Now that the workforce is trending towards remote/hybrid, paper pushing approval processes are out. How do we accommodate for our users outside of the office walls? How do we keep record of something that isn’t best served in an email or Teams chat? (Think PTO request, new hire setup, annual policy review, etc.) Approvals are a versatile M365 component that streamline the signoff process but there are many things to consider before making your approval process electronic. First, before thinking about the technology (i.e. Power Apps and/or Power Automate), a discovery conversation is necessary to construct an efficient, repeatable process and we will touch on the main points for this. Next, we will examine the four pillars of the Approval lifecycle:
1. Creation of the task – will OOTB Approvals suffice or do we need to design our own custom process with Power Automate?
2. Format the notification – how will we let our approvers know they have a deliverable? The most popular options include email and/or adaptive cards and we will cover the major differences in formatting.
3. Monitor items in progress – how do we see active Approvals? Do we need to build in reminders for our task?
4. Document the results - how do we share the results of our Approval and more importantly, record the outcome?
Lastly, we’ll look at an alternative to Approvals using Power Apps and discuss which business processes would fit best with this model.