Need some help, can't even get a proper approval flow for Sharepoint to work

[xCloud]

Hi there, 

I am trying to set up a Microsoft Flow for users to submit document for approval when they need to publish it. here are the issues I have: 

1. There is no trigger for automatically starting workflow when item is in pending status. I have to create a link for user to click to manually launch the workflow.

2. There is no place to check the status of the running workflow in Sharepoint.

3. If a step gets stuck because of user is not available, there is no redirect or push through option for Admin, at least I can't find one. 

4. When the item get approved, we'd like to update some attribute of item by Flow, like approver's comment, published date, etc. But as soon as Flow update an attribute, the item status changes back to Draft. If I update the attribute at the beginning of the workflow, the status changes to draft, and it can't be approved because it's need to be in pending status. 

I understand that this is supposed to happen as the item get updated, but Flow should have an action to set the status to Pending. 

Can someone please help me on this? 

Thank you in advance. 

[#2]

Hi @xCloud,

As for your first item, I am working on something similar. I have versioning and require content approval turned on. When a file is created or modified, it goes into a Draft status. When the file is published it goes into a Pending status. That's when my Flow takes action.

Here's how my Flow is designed.

When a file is created or modified (properties only)

Get file properties

Condition

     Content Approval Status is equal to Pending

          If yes

               Send an email

I leave "if no" blank because I don't want any action taken.

Have you tried this or something similar?

[#3]

@Techresa 

Hi Theresa, 

Thank you very much, that's a great idea. I've tested it and it works fine. 

Any idea about my other questions? 

Thanks again. 

[#4]

I now have a situation that users like to track the approval status in the Sharepoint list, list Manager approved, VP approved, etc. I can update the column with the output of the workflow, however, it changes the status to Draft. 

How can I get around this? Can someone please give me some help on this? So frustrated. 

Thanks a .lot

[#5]

Hi @xCloud 

When you update the Approval output in SharePoint using the action in Flow, try populating the Status field (which will be blank) with the desired status in the same action.

This way both happen at the same time.

Let me know if that works for you or we can explore a bit more if you can show some screens shots of the flow?

Cheers

Damien

[#6]

@xCloud 

Sorry for the delayed response. I had a nice long one typed up, but my browser crashed before I could post it.

2. Check out this post for a way to see the workflow status in SharePoint Online.
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/SharePoint/How-to-display-approval-status-from-microsoft-flow...

4. I recommend you capture the content approval status in a variable. Then add details such as published date to the item. Finally, use the Set Content Approval Status action to set it back to what was captured in the variable. You could do that within a condition for If Content Approval Status equals Pending.