Working with Power Automate Approval Connectors

Have you ever heard about approval connectors in Power Automate? If not, in this Power Automate tutorial, we will demonstrate Power Automate Approval connectors in a detailed view. Also, we will discuss different types of Approval Flows, how many ways we can check this approval, etc.

Also, Read: How to Export SharePoint Online Document Library to Excel

Power Automate Approval Connectors

• Approval Connectors are the inbuilt actions in Power Automate where the user gets notified for approvals that are designed to act upon the ongoing business scenarios.
• Approval connectors have patterns like Sequential Approval, Parllel Approval, and State-Machine Approval.
• In this, we can also add external users as approvers to the flow.
• Below given are the multiple approval type options in the Approval connector:
  • Everyone must approve
  • First to respond
  • Wait for all responses and
  • Wait for the first response

These are some of the points related to the approval connectors in the Power Automate.

Types of Power Automate Approval Connector Actions

Let us see the different types of approvals within a Power Automate Approval Connector. There are three types of approval actions such as:

1. Start and wait for an approval: It begins the approval and waits until it receives the outcome for adding approval action.
2. Create an approval: it creates an approval but doesn’t wait for the action, the flow continues ahead.
3. Wait for an approval: After adding create an approval action, it will wait for the specified approval by performing wait for an approval action.

• Let us know some of the examples of business scenarios and daily life basis where these approval connectors’ actions play a key role while constructing a flow.
  • Case 1: The team lead or manager in the organization can accept/decline leave when an employee applied for the leave.
  • Case 2: This can be useful for approving or Rejecting the documents that are shared by others in the organization.
  • Case 3: Through this approval connectors team lead, manager, or Financial Team of an organization can approve or reject the digital purchasing of electronic items applied by an employee.

Power Automate Approval Types

Now, let us know about the Approval Types that are used in the Power Automate flows. There are four types of approval types such as :

• Approve/Reject -First to Respond: This is the simplest approval type. In this type, the first person who approves or rejects this decision will be taken into consideration.
  • Even if we have added multiple persons in the assigned section of the flow, Once the first person responds to approve the flow then it won’t be disclosed to others, and only the first person creates & runs the flow.

• Approve/Reject – Everyone must approve: This action will be waiting until each & every approver has approved. But if one person rejects then the flow gets rejected because everyone must approve.

• Custom Responses – Wait for all responses: This is similar to the approval type i.e., (Everyone must approve) but the difference is a custom response which means is not limited to Approve/Reject we can add other options as well like disagree, yes/No, etc.
• On the other hand, (Custom responses – Wait for all responses) means it waits for everyone’s decision, no matter if it is Approve/Reject, we can add a response option item.

• Custom Responses – Wait for one response: This is similar to the First to respond, we can add a custom response. Here, the action waits for one response: Approve / Reject. But the difference between them is we can also add other options like disagree, yes/No, etc as a custom response.

This is all about the approval types in the Approval Connector actions of Power Automate.

Also, read:

Sources of Responding to Power Automate Approval Requests

In this section, let us see the different ways to respond to an approval request once it is sent such as:

• Approval Center Dashboard: Here, the approver can view all the Received, Sent, and History of approvals. Also, the approver can directly Approve or Reject and also can Reassign from the vertical context menu.
  • Power Automate Home Screen, click on Approvals in the left navigation -> Select Received, Sent, or History to display the respective sections.

• Office365 Outlook: The approval will send via Office 365 Outlook email notification and from there approver can respond to the approval.

• Microsoft Teams: The actionable message of the approval request will directly receive by Microsoft Teams where the approver can directly approve or reject the request.

• Power Automate Mobile app: The actionable message of the approval request will directly receive by the Power Automate mobile app can directly approve or reject the request.

This is all about sources of responding to approval requests in different ways.

Example of Power Automate Flow with Approval Connectors

Now, let’s create an approval flow using Power Automate approval connectors. That is when a file is uploaded to the SharePoint document library, it will send an approval request to the SharePoint site owner to notify that a file is uploaded by someone and he can Approve/ Reject the request to get the file uploaded.

• Create an automated cloud flow with an example of taking the trigger ‘When a file is created ( Properties only). Select the Site Address and Library Name.

• Click on the +New step and search and select the action Start and wait for an approval.

• Now in this action window of Start and wait for approval, fill in the below-listed details.
  • Approval type: Here, we have selected the type of approval as per our requirements. We have chosen to Approve/Reject – Everyone must approve of the flow.
  • Title: Select the title for flow. we have named it by taking dynamic content as you can see below.
  • Assigned to: Insert the email id for the person you want to assign the approval to. According to our needs, we have taken it from the [Dynamic content – Approved by email]
  • Details: In the details section, we can include the content regarding the created file description as it displays to the person who Approves/Rejects the request. We have highlighted the details section screenshot as you can see from the below image:
  • Item link: Here, we can add the file link by dynamic content.

• In the next step, Choose Condition Control under Actions.

• Configure the Condition control, click on Choose a value -> Select the value underlying Dynamic content. we have selected Outcome that is equal to Approve as per our scenario.

• The condition will have If Yes and If No parts.
• In the If yes condition, Add the flow steps like Apply to Each and Send an email (V2) via Outlook.
  • To: Insert the name or email of the person who will receive the email (From Dynamic Content)
  • Subject: Write about the status of the approval.
  • Body: Here, the message will be written briefly about the scenario which will be received by the person who created a file in the document library.

If No:

• Similarly, in the If No condition, Add the flow steps like Apply to Each and Send an email (V2) via Outlook.
• The only thing that differentiates between the If Yes and If No condition is the approval request has been Approved in If Yes and Rejected in If No.

• Now click on Save and Test the flow Manually.

• Then add a document (we have added a project of Somalia) to the SharePoint library (Financial info documents).

• within a while, if there are no errors, then the flow runs successfully and sends an email notification to the user that the flow is Approved/Rejected.

This is how to build an approval request within Power Automate.

Furthermore, you can follow the most searched Power Automate tutorials:

• How to Send Email Using If Condition in Power Automate
• How to Send an Email Notification When an Item is Deleted via Power Automate
• Overview of Power Automate Connectors, Triggers, Actions

Conclusion

From this Power Automate tutorial, we have learned about Power Automate Approval connectors and also about the following topics related to it such as:

• Types of Power Automate Approval Connector Actions
• Power Automate Approval Types
• Sources of Responding to Approval Requests
• Example regarding the Approval Connectors in Power Automate