Approvals that live in email feel quick, right up until they don’t. Someone replies-all instead of replying, the approver is on holiday, or the “final” version of the document is not the one that got approved.

If you want to automate approval workflows, you’re usually trying to solve two business problems: speed (things stop getting stuck) and clarity (you can prove who approved what, and when).

Why email approvals slow down as you grow

Email works when a team is tiny and everyone sits in the same room. As soon as you have more people, more vendors, and more moving parts, email approvals create predictable friction:

  • No single source of truth. The request is in one thread, the file is in another place, and the decision is buried in someone’s inbox.
  • No clear next step. If the approver asks a question, the process turns into a side conversation and the original request stalls.
  • No consistent routing. When the “usual approver” is out, people guess who should approve, or they wait.
  • Weak audit trail. You can search email, but it’s not designed to be a clean approvals record.

Automating approvals is really about making the handoff predictable. You want the request to arrive the same way every time, the decision to be captured the same way every time, and the next step to happen automatically.

What a “good” automated approval looks like

Before you touch any tool, decide what “done” looks like. For most growing businesses, a solid approval workflow has these traits:

  • One place to submit. A form, a SharePoint list item, a ticket, or a document in a library.
  • One clear approver (or group). The request goes to the right person without guesswork.
  • A tracked decision. Approved or rejected, with comments.
  • An automatic next step. Notify the requester, update status, and move the work forward.
  • A visible history. You can pull up the record later without digging through inboxes.

Microsoft’s Approvals experience is designed for exactly this, approvals created in Power Automate can show up in the approvals centre and can be actioned from email or Teams, depending on how you send them.

Start small: pick one approval that’s currently painful

If you try to automate every approval in the business at once, you’ll get stuck in edge cases. Pick one workflow with a clear trigger and a clear finish line.

Good first candidates:

  • Purchase approvals. “Anything over $X needs manager approval.”
  • Vendor onboarding. “Finance and IT both need to sign off before we create accounts.”
  • Document approvals. Policies, proposals, client-facing statements of work.
  • Access requests. “Grant access to this SharePoint site” with a recorded approver.

Bad first candidates:

  • Anything that changes every week. If the steps are still evolving, you will automate confusion.
  • Anything that depends on lots of judgement calls. Automation is best when the handoff is consistent.

A practical build: SharePoint + Power Automate approvals

Here’s a simple, reliable pattern we use a lot because it fits how many businesses already work in Microsoft 365.

Step 1: Create one intake point

Pick one:

  • SharePoint list item. Great for requests like purchases, onboarding, access, and internal changes.
  • SharePoint document library. Great for “approve this document” workflows.

Keep the fields simple. For a list-based approval, you usually need:

  • Requester name
  • What is being approved (short description)
  • Amount / impact (if relevant)
  • Approver (person or group)
  • Status (New, Pending approval, Approved, Rejected)

Step 2: Build the flow that starts the approval and waits

In Power Automate, you can create a cloud flow that triggers when a list item is created (or when a document is added), then uses an approvals action such as “Start and wait for an approval”. That “wait” part matters because the flow can pause until the decision is made, then continue with the right next steps.

A clean “first version” flow is:

  • Trigger. When a SharePoint item is created.
  • Start approval. Send to the selected approver.
  • If approved. Update the item status to Approved and notify the requester.
  • If rejected. Update the item status to Rejected and notify the requester with the comments.

If you’re approving documents in a SharePoint library, Microsoft also provides guidance for setting up document approval flows directly from the library’s Integrate menu.

Step 3: Add the guardrails that stop the usual mess

This is where most approval automations succeed or fail.

  • A reminder and escalation. If there’s no response after (say) 2 business days, remind the approver. After 4 business days, notify a backup approver.
  • A “changes requested” path. Rejection is not always “no”. Sometimes it’s “fix this and resubmit”. Add a status for Changes requested so the requester knows what to do.
  • A rule for who can approve. Approvals should be assigned to a role, not a person’s memory. If you can, route to a group or a defined approver field.
  • A simple audit trail. Store the approver’s name, decision, date, and comments back onto the list item (or into your system of record). Power Automate also maintains run history, and Microsoft provides options to manage run metadata and activity logging.

Make it safer than email, without making it harder

Approvals often involve money, access, or changes to systems. Email-only approvals are a common target for business email compromise, where an attacker impersonates a vendor or executive and pushes an urgent payment or change.

You don’t need to turn your approval workflow into a fortress. You do want a couple of sensible habits built into the process:

  • Out-of-band verification for payment changes. If a bank detail changes or a payment request feels unusual, verify using a known phone number or an existing vendor contact method. The FBI specifically recommends verifying payment and purchase requests by calling or confirming in person when possible.
  • Require comments for exceptions. If someone approves an over-budget purchase, have the workflow capture the reason.
  • Keep approvals tied to the record. When the approval is attached to the list item or document, you’re less likely to approve the wrong version.

Two mistakes we see all the time

A little honesty here saves a lot of rework.

  • Automating a broken process. If nobody agrees on the approval threshold, the approver, or what “approved” means, the workflow will just make the confusion faster. Decide the rule first.
  • Leaving the flow owned by one person. If the creator leaves the business, you don’t want your approvals to become “that thing only Sarah can fix”. Power Automate supports sharing flows with multiple owners, and Microsoft has guidance on changing the owner of a cloud flow.

A good next step

If you pick one painful approval, define the rule in plain English, and build a simple flow that captures the decision and moves the work forward, you will feel the difference quickly.

If you would like help to automate approval workflows in Microsoft 365 (Power Automate, SharePoint, Teams, and the right guardrails), the Flexnet Networks team can help you design and roll it out.

Sources