Building Power Automate Approvals | Power Automate Tutorial

  In this session, Jonathan Silva focuses on mastering Power Automate approvals. The tutorial continues with the same dataset used by Brian to create an amazing Canvas app. This time, the focus is on starting a process to send out new tasks for approval, allowing managers or supervisors to review and sign off on tasks.

Choosing the Right Data Source

Jonathan emphasizes the importance of selecting the right data source for monitoring exact record creation. Excel is not ideal for this purpose, so alternatives like SharePoint, Microsoft Lists, SQL Server, and Dataverse are recommended.

Setting Up the Data Source

The tutorial uses a SharePoint list as the data source, which is recreated from an Excel file. The SharePoint list contains project tasks with columns like project task ID, project lookup, and assigned employee.

Creating Lookups and People Picker Columns

Jonathan explains how to create lookups in SharePoint to match records between tables. He also demonstrates the use of the people picker column to assign tasks to employees and retrieve their information.

Starting the Approval Process

The approval process begins when a new task is added to the SharePoint list. Power Automate captures the task details and sends them to a manager or supervisor for review. The manager can then approve or reject the task in one view.

Creating the Approval Workflow

1. Navigate to https://make.powerautomate.com and create an automated cloud flow.
2. Select the trigger "When an item is created" for the SharePoint list.
3. Get the project details using the "Get item" action.
4. Retrieve the manager's information using the "Get manager" action from Office 365 users.
5. Create the approval using the "Start and wait for an approval" action.
6. Set the approval type to "Approve/Reject - First to respond".
7. Fill in the approval details, including the project and task information.

Handling Approval Outcomes

Jonathan demonstrates how to handle approval outcomes using conditional statements. If the task is approved, the SharePoint list is updated to reflect the approval. If rejected, the list is updated accordingly.

Testing the Approval Workflow

The tutorial concludes with testing the approval workflow by adding a new task and verifying the approval process. The task details are updated in SharePoint based on the approval outcome.

Conclusion

Jonathan Silva's tutorial provides a comprehensive guide to building Power Automate approvals. By following these steps, users can create efficient approval workflows that integrate seamlessly with their data sources.

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