Forum Discussion
Approval Flow - Approval Status - why can't this be updated?
I am hoping i am missing something! Just looking at moving approval workflows from SharePoint workflows to Microsoft Flow. From what i have read the flow cannot update the standard 'Approval Status' field in a library.
Is this right? Does this mean that when the Approver receives a lovely email with Approve | Reject call to actions, that when they select either, this cannot reflect in the 'Approval Status' field? This would mean an Approver would have to approve/reject the document from the library?
27 Replies
- I am super excited! Finally, this now works. I can now set up a flow to use the standard 'document' Content Approval. Well done Team Flow!
Hi there Tanya Denton...can you provide in some detail how you got this to work? I've been pulling my hair out trying to get the Approval Status flag to change depending on the response sent out from the Flow approval e-mail, and I can't seem to get it to work. I am using the 'Set content approval status' that Michal Golan mentioned, but it doesn't seem to work.
What am I doing wrong?!?! :)
Hello everyon ~ jdiorio
I'm still struggling to get Flow to work with the OOTB SharePoint content approval functionality. I have a Flow now the does include the (not-at-all-obvious) Get File Metadata action so that I can get the right Etag and reference it in the Set Content Approval action. However, the action just does not work. Here is the explanation I posted on the Flow community board:
I have a Flow running on a SPO list with content approval enabled. There is no approval task -- only the action to Set Content Approval. My flow has to update some metadata, which of course sets the Approval Status to Draft. I thought I could use the Set Content Approval action in Flow to force the status back to Approved. (I do have the Get File Metadata action in place immediately beforehand and the Etag is set.) But I get this error:
{"error": {"code": 502,"source": "flow-apim-msmanaged-na-westus2-01.azure-apim.net","clientRequestId": "ae99f1e8-a0e1-4b37-8f4a-6207da707c04","message": "BadGateway","innerError": {"status": 500,"message": "The current state of the item is Draft and the following action Approve cannot be implemented\"\r\nclientRequestId: ae99f1e8-a0e1-4b37-8f4a-6207da707c04\r\nserviceRequestId: ae99f1e8-a0e1-4b37-8f4a-6207da707c04"}}}So the flow updates my file properties, but then will not set the Approval Status because it's in Draft?? Even back in SP Designer, I could force the Approval Status back to where I needed it to be. Does anyone know how to make this work?(Please note, the Flow was running fine before the Set Content Approval action was added. No bad gateways prior to that change.)*************************************This is all super frustrating because we SharePoint people have spent YEARS trying to get business users to embrace the control and automation of Content Approval. Now O365 comes out and it's so great...BUT....it does not work with this key, basic, bedrock, foundational feature of SharePoint. How can we do content management in the main Microsoft content management platform if these things are unworkable?If anyone has a clue, please reply. Thank you all.
Hi all,
I'm dealing with the same. Is there any update regarding this issue?
Thanks,
Soraia
- As far as i am aware Flow does work with standard Approval but not in the same way as SharePoint Workflows in other words like for like does not seem to work. We use minor major versioning with approvals and I cannot see a way of replicating Approvals with Flow. If anyone out there has clear instructions on how to achieve this, then I would be eternally grateful for them.
- HI Tanya, thank you for reply. If I find a solution, I'll let you knwo. Let me know also if you have any news on this. Thx.
Having the same issue. Also using library for ISO compliance. I cannot read the value in the Approval Status either which makes it much harder to send emails. Can someone from MS reply to when this basic functionality may be available in Flow?
Hi,
Any updates on this issue?
Having the same issue, document library with "Required approval" turned on and major and Minor versions.
I need ONLY when a user Publish the document as Major approval that the flow will update the approval status accordingly.
- Tanya, you can absolutely update the approval status field.
- OK, thanks i will give it another go.
let me know if you need any help
that is not the case, here is an example of a library I just created using a tutorial from edX and it has the workflow status. it was correctly updated by clicking on the button/link in an email message
Dean_Gross Where is this tutorial? I have the same issue. I have the lovely email to approve or reject, but when my users click on the approve button it does not update the status. My users tried this without opening the document and it didn't matter. We get an email that the file is locked by the user.."who didn't open the file", it says it is locked by the user and cannot update the status field.
Hi everyone.
Please remember that you have to specify the ETag in the update item action after the approval, otherwise you will be faced with errors.
