Power Automate Start and Wait for an Approval

While working on various business approval processes, I realized that almost 90% of our applications use Power Automate approvals. And in most of those cases, we depend on the Start and Wait for an Approval action from the standard Approvals connector because it works well in most scenarios.

In this Microsoft Power Automate tutorial, I will show you how to use the Start and Wait for an Approval action effectively in your flows. We’ll also look at:

• Power Automate Standard Approvals Connector
• What the Start and Wait for an Approval action is and its Parameters
• How to handle approval outcomes using conditions in Power Automate

Power Automate Standard Approvals Connector

The Standard Approvals connector in Power Automate runs the entire approval process. It helps you create approvals, send them to the right people, and track their responses from start to finish. Whether you need a basic one-step approval or a more complex multi-level workflow, this connector gives you all the tools you need in one place.

The Standard Approvals connector has four approval actions in it:

1. Create an approval: Starts an approval request but does not wait for the response. The flow continues to the next action immediately.
2. Wait for approval: Pauses the flow until a specific approval request (identified by Approval ID) is completed. Useful when you created the approval earlier in the flow.
3. Start and wait for an approval: Starts an approval and waits until the approver responds before moving to the next step. This is the most commonly used approval action.
4. Start and wait for an approval of text: Sends an approval request with custom text-based response options instead of the default Approve/Reject choices. The flow waits for the user to select one of the provided text responses.

Power Automate Start and Wait for an approval Action Parameters

Below are the parameters that can be present at the start and wait for an approval action of Power Automate:

1. Approval Type: Power Automate provides five different approval types, and you can choose the one that best fits your business process:
   • Approve/Reject—Everyone must approve: This type requires each approver to respond to the approval request. If all the approvers approve, the outcome will be Approved; if one user rejects, the outcome will be Rejected.
   • Approve/Reject—First to respond: In this type, the approval outcome will be the first response from any assigned approvers.
   • Custom Responses – Wait for all responses: In this approval type, we can provide custom options for the assigned person to select other than Approve/Reject. Here, it will wait for all the responses to complete the request.
   • Custom Responses—Wait for one response: This is similar to the above approval type, which allows us to provide custom approval options. If any of the approvers submit a response, the flow will proceed to the next steps.
   • Sequential Approval: This option lets you send approval requests in sequence, with each approver following the previous one. Approver 2 only receives the request after Approver 1 responds, and so on.

2. Title: Enter a title for the approval request, either manually or from dynamic content.
3. Assigned to: Add the approver’s email address (you can include multiple emails separated by semicolons).
4. Details: Provide the description or details of what needs approval.
5. Item link: Add a link to the item that the approver should review.
6. Item link description: Provide a short description for the item link.

Now, click on Showall to display all the advanced parameters:

7. Requestor: This is the person who sends the approval request. By default, it’s the user who created the flow, but you can change it by entering another email address.
8. Enable notifications: Controls whether the approver receives email and push notifications. It is enabled by default.
9. Enable reassignment: When set to No, the approver cannot reassign the approval to someone else. By default, this option is Yes.
10. Attachments: Allows you to include files or links along with the approval request.

Power Automate Start and Wait for an Approval Example

In the Product – Discount SharePoint list, whenever a new item is created, an approval process should automatically start. The approval request must be sent to the designated approver, who needs to respond within 7 days.

Based on the approval outcome, the system should update the “Discount Approved” column to Yes if the request is approved, and to No if it is rejected or the approver does not respond within the specified time.

Follow the steps below:

1. Add the When an item is created trigger to your automated cloud flow in Power Automate, and configure it by selecting the appropriate Site Address and List Name.

2. Add the Start and wait for an approval action, and provide the required properties:
   • Approval type: Select Approve/Reject – First to respond
   • Title: Use the Title field from dynamic content
   • Assigned to: Add the approver’s email from dynamic content
   • Details: Enter the description for the approval request
   • Item link: Use the Link to item from dynamic content

Now, I wanted the approval request to remain active for only 7 days, so I configured the Timeout setting in the Start and Wait for an Approval action.

3. To do this, open the action, go to Settings, and enter the timeout value in ISO 8601 format under the Action Timeout option as shown below.

4. Next, add a condition to check the approval outcome, whether the response is Approved or Rejected. Based on this result, the flow will update the corresponding value in the SharePoint list item.

Outcome is equal to Approve

5. Under the True branch, add the Update item action to update the SharePoint list item with the approved discount. Configure the required fields, such as the Site Address and List Name.
   • Id: Take the Id column from the dynamic content.
   • Title: Choose the Title column from the dynamic content.
   • Discount Approved?: Choose the value to Yes from the drop-down.

6. Under the False branch, add the Update item action to update the Discount Approved value. Provide the fields such as Site Address, List Name, ID, and Title using dynamic content.
   • Discount Approved? : Set the value to No from the drop-down options.

Now that the flow is ready, save it and run it manually once. To trigger the flow, add a new item to the SharePoint list, as shown in the image below.

The approval request will then be sent to the reviewer, and they will receive it as shown in the figure below.

When the flow runs successfully, and the approval outcome is Approved, the flow will update the Discount Approved value to Yes.

If the approval outcome is Rejected, the flow will update the Discount Approved value to No, as shown in the image below.

Handle Approval Outcomes using Conditions in Power Automate

To check the approval outcome in a Power Automate flow, let’s walk through a simple example. I’ve created a SharePoint list called Products Ordered Details with a few columns, as shown below.

In this SharePoint list, whenever a user adds a new item, if the Number of products ordered is greater than or equal to 3, an approval request with custom discount options should be automatically sent to the product reviewer.

To do this, follow the steps below:

1. Create an Automate cloud flow, choose When an item is created trigger. Set the parameters like Site Address and List Name.

2. After that, add a Condition control action to provide a condition.

Choose Value	Operator	Choose Value
Number of products ordered	is greater than or equal to	3

3. Under the True branch, add the Start and wait for an approval action. This will send an approval request to the product reviewer, and you can set custom response options based on your discount rules.
   • Approval Type: Select Custom Responses – wait for one response.
   • Response Options: Provide the response options according to your requirements manually.
   • Title: Give a title name for the approval request.
   • Assigned To: Choose Review By email from dynamic content.

4. Next, add the Send an email(V2) flow action to send an email to the person who added the item to the SharePoint list.
   • To: Choose Created By email from the dynamic content.
   • Subject: Provide a subject line about the email
   • Body: Format the email body with a message and Outcome from the dynamic content.

If you have taken response comments in the body from dynamic content, each loop will be added automatically.

Once your flow is ready, save it and run it manually for the first test. To trigger the flow, simply add a new item to your SharePoint list, as shown in the image below.

The image below shows the Approval request received by the Review By person:

The output will display the approval response comments when the flow runs successfully.

This is all about the approval response from the start and wait for an approval action of Power Automate.

In this article, I explained how to use the Start and Wait for an Approval action in Power Automate. Also, covered how to add custom approval responses in Power Automate.

You may also like:

• Send Approvals in Microsoft Teams Using Power Automate
• Sequential Approval Flow in Power Automate
• Add Attachments in Approval Using Power Automate
• Send Approval to SharePoint Group Members Using Power Automate
• Send Approval Email Using Power Apps Button