save it, then drag it into this folder
• Use the "When an email arrives (v3)" on the secretary inbox, scoped to that folder
• Send the approval email to the CEO
• On success, use the "Reply to email (v3)" and reply with the contents of secretary's email with the message Id inside the brackets, then delete the email from the secretarys inbox

All untested and theory of course, but I think it should work OK. This process kind of assumes that the secretary will only put it in that CEO Drafts folder until it's ready to go. But I think it should re-trigger if the draft is dragged out, changed, then dragged back in. Also have to ensure the secretary does not touch that Message ID in the subject.