Create Simple Document Approval Flows using Power Automate & SharePoint

in this video we're going to see how to create and run a simple document approval using sharepoint and power automate users will upload files to a folder and then those files will be sent off for approval by a manager depending on the manager's decision the file will either be moved to the approved folder or a message will be sent back to the submitter letting them know why it was rejected here are some things you'll need before we get started you'll need a sharepoint site or a microsoft team the back end of a microsoft team's file system is a sharepoint site we're going to create two folders within the site or two channels within the team every channel in teams creates a document folder within the corresponding sharepoint site you'll also need access to power automate on your microsoft 365 account check within the online version of portal.office.com to see if you have it if you don't contact your it administrator and ask for it the first thing we need to do is create two folders if your company uses microsoft teams a lot create two channels within the team you want others and yourself to be able to use the flow create one channel in the team called pre-approved and one called approved if your company uses sharepoint access the sharepoint site's documents and create those two same folders pre-approved and approved do not do both if you created the team's channels the sharepoint site that it is tied to will have the folders created upon the channel's creation now that we have those folders created we need to access power automate power automate lets users create automatic business processes there's many things we can create with power automate but we're starting with a simple document approval process let us know in the comments the types of flows that you'd like to learn about from your 365 home page access power automate and from power automate access the my flows view from the ribbon select new then automated from blank this type of flow will run in the background and turn on automatically when a certain action happens like a file being uploaded to a folder when the dialog box appears select skip you'll be brought to the flow creation tool power automate is a drag and drop process automation tool we use triggers or apps and things that happen to them and actions things that flow will do automatically to create these business flows we first need to connect a trigger a trigger is something that happens to an application all applications have triggers in 365 but in this case regardless of how you set up your two folders we are looking for the trigger called when a file is created or modified properties only use the search bar to search for sharepoint and then select it here's a list of all the triggers in sharepoint there's both triggers and actions we want this one when a file is created or modified properties only as it will pull in the right information for us to use select it we can see the trigger added to the flow we need to connect all of these different locations which lets this trigger know where it is looking select the site address drop down and select the correct sharepoint site if you're working from a team don't worry it'll work the same and the sharepoint site name will be named the same as the team name if you can't find the sharepoint site from the list you have to select enter custom value and then enter the sharepoint site url if you do not click enter custom value and enter one that doesn't appear this won't work we've connected to the site now we need to choose the library or document library we want the flow to look within we'll select the drop-down and then select documents which is the default parent folder for all document folders in a site or team now we have to choose the folder for power automate to monitor select the folder option this might look like a lot but these are all of the document folders in a site a lot of these are hidden from users views so it may seem like a lot of different folders that you don't recognize for our purposes scroll down to the share documents which is where all of the collaborative files exist and then select the forward arrow then select the pre-approved folder great we've connected our folders now we have to create the approval currently the flow will recognize when a file is created or modified in that pre-approved folder now we have to tell the flow what to do with that information when someone uploads a file into this folder we want it to go to a manager for approval select new step to create an approval in the search bar search for approvals the one we want to use is the start and wait for an approval action select it this approval type will pause the flow until the approver responds we now have to configure this action select the approval drop down type there's a couple of options but the best one to use is the approve reject first to respond option regardless of how many people you send this approval to it will be approved or rejected once one person accepts it once you select that option we have a list of fields we need to input we have to give our approval a title which we can insert use something informative as this title will appear in the emails the approver receives we also have to choose a user's email address we want the approval to be sent to in this case it's going to be me but use the person's email address that will be approving the document or group of users who can approve documents you can insert as many emails here as you want to approve or reject the documents the most important field within this action is the link to the item how does a manager get to the file to review it we have to provide them with a link select the item link field the dynamic content will appear dynamic content is information that flow has access to and that you can use within your flow because we chose the sharepoint trigger with properties we have a lot of information to work with including the link to the item here select that field and it will appear within that item link approval field great we've gotten most of the way there we now need to create the if statement for the flow with approvals there are two choices yes the file is approved or no it has been rejected we're going to use a conditional action to create two trees of actions the flow will run again each time a new file is uploaded to that folder select new step flow now knows what we're up to and the first action available is a condition select that option we first need to let flo know what condition it is looking at select the choose a value field you need to select the outcome value it will input that into the field this is the outcome of that specific approval the next value we need to insert is the equal to field what is the outcome supposed to be equal to in this case we want the yes tree of the flow to be approved type in approve with a capital a and the choose a value great we're almost there with a conditional action depending on the outcome of this approval different trees will take place either yes or no if the approver says approve it will follow along the if yes tree if the approver says reject it will follow along the if no tree we need to set up actions for both we're going to send an email in either case to let the user know what happened any action that they can take under the if yes tree select add an action we're looking for outlook so enter it within the search bar make sure you are selecting office 365 outlook if you have a 365 business account then select the send in email v2 option before we go any further we're going to copy the sending email to the if no tree select the ellipsis in the top right and select copy to my clipboard then under the if note tree select add an action navigate to your clipboard and select the email option now we just need to customize the two trees in the if yes tree under the to field of the email select add dynamic content who is this email going to and how can we automatically make sure it goes to the right person well the person who uploaded the file is the last person who modified it and we have that information from the file properties that we have access to under dynamic content select modified by email that will change each time a file is uploaded to that folder under the subject let's add something like your file has been approved it has been moved to the approved folder every single field inflow has the ability to insert dynamic content you can see i filled in the body email with the file name its link and the approver email perfect we lastly want to move that approved item to the approved folder under the yes tree select add an action search for move and there's an option to move the file select it we have to fill in all of these fields we need the current address which is easy enough and then the file to move it looks like we need the file id that's the unique id that every file has associated with it as we pulled in the properties of the file from the get go we already have it select the file to move field and from the dynamic content select the identifier option do not select id then fill in the rest of the fields and ensure you have the destination folder set to the approved folder under the if a file is already there drop down choose the move with the new name option if a file has the same name in the approved folder flow will automatically add a character to make it a different name we've successfully created one tree the if yes tree now we have to create the actions that happen if the file is rejected let's start with the email to the submitter of that file we'll insert the modified by email from the dynamic content in the to field as you can reuse dynamic content throughout your flow and for the subject line we'll let the user know that their file has been rejected they'll need to re-upload another copy with the fixes in the body of the email one piece of dynamic content that we can add is the comments from the approval or rejection in the body field of the email the flow will send state please follow the comments the dynamic content we are looking for is called response comments select dynamic content and then select response comments your flow might collapse just select the different pieces to expand them when the reviewer submits the rejection and their comments about why the original submitter will be notified with the comments about the rejection we're finished with the approval flow we can add more actions if we wanted to like delete the file that was uploaded to the pre-approved folder but we won't do that for this video just know that you can keep adding more actions to your flow some things you might want to change is the title of the flow here select that field and insert an appropriate title one way to know if your flow is going to work is to save it if it saves quickly in about 10 seconds it will probably work if it takes quite a long time for it to save there might be something up you can also use the flow checker in the top right to review any major errors or warnings let's now test this flow we'll select the test option we can perform the trigger action once and then reuse it if anything goes wrong select all perform the trigger action and then select test now we have to perform the trigger which is uploading a file to that pre-approved folder we'll access the site folder a pre-approved and then upload a file when we go back to power automate we can see that the flow is running and currently it's at the start and wait for an approval action that email is sent to the approver who in this case is me i'll navigate to my outlook and look at that i have a pending approval i can access the link to the file to review it once i've reviewed it i can select either approve or reject i also like to prove in this case where i can insert comments then i'll select submit as i was the original submitter into the pre-approved folder i immediately received a notification of the approved document it should also be within the approved folder let's go see i'll head back to the site and then i'll head to the approved folder there it is the approved file in about 10 minutes we have created a document approval system using folders and power automate users can upload or copy files from sharepoint teams or their file explorer into that pre-approved folder as long as the file is uploaded to this folder the flow will run automatically if you want to manage that flow you can always access the my flows view where if you enable the specific flow you can do things like edit it access all of the different runs and even turn it off if you like this video remember to subscribe like and let us know about other videos you'd like to see

Channel: Competitive Computing Consultants Inc.

Views: 105,389

Rating: 4.9766765 out of 5

Keywords: Flow, document approval, approvals, Power Automate, SharePoint, flow approvals, flow tutorial, how to create approvals, microsoft Flow, Microsoft Flow, Flows, power automate, Sharepoint approvals, microsoft 365, Office 365, How to create flows, how to use approvals, microsoft approvals, how to approve a document, create approvals, flows, sharepoint, office 365 approvals

Id: ruu7UJE0KPk

Length: 13min 53sec (833 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 18 2020