How to send an email when an item's status has been in pending for too long?

Question

I have a workflow set up on my sharepoint 2010 site that will email an employee's manager when they've submitted a new list item. The manager will get the email, go to the site and approve the list item. The workflow is set to wait for approval status to equal approved. Once approved, another email will then be sent to the customer.

The problem I'm facing is that some managers are not going in to approve their employees' submissions and we'll end up with items sitting there for days in pending status.

I want to set up a workflow that will notify a director via email if a manager leaves an item in pending status for more than 2 days. How could I accomplish this?

Answer 1

You can keep the current workflow as it is. Create a second workflow that pauses for 2 days and then checks whether the manager has approved or not. If the manager has not approved, then email the director.

Your scenario is quite common and so is this solution. You do not need to worry about having two workflows instead of one.

Answer 2

You need to use pause condition for the list workflow & check that if the status is still pending than you should send an email to appropriate person.

See below image for reference.