Dynamic Approvers & log history with Power Automate Approvals
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- čas přidán 3. 07. 2024
- In this video on Dynamic Approvers & log history with Power Automate Approvals, we will explore the single approval pattern in flow, define dynamic approvers based on metadata & log the approval history to data source (best practice since flow approval history is only available for 28 days).
Scenario in video is a help desk application in SharePoint where users log information which triggers the single approval process.
Topics covered:
✔️ Single approval pattern
✔️ Dynamic approvers
✔️ Approval history logging
✔️ Get flow approval outcome
✔️ Approvals on the go - Mobile App, Approvals dashboard & Email (Actionable messages)
Approvals Cookbook Part 1 - • Power Automate Approva...
Flow expressions:
101 - • Power Automate Tutoria...
201 - • Power Automate Tutoria...
#ApprovalsCookbook #Flow #PowerAutomate #Approvals #flowapprovals #PowerPlatform #DynamicApprovers #ApprovalHistory
Just been following the steps to use the people picker column (21:46), but adding the Approvers Email is throwing in another Apply to Each. I tried following the rest of the step anyway but the flow failed and gave me this error message: "The execution of template action 'Apply_to_each_8' failed: the result of the evaluation of 'foreach' expression '@items('Apply_to_each_7')' is of type 'Object'. The result must be a valid array." Am I doing something wrong or does the video need an update?
You can use the expression item()?['Email'] to grab the users email which should not create the second for loop.
@@RezaDorrani Thanks for the reply, that has worked a treat. Absolutely swear by your channel for my flows and apps, keep up the great work. 👍😁
@@jonesyp80 Thank You :)
@@RezaDorrani Hi Reza, I´m having the same issues and tried to insert in the map field, but it says it´s not a valid JSON. What I am doing wrong? Should I add something prior this expression? Tks!
@@tiagodjin I would have to look at your flow screenshot to provide any guidance. Try posting your issue with screenshots on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com/
Reza, you're a great teacher - I'm so glad I found your videos. Best stuff I've found after weeks of trying to learn how to set up Approvals in Power Automate
Glad you found my channel and welcome!
What an outstanding tutorial! Thank you Reza for putting this video out there for Power Automate learners!
Glad you enjoyed it!
You just have a really great way of teaching so that people just get it. And the little suggestions that show attention to detail are so useful and make it easy for anyone to find a way to make the outputs of their flows so intuitive and user friendly. More power to you 🙂✨
Thank you for the wonderful feedback Mojo
Thank you so much Reza, this video is just what I needed to implement an approval process in my app. Love the cookbook series!
Thank You Andrew
Thank you Thank you Thank you Reza for each minute and sec you invest in the preparation of these vidoes and trying your best to make it simple for us to understand and going back and forth to diff tabs just in effort to making it easy for us to understand.
Wow that is some amazing words for me. Thank you and appreciate everyone who watches my videos. 🙏
Just completed my multiple approvals. Works great. Thank you!
Thank you Todd. Happy to know it was useful.
Curious to know how you set the email addresses? I'm busy with 3 tier approvals but when I update the second approval list to the second department it sends out to the first departments email addresses.
Always w/ great videos! Thanks Reza!
Thank you Daniel.
Thank you for just keeping it to the steps! Some "how to" videos are so hard to watch because they go on and on and on about nothing.. You are like do this do that do this do that and voila! I appreciate that so greatly!
So happy to hear this feedback. My style is to get straight to the point 😊
SInce long I was just thinking to develope this in my project, we had no clue of it and we kept this kind of things to be in the last bucket. Now this video has really helpful to me and we have develope the big componet on your idea. You are awsome. I am thankful to you and looking for such good videos on power apps which are not avaiable or people seeking for it.
Thank you for such amazing feedback.
Thank you so much for making this video! It was so helpful,. I have watched your expressions 101 and 201 and still learning, Thank you for providing examples of the tools and a way to understand them. Having a hard time converting UTC time but working on what i may have done incorrectly. Thanks!
Thank you for watching Michael. Glad you have seen the expression video series.
Great video, as always the idea of the Audit Trail and the emojis very clever. Thanks
Thanks for watching Gustavo.
Audit trail is imp since flow run history is only 28 days.
Wow, that is very comprehensive, thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you Hazel.
Again Very well explained. I liked the 'Approver comment' concept which is helpful to understand to an end user in real case business scenario. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you Henik
Just an Amazing Video! Thank you!
You are most welcome
Amazing! As always! Thanks
Thank You
Great video. Especially Data Operations one was awesome...Thank you
Thanks for watching
Great teaching skills, Reza!
Thank you! Cheers!
Woww!! Incredible Reza!!
Thank you 😊
Can I just say, this is an excellent tutorial!
Yes, you can :)
Thank You!
Nice video Reza. Thanks 😊
Most welcome
Thanks, Very professional.
Thanks for watching!
Very good explanation. thank you so much.
👍
very well explained - thank you Reza
Thank you Ronit
Thank you for sharing this; it is quite helpful.
Thanks for watching
Great work raza bhai. waiting for more videos on dataverse.
I will try my best
Good & Easily understandable
Thank you Deepak
thank you, you're a master!
Wow, thanks!
Thanks, Reza.
Most welcome
Reza, as others have said your videos are great. You are direct and straight to the point. Very easy to follow. Quick question, could you share how you inserted emojis in the flow? I would like to learn how to do this. Thanks.
Thank You for the feedback!
The emojis were just copy pasted from the web - emojipedia.org/
Amazing!
Thank you
Hi Reza, thank you for this very helpful video. What I liked a lot:
1. I was looking for a solution to send emails to users within a "multiple user" column. Thanks for your awesome explanation of how doing so.
2. Including the in depth view on the JSON queries is awesome. This helped me tremendously to understand and use this to my advantage
3. Potential Video Idea: What are the options we flow creators have, to ensure data protection of the users of the flow?
This is the final thing I'm struggling with in my workflow: In the very last step, my workflow grabs a file from a SharePoint library. The file got uploaded by a random user, initially triggering the workflow. Once all approvals are in, the file is sent automatically via a Send an Email (V2) action to a person in HR. Unfortunately, this email appears in my outlook mailbox within "sent items" including the attachment.
--> question is: what are my options to keep the file secure and hidden from myself? Using service accounts? Deleting the email from my sent items folder? Or can the flow be initialized under another user in the first place? I fear that this will be the end of my otherwise very helpful workflow :(
Thanks for the feedback and glad you liked the video.
Understanding JSON and working with expressions is key. I will also recommend the following playlist for learning expressions - czcams.com/play/PLN-cZRQeAiDVQ-6ZWGr43yyTcpu6mUgrR.html
Just incorporating your approval steps here into my flow and gotten an error at the "approval" step. Error message of "BadRequest. The request failed. Error code: 'InvalidApprovalCreateRequestAssignedToMissing'. Error Message: 'Required field 'assignedTo' is missing or empty.'." My assigned to field is using the varApproved variable according to your video. Not sure where it went wrong.
Also would like to add that you've been my Power Automate savior. Especially to those without much IT/coding knowledge, your video has been super helpful so far.... Cheers mate!
I will have to look at your flow in action to provide guidance. I would recommend posting your issue/query with screenshots on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com
Thanks
👍
I started watching all your videos…it really helped me so much in learning power apps and flows…I would like to request you to show how can we log history for multiple approves…I mean like parallel approvera
Will add it to my backlog but this is the first request on this topic. I will need a lot more requests on this topic to give this a higher priority.
Thanks Reza
Most welcome
Great video Reza, so helpful - however I have a question that was not answered here, maybe you have in another video? How can we configure the approvers from the SharePoint Site owners group?
To get SharePoint group users, check czcams.com/video/WT08hJ1zDyw/video.html
Great video! Very clear explanation! Question for you, what if all the approvers must approve the item?
Change the approval type to everyone must approve.
I have covered the approval types in detail here - czcams.com/video/4ZnI0_atYUo/video.html
Hi Reza, Thank you for creating this tutorial. It really helped me understand the concepts and build an automated flow. I would like to ask you: What is the type of "Approval Comments" Column in your SharePoint List. I enabled versioning on my SharePoint list, created a Column of type: "Multiple lines of text" and checked "Append changes to existing text" to ensure the history is logged correctly. All comments are logged correctly EXCEPT that there is my name and date appearing before each comment automatcially. Also, I can see "View Entries" link to see the history instead of the comments directly in SharePoint.
Can you kindly advice:
1. How did you setup your "Approval Comments" column in SharePoint List
2. How can I make sure that the comments are directly displayed in "Approval Comments" column, instead of "View Entries" hyperlink
Thank you for your extended support.
Approval comments columns is a simple multi line text column (no versioning turned on). In the flow, I ensure I append the previous comments prior to adding the latest comment.
View entries shows up if versioning is turned on.
May you share me the study part from Beginner to Pro Power Apps ? source and material please. All your video is amazing and clear.
Check my playlists czcams.com/users/RezaDorraniplaylists
Also check aka.ms/powerappsresources
Hi Reza. First of all, thank you very much for your videos, I have never seen such detailed intricacy in any tutorial I have encountered. I praise your great work and clear explanation throughout all your videos and tutorials. Simply wonderful! I have been able to create the same concept in your video, but through a document library to have dynamically grabbed approvers from a list I created in my SharePoint site. I have tested the workflow and it triggers correctly, with the status (Draft, Approved, Rejected) correctly marking, and the flow is running successfully when tested. However, I have noticed that the approval request notification reaches the approver multiple times, even after the approval or rejection is completed. Also, I noticed that, after the document is approved or rejected, its status returns to "Draft" in the sharepoint library to which this workflow is connected. Any idea on why this is the case? I see check marks (marking that the work ran successfully) as well. Your advice would be greatly supported.
Thanks for the feedback on the content. Much appreciated!
As for your issue, I will have to look at your flow in action to provide guidance. I would recommend posting your issue/query with screenshots on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com
Thoroughly enjoyed your videos @Reza--very informative and well-presented.
Following the steps for the people picker (also on 21:45), and not erroring out (yay!), but somehow only getting the first person in the people picker column. Wondering what I'm doing wrong and if anyone else has run into this behavior.
I will have to look at your flow in action to provide guidance. I would recommend to post your issue/query with screenshots on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com
@@RezaDorrani thank much. Just posted on there and tagged your kind self 😊
@@richardshaw8326 I go on forums only in my free time (very limited these days). Hopefully you get a response from the many experts there.
Hi, having the same issues as only getting 1st person in the people picker. have u resolved the issue ?
Check pinned comment thread for video.
Thank you Reza! Your videos are very helpful. I have looked through the approval videos and I cannot seem to find out how to prevent the "pending" status from updating to "approved" until all approvers have responded... I am working from a document library approval flow.
There are videos that show that.
Here is my full approvals playlist czcams.com/play/PLTyFh-qDKAiFUGTtwSwFT79Y7_jq_Aipe.html
Thank you, definitely your videos save a lot of time! I am working on my version of these ideas and have a doubt: In a two parallel approval process flow in TEAMS, if one branch reject the document, left some comments or suggestions in the document assessed. Once rejected, I would like to edit the document that triggered the flow when it was moved into Files tab in TEAMS. When edition is completed in TEAMS, how can I restart the approval flow but only with the person/branch, that initially rejected it? Thank you for your ideas! Greetings from Argentina!
Hi Jose, to restart flow there would have to be either some user action. Etiher doc updated or user triggers flow manually. In flow, in order to only go through approval for the failed process, you would have to maintain some status and check status and accordingly assign the approval actions.
Flow trigger conditions would also be key in such scenarios to ensure the flow is only triggered as and when needed.
czcams.com/play/PLTyFh-qDKAiGFDykUngHNNstTABnc-tLv.html
Great tutorial, thanks! Question: Is it possible to take this approvers tracking a step further? What would be really great is if you can track who needs to approve and whether or not they have done so.
The log in your example will only show after every one has approved. I'd like to track the progress straight away after initiating the approval: So something like:
Approver1: waiting approval
Approver2: approved
Approver3: waiting approval
Approver4: rejected
Perhaps you could do a video on that?
For that you would need to add a parallel branch to the approval action and start tracking who has taken an action.
Something similar to what I have done in this video - czcams.com/video/ZupQ0AbDl0I/video.html
Thank you so much for making this video. How can we handle the scenario that the flow has been running halfway, waiting for approver to approve but we changed the approver from A to B?
Once approval task is assigned to an approver, it can be reassigned by the approver of the task.
Updating approvers in configuration list, will not automatically update the tasks.
Hi Reza.. thank you for this wonderful series on approvals.. am just stuck on how to add emoji while updating comments back to list 😒😒
Just copy and paste emojis from the web
Great video, simple and very clear explain, how do you use emoji? What’s keys to input emoji?
I literally just copy pasted them from the web into the editor
Reza, thank you so much for making this helpful video. It is perfect for what I need right now. I really like the Approval Comments audit trail. I'm curious about the Approval Comments column settings. Are these the settings you used? multi-line, append changes to existing text on, enhanced rich text to support the emojis.
Great to hear such feedback.
The Approval comments column is a simple multi line text column (no append changes, no enhanced rich text). Simple multi line text column supports emojis.
@@RezaDorrani Thank you for providing this clarification Reza. I'm already capturing the necessary email address in my SharePoint list when a user submits a new request via the Power App so I'm hopeful this solution is going to work out well. I didn't know about the emojis and I see some other people are asking as well so I will add that I googled it and saw that you can access them by clicking the Windows icon on your keyboard and then period. Have a great day and please keep all of these wonderful videos coming. You are a great teacher 😊
@@teresaagustin5191 Thank you Teresa and good luck with your approval scenario.
Amazing video as always :) Is there any tutorial for creating the Sharepoint list as you have created, as I am new to the Sharepoint ?
All my demos are based on Microsoft List templates - resources.techcommunity.microsoft.com/microsoft-lists/
It is really a nice video👍...I hope you will help me in addressing the issue : how to manually initiate 'item creation' flow in this tutorial scenario if flow trigger fails due to server load or any other reasons(low plan subscription)
The flow trigger is "When an Item is created" - You can change it with "For a selected item" - Users would then have to manually start the flow.
Hi, first of all: great content in your cookbook, it's been a great help for me! I still have this question: do you have an example of dynamic approvers in this situation: Approver 1 approves, Approver 2 approvers, Approver 3 rejects => creator gets notification of rejection of Approver 3 and modifies the file => After reactivating the flow, Approver 1 and 2 does NOT get notification, only Approver 3... Txs for the reaction(s)
Thanks!
I do not have a specific video on your scenario.
Thanks a lot Reza for such a nice video.Could you let us know what would be the best approach for approval if we need to create purchase order requests in Bulk? Like, all purchase order details are in a file and all purchase orders listed in a file should go for approval one by one.
All purchase orders in a file? A file is a single entity.
Im thinking you need more of a document set functionality, where multiple files are loaded into a single doc set.
You can run approvals on doc sets as well.
I can add this to my backlog of video requests.
However, I would recommend you check on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com to see if someone has done something similar.
Dear Reza, many thanks for your fantastic approvals cookbook serie!
I have a question on the dynamic approvers... taking your SharePoint list as example, is it possible to select both Marketing and Finance as department. I have enabled multiple choices on the list, but I am not succesful in creating the Power Automate approval. thanks for your help as always! :)
Possible but the flow would have more loops. I would have to try it out to provide guidance.
I recommend posting your query with screenshots on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com/
I have exactly the same case where Multiple Departments will be selected each time dynamically- Is there any solution for that?
Hi Reza, i like the last part on "select" is there a way how to get the UPN from a people picker... keep in mind that not all users have emails
Great point. SharePoint people picker column returns email and claims token as well. You may have to play with the claims token to get your value.
Amazing video Raza! Thank you! A bit off-topic but is there a way an approver can recall/cancel their approval after approving the item, let’s say within 1 hour (let’s suppose in case something changes)?
Approver cannot recall or cancel a completed approval.
If a modification is made, then you can design the workflow to retrigger.
Check my approvals playlist - czcams.com/play/PLTyFh-qDKAiFUGTtwSwFT79Y7_jq_Aipe.html
Great tutorial! Thank you for this. I just have some questions regarding a scenario where there were multiple departments that needs to address the ticket and needs approval of each department. How is that possible?
Check my playlist on approvals. I have a lot of approval patterns covered.
czcams.com/play/PLTyFh-qDKAiFUGTtwSwFT79Y7_jq_Aipe.html
Hi Reza, thank you for all your videos - they are a guiding light to get going. I've tried copying this approval flow using the current Power Automate and it keeps inserting for each loops everywhere (when in your video they do not appear). The nested loops keep complaining and failing when I try to implement the dynamic people picker, towards the end of the video (the Select, Join and Set functions). Any advice on how to stop these loops?
Most welcome!
I have not come across this issue and hence not sure what is the cause for your issue. I recommend posting your issue/query with screenshots on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com
Thanks Reza very useful video! Can you share how to show in the same Approvers column both the user profile picture and the name? Thx
You mean in SharePoint? - You can use column formatting to show the approver names and their pictures - github.com/pnp/sp-dev-list-formatting/tree/master/column-samples/multi-person-facepile
Yo the man !
Thanks
Thx Raza for you continuous great effort but I have a question if you could explain for us how you create the assigned to column in the Help disk list.
It is a person type column of type multi select.
@@RezaDorrani thx sir, but sorry what I was need is category column and how you link it with the Departments.
@@hareshassanali3719 Its a lookup column to Departments list.
This is Awsome and great learning, please let me know where I have to begin with for mastering power Automation
Im not aware of any master power automate course. Currently, all I have is my videos and they are all grouped into playlists.
Great video! You mention that Approvers (multi-person) vs Approvers Text is easier to maintain but you reference 'Approvers Text' in the Flow. Why? I ask because I get a 'GraphLookUpRequestFailedError' in my Start and wait for approval when I attempt to reference the Approvers (multi-person) column instead.
Writing user emails in a text field - there is a chance of a mistake. I used that technique because its easy to demo. I have done 18 approval videos - in playlist on my channel. I have shown how to use multi select person type columns as well.
Hi Reza. I have a question. On 6mins 41s of your video, how did you add multiple names under the Approvers column? I have been trying to add under this column using “person or group” type and it could only allow me to add 1 name. Would really appreciate your help 🙏🏻 You’ve helped me alot for the rest of your vid’s man.
The person type column has a setting to "Allow Multiple". You will need to enable that in SharePoint column settings.
Hi Raza, Thanks for the video, Do you have any video with same scenario but for serial approvals flow ?
Check czcams.com/video/gb_FUeRjgg4/video.html
You would need to mix the concepts of both the videos.
Great tutorial!I have a question, why does the assigned to column in the sharepoint list stay blank?
It does not stay blank. I will have to look at your flow in action to provide guidance. I would recommend posting your issue/query with screenshots on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com
This helps me a lot.
Next is how to log each approval. Let's say I have only one approval step. But, 'all must approve'.
I need to log each approval date for each approver. It will go into a note column in my SP list. How do I do this?
Or can you recommend a different solution?
Basically, I'm building an approval process. Multi step. Your solution here works if each step has one approver. But I don't think it works if a step has more than one.
TIA Reza
I have done 18 approval based videos covering various scenarios. I would recommend checking my playlist on approvals.
Amazing video thank you. What about creating this flow for a document library? AUtomate asks to select a List (*), but what if I want to set it up for the library and not the list?
There are actions in flow related to files like "when a file is created in a folder".
I have a playlist on approvals that has scenarios with document libraries as well - czcams.com/play/PLTyFh-qDKAiFUGTtwSwFT79Y7_jq_Aipe.html
Thank you! This is more closer to my requirement..Just guide me on how to allow approver to add data in that form(edit access for few extra fields) currently it is only view access..when he got link of form by email along with approve & reject button..
I have a video I am working on which allows approvers to have their own forms.
Video will be out next week on my channel.
@@RezaDorrani Thank you so much Reza..Will be waiting for that video!
Hi..can you share the logic...when video will be out... really stucked...
@@madhurishirsat9303 Video will be out tomorrow. Not possible to post the video logic in chat here :)
@@RezaDorrani Right :D
I have been searching for such a video for several months ! Thank you so much.
My flow is a little bit different. My trigger is a manual and I'd like everyone to approve. I'd also like to keep trace of all approvals and comments. Is that possible? Does one of your flow explain that point? Thanks in advance for you help and thank you so much for all your explanations..
You are most welcome.
For your request - Can be done by parsing through the approval response. I do not have a specific video on that but if you go through all the videos in the approval series, you will be in a position to build one - czcams.com/play/PLTyFh-qDKAiFUGTtwSwFT79Y7_jq_Aipe.html
I do plan a few more videos in future for this series, I will add this request to the backlog.
@@RezaDorrani thank you so much for your answer. I'm going to have a look at most of your videos ;-)
Hi Reza, this question might be a little out of scope of this particular tutorial but could you explain how you removed the Approval Status and Approval Comments columns from the modern forms? Did you simply edit the columns and remove them entirely or did you use conditional formatting to hide these? Currently these fields are displaying on my forms and do not want the users to be able to edit these directly. I would prefer to still display these fields as readonly on the forms without explicitly hiding them. It would be nice to see the Approval Comments when viewing the item directly in addition to the view column.
I set those columns as hidden. Form formatting currently does not allow to set columns as read only inside form. You would have to use Power Apps for that.
Dear Reza, I have built my process exactly as yours, except that I had to put between [ ] brackets to solve the error 'is of type 'Object'. The result must be a valid array.' The variable can find the 3 approvers I have in a list, but the approval is only sent to one of them. And it is sent always for the approver I inserted later in the list. What am I doing wrong? Thanks for your attention, you are the best teacher.
You should not have to put the []. I will have to look at your flow in action to provide any guidance. I would recommend you post your issue/query with screenshots on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com
thank you for your effort , what if I need to select more than one category (multi-select )
I do not have a video reference on multi select category scenario.
I will recommend checking on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com/ in case someone has done something similar.
Great Tutorial, how did you add the emoji !!
Just copy pasted it from the web.
Thanks for the awesome video. I was doing an approval flow and I was using a hard text email in an excel table, so this is far better way. A question, how do you show the people's photo? I found that in the modern view you can't have it and you need to switch to the classic version. I think you are using the modern view, so how do you do it?
Using PnP column formatting samples.
github.com/pnp/sp-dev-list-formatting/tree/master/column-samples
I also have a video coming out tomorrow which will be on interest for SharePoint folks - czcams.com/video/y_bdjMRHVmY/video.html
@@RezaDorrani thanks for that resource! I didn't know it, and there is a lot more. The new video is also great!
I wasn't able to find the exact json code that you used; could you, please, share the code you use?
Thanks again!
@@GIO200011 github.com/pnp/sp-dev-list-formatting/tree/master/column-samples/person-roundimage-format
BRAVO!!! really good video. one question. If you need to assign an approval action to SH security group . you can read using SH API all the user and get an emails? is there another simple way?
You would have to query the SharePoint RESP API.
I have a video coming which will show how to do so. So stay tuned :)
Currently, using rest api is the only simple way.
Hi Reza, I have a question for you. Is there a way to retrieve a people picker column value after it was entered by a pre-approval person. So the login I have in mind is like this - Request is created in the Microsoft list > A Pre-Approver (Always remains the same) will receive an email, after his/her review they go into the list and assign it to his team members by picking from the people picker column inside the same list > The Pre-Approver Approves the request > Then the flow retrieves the people picker person's email address and send it for his approval> and so and so forth. No second list used in this process. How would the flow look like? do I need to the get items card and filter query ? Sorry if its too long of a request. Thank you for reading.
You would need to get the approver info from the same list item from which the flow is being triggered. You can get it from trigger action itself or filter query to get the info.
I would have to recreate your scenario or look at your flow in action to provide any guidance related to the steps needed. I would recommend you give it a try and in case of issues post it with screenshots on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com
Hi Reza.. Thanks you for this great Video. How did you make the "Approval Comments" field hidden when a new item is created/ when a new entry is added?
Hi Calvin, that needs to be done in SP.
You can customize SP list forms and hide fields.
docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/declarative-customization/list-form-conditional-show-hide
@@RezaDorrani Thank you very much it worked! :)
Is there a way to do an Approval flow where the person who creates the item can select the approves who need to review. We have a scenario where a user has to submit a User Access Request (UAR). The UAR needs to be approved by his/her/their supervisor and possibly their Unit Chief and possibly up to 1 or more additional Unit Chiefs. Some users need to get access to a different unit's laboratory space and that required separate approvals for each. We are looking for a way to automate this process and NOT have to get wet signatures on a form. The issue I am having with the process you show here is sometimes there are alternate people who ACT as Unit Chiefs, temporarily but only for a week or two and I don't want to have to constantly update names in the list. Is there a way using Power Automate to allow the user to edit the flow in process and SELCT the name of the approver. .This was possible in SharePoint 2010 and 2013 Approval flows.
I have done many videos on approvals covering a lot of scenarios - user selects approvers, dynamic approval patterns and more.
Check czcams.com/play/PLTyFh-qDKAiFUGTtwSwFT79Y7_jq_Aipe.html
Hi Reza,
Thank you for this video. This scenario shows only one approval (first to respond). In the department share point list, how do I put in 2 or 3 email addresses. The first approval needs to be approved before it moves to the second approval and then the third.
Welcome!
I have done approval videos covering various scenarios. I will recommend checking my playlist on Approvals.
Amazing video Reza, I do have one question, I followed all your steps, however, the approvers are not able to open the pdf attachment, any tips for that?
I do not send any attachment as part of my video but that can easily be done. My guess is the attachment data that you are passing is not in the correct format.
I would recommend you post your issue/query with screenshots on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com
Thanks for the response, I have one more question. Can we freeze the first few columns in the Share point list, it helps full if we have so many fields. Can we make it work if we add List to MS Teams ?
Freeze columns is an item on the SharePoint roadmap. I don't think you can currently freeze multiple columns.
If it works in SP lists, then it will work in MS Teams as well since it is the same list behavior.
Hi Reza, thank you so much for this video, what do I need to do if I want to the form to automatically send to the email that the user entered in the list for approval? (In my list, I setup a column for the user to input their manager's email). I appreciate your help.
Simply put that email in assigned to of approval action if they need to be part of approval process. I have a full playlist on approvals which covers a lot of different scenarios. You can take a look.
Reza, just curious why using Get itemS vs Get item for your Department? How the Select Join (SQL vibes) would be impacted if Get item was used instead?
Thanks for pointing this out. Get Item requires the ID of the item. Since I have used a lookup column, You could use the Get Item action and pass the lookup column ID value.
Get items - returns an array
Get item - returns a single item
Reza, Fantastic Video. This video helped me create the structure for my Flow. One big difference in my flow, is that I have an Approvers Column (Renamed from your Category Column) and in my Start and Wait for an approval action, I use "Approve/Reject - Everyone must approve" because in my organization, all people from the associated list must approve, instead of just one. - SO, here is my question. I noticed that after everyone approves (such as Me (Micah) and Trinita), the Approval Comments field will show the Green checkmark and say Approved by Micah, if I was the last approver, or Approved by Trinita, if she was the last person to approve the request. How would I get this field to show when BOTH people have approved? - OR is there a way to create a new Column instead that shows who has approved and who we are waiting on. Example - John submits new request, and selects my KM Category, which has 3 people in it, Micah, Trinita, and Bob. If Micah approves the document, but we are waiting on Trinita and Bob still, I would like my list to show this somehow. ANYHOW. That is my true goes, so the person who submits this document can come to the list to see who we are waiting on.
You would have to query Dataverse to get that information since all approval info is stored in Dataverse.
At end of my approval reminder video, I show how to do check which approvers have not responded czcams.com/video/ZupQ0AbDl0I/video.html.
Can you please make the video for Check- In project and publish if the projects are checked-out using power automation ?
Will add it to my backlog but this is the first request on this topic. I will need a lot more requests on this topic to give this a higher priority.
@@RezaDorrani Is there any paid course taught by you where i can learn many things because your teaching techniques awesome.
Hello Reza,
Thank you for all you do ❤
I'm trying to build a Dynamic Approval flow, Similar to the one you've shown here.
However, My flow filter in Get items has 3 filters" (Department eq 'DEPARTMENT VALUE') and (Country eq 'COUNTRY VALUE') and (RiskLevel eq 'RISK LEVEL VALUE') ".
When i test the flow, the slow doesnt get inside the "Apply to each" action and gives an error at "Start and wait for approval"(There's an error in your flow preventing the creation of Approvals. Use the link below to learn more about the errors with your flow and/or environment configuration.)
I'm unsure what I'm doing wrong. (I'm trying Build an approval flow based on 3 filters criteria, The approval goes to a person based on what country, Department and Risk level the user chooses)
Please advise 😅
I have not come across any issues with this and would have to reproduce your scenario/issue to know what can be done. I would recommend posting your issue/query with screenshots on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com in case someone has experienced something similar.
@@RezaDorrani Thank you Reza, Let me try posting it in the Forum with Screenshots. :)
Reza instead of sending all tasks to everyone at a time, how do we send a task to the first person in the approval and if he approves then the second and so as to the last in the approval column. Then I will update the outcome and decide if the workflow should continue or not.
I have done several videos including various approval patterns.
Check my approval playlist czcams.com/play/PLTyFh-qDKAiFUGTtwSwFT79Y7_jq_Aipe.html
Thanks for all of your videos. Request your help to resolve the issue: In case of dynamic approvers, my flow requires any one approval, but I want to notify the other approvers that the task is picked up and its in progress. Any directions, will be of great help.
There is no option to take ownership of a task. If your approval type is first to respond, the first person to respond, their decision will be taken as the outcome. If other approvers respond, they will receive a notification that a task is complete. You can also send them a notification email from the flow if required.
@@RezaDorrani Thanks for your reply.
@@RezaDorrani I have created a workflow for document approval. Once the document is approved it moves to different folder for better tracking. Now, I want to update the workflow with three folders, but here I am not able to establish or get the link of the file to add action from second folder. Any pointers please.
@@sadashivappagirish7329 Best pointer would be the community forums - powerusers.microsoft.com/
Hi, Rena! I have a question regarding the dynamic approves. How to get the approves emails from the Department approver list when a user picked multiple departments, especially more than five departments are selected ? The ‘Filter Query’ only has ‘Equal’ and ‘Start with’ foyers, it doesn’t have a ‘Contain’ filter. Thank you in advance!
I do not have a video reference on this scenario and would have to try it out to provide guidance. I recommend checking or posting your query on forums in case someone has done something similar powerusers.microsoft.com
Thanks, Reza. I'm having an issue with the select operation when getting the email from the array. It's outputting null even though the input information looks correct. The flow runs without error but doesn't finish down the pipe due to the missing email I'm trying to retrieve.
I will have to look at your flow in action to provide guidance. I would recommend posting your issue with screenshots on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com
What if you needed to lookup approves based on more than one value in the title column? Let's say the user is allowed to choose any combination of departments so that it may be Marketing and IT. So, you would have to return all emails from both departments. How would that change the flow?
You would need to query all those department approvers and load them all into the approvers array
I do not have a video reference on this scenario and would have to try it out to provide guidance. I would recommend posting your issue/query with screenshots on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com
Hey Reza, how do you determine whether using a list or document library? I want to set up dynamic approval workflows for construction submittals but am unsure where to start from a list/library perspective.
learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1195170/is-a-sharepoint-list-and-document-library-the-same
Thanks so much Reza❤️
I'm requesting you to clear my doubts, I have 4 different approvals in single flow were all 4 has dynamic multiple approvars taken from SP. I have intialized variable and used append to array variable and joined it with ; . But here the challenge is flow runs for first time with out any issue and on second run, append to variable is taking different values. can you please assist me on this ?
I would have to look at the flow and debug. Not possible on this forum.
I would recommend posting your query alongwith screenshots on the community forum - powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/General-Power-Automate/bd-p/MPAForum
Hi Reza, One complex situation(for me). What if for each category there are more than 1 approver but you will not reach them at one go, you will reach them one by one which means if 1st approver doesn't approve then you have to reach the second approver, in this case for each department you will have two columns(1st approver email id and 2nd approver email id). In this case what should be the filer query and how to pick correct email id dynamically?
If i have to clearly explained, let assume in the department list you have Department Category, Issue category and email address which means for HR department for employee relation issue you have to reach Reza and Business process issue you have to reach Sara.
line items created for each employee with employee id, against each employee id need to check which department, what issue and if Sara doesn't respond for 7 days it has to each Reza for issue resolution. Its not necessary for each and every employee only Reza and Sara are solution providers, every employee may have different solution provider/Approver.
You can set approval types as everyone must approve. All approvers will get task in one go. I have done several approval videos (approvals playlist on my channel) with various scenarios.
If any scenario is not available, I will recommend to check on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com
@@RezaDorrani Thanks for the response Reza. May be i didn't mention clearly my point. Pls help in the below scenario,
In the video, department list had category in one column and approvers email id in one column but in my scenario i have Issues category in one column, owner category in one column and each owner has email id which are in two different columns. filter query has to match the issue category first and then owners category second and then finally based on owners category it has to pick the email id from other columns.
If first owner didn't respond then only the email has to trigger the second owner, below is the table/list with some other example
Issue category Owners category Supplier email ID Buyer Email id Escalation
PO issue Supplier xxxxx@....com xxxxx@...com Reza@....com
GR Issue Buyer xxxxxx@....com Reza@....com
In both PO and GR issue the owner is mentioned and the fist email will be triggered the respective owner, so the filter query for the first email has to do the lookup on issue category and owners category and then pickup correct column which has email id, if the respective owner doesn't respond within certain days then email has to reach next person. From the table...for PO issue the original owner is supplier but if supplier doesn't respond then it will reach buyer and if buyer also doesnt respond then it will reach the escalation party.
@@infy25 Tough to understand the use case here on chat. I would recommend to post your issue with screenshots on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com/
Nice video - pls explain how you get the colour and oval shape on the Status in Sharepoint
Those are emojis. Try windows+. to open the emoji pane.
@@RezaDorrani Thanks - I meant the colours you have on the ticket status in the list view
@@minocat23 That is using column formatting in SharePoint.
Thanks for this helpful video! how would one go about grabbing the approvers from the department list if they selected multiple departments? I have a form with multiple-choice options for affected departments and was wondering if it's a way to query the department list for multiple selections.
Thanks.
I do not have a video reference on this scenario and would have to try it out to provide guidance.
Idea would be to loop through the multi select list in an apply to each loop and query department list and load all that information into a variable.
I will recommend checking on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com/ in case someone has done something similar.
@@RezaDorrani Thank you!
Hi Reza, Really Great tutorial. Thanks. is it possible to update item (approver comments, assigned to .etc ) without changing version of a document in Dynamic sequential document approval process in SharePoint library.
When you update columns of a doc library, it does create a new version.
@@RezaDorrani thanks Reza for your prompt replay. is it possible to update coulmns using "send to http Request to sharepoint library" ! without changing version history..!! could you share a video link for "send to http request" if you have. I would like to create a coulmn to view running status of a document approval process (eg . "Aassigned to" - approver name for each level of dynamic sequential workflow) .
Probably but not something I have tried. Il recommend posting your query on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com/ in case someone has done something similar.
Now that we have dynamic approvers, how do we add sequential worflow.
Lets say when the first approver rejects, the next approver should not get an approval request.
I created one flow but it brings this error: The execution of template action 'Apply_to_each_2' failed: the result of the evaluation of 'foreach' expression '@variables('varDepartmentalApprovers')' is of type 'String'. The result must be a valid array.
I have done videos on sequential approvals. Please check my playlist on approvals
I've watched this video soo many times now! Thank you for your awesome work.
I have created an approval flow that is based on the teachings in this video. However, I have 2 differences. 1. I have multiple approvers and 2. While the approval is running, I would like to log, each approval response as they come in. I am not able to find a video that covers this scenario. Can you help?
Thank you for watching many of videos many times.
I may have covered this in one of my approval videos.
Check my playlist - czcams.com/play/PLTyFh-qDKAiFUGTtwSwFT79Y7_jq_Aipe.html
If not in my playlist, then I would recommend you check on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com/ in case someone has done something similar.
@@RezaDorrani can you recall which of your videos cover this?
@@elisecrooks8997 I do not. Done so many on approvals to be honest. I may have done it.