The following is a guest post by Microsoft's Michael Trachtenberg.
Organizations large and small require employees and even external entities to read, review, and accept terms. This is can be part of on-boarding, regulation and compliance acceptance, or even terms of service.
Leveraging Microsoft’s PowerPlatform and Office 365 we can securely store policy related documents, use Flow to automate document acknowledgement and attestation, use PowerApps to provide a mobile friendly app to review and accept policy documents, and finally we can build beautiful dashboards to visualize that status of a given document acceptance process.
We can start with a simple Teams site back ended with a SharePoint library that acts as secure file repository.
We can allow policy managers to control the data through edit permissions and groups to allow them to enter required users\groups whom must attest or acknowledge specific policies.
Leveraging this repository, we can build a Microsoft Flow that will allow the same policy managers to send out acknowledgement and attestation requests.
First, we must build the Flow that follows a simple process of: Trigger->Get Information->Perform action
The trigger we are using is executed when the manager selects a file in the document library, this flow can be executed on a specific document.
Can this be automated? Yes it can.
With the file selected and the Flow triggered we need to gather information on the selected file and build a list (Array) of all of the users\groups to send the acknowledgment\attestation request to.
With that information gathered we perform the action on each member of the array. This will execute the actual acknowledgment\attestation process for each user\group that the manager has added to the SharePoint list.
There are 2 parts happening here, first we are writing an item to a sperate SharePoint list. This will act as a log for active requests and historical acknowledgment\attestation acceptance.
Second, we are using a custom approval that will ask the user to “Attest” to the policy or “Deny” it. We then use a switch to build parallel processes for the different outcomes. We can of course allow more or less outcomes.
Each person that is being processed can receive a Teams message or email with a card that has a link to the policy and their respective options.
If the user selects “Attest” as part of the approval process, the SharePoint log list is updated, and that user’s process ends.
If the user selects “Deny” they will be engaged with a bot to discuss with them their concerns as to why they have denied the policy. Their transcript with the bot can then be logged or sent to a manager to discuss the policy.
We can then review the SharePoint Log to review the status of any given policy.
Leveraging Microsoft Power BI we can visualize this data to better interpret it. We can also setup alerts and notifications for requests that are older than x days.
Lastly, we can leverage Microsoft PowerApps to build a robust web\mobile friendly application that allows people to see all their policies.
Within the details of a specific item, we can acknowledgment\attestation right through the app!
And then get confirmation of acceptance.
So, leveraging all of the components of the PowerPlatform we can build complete end to end solutions that help to automate business process and simplify the way we work.
Want to learn more? Michael Trachtenberg will be presenting a walk-through of building the solution live online on October 14. So grab the calendar invite and bring your questions! 🙂
- Grab the calendar invite (.ics file) here for the session or click here October 14th at 12 noon eastern.
Thanks for visiting – Michael Gannotti LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
Michael Gannotti
Microsoft
