Lesson 3.1 · M3 Build Approval Flows

Approval Flow Concepts

How Power Automate's built-in Approvals connector turns a "someone needs to say yes or no" business process into a flow with a proper branch and audit trail.

8 min read

The shape of every approval flow

Labs 3 and 4 build one end-to-end example, but the pattern generalizes: something is created or changes (the trigger) → a designated approver is asked to approve or reject (the approval action) → the flow branches on their answer (a condition) → each branch updates the record to reflect the outcome.

Approval types

Approve/Reject – First to respond — any one of the assigned approvers can resolve it; used in Lab 4.
Approve/Reject – Everyone must approve — the flow waits until all assigned approvers respond.
Custom Responses – First to respond / Everyone must respond — lets you define response options beyond a binary approve/reject.

Where approvals show up

An approval request isn't just an email — it lands in the requester's and approver's Approvals tab inside Power Automate (and in the Power Automate mobile app), alongside an email notification. That's why Lab 4 has you check the Approvals tab directly rather than waiting on email.

The condition action

Once the approval action completes, its Outcome dynamic value ("Approve" or "Reject") is available to later steps. A Condition action compares that value and splits the flow into a True branch and a False branch — each can contain its own independent sequence of actions, which is exactly how Lab 4 sets the task's status differently depending on the answer.

Why SharePoint here? Approvals commonly sit on top of a list or table that represents work items — a SharePoint Tasks list, in this course's case. The approval flow reads the item that was just created and writes the decision straight back to it, so the list itself becomes the system of record for approval status.