Announcing SharePoint page approvals

[Chakkaradeep (Chaks) Chinnakonda Chandran]

We are happy to announce that we will be releasing SharePoint page approvals to Targeted Release. We expect to start the rollout of this feature to all Targeted Release tenants by end of July 2018.

Rollout status

Current rollout status:

• July 31st, 2018 - Deployed to 10% of Targeted Release tenants
• August 3rd, 2018 - Deployed to 50% of Targeted Release tenants
• August 6th, 2018 - Deployed to 100% of Targeted Release tenants
• January 8th, 2019 - Deployed to all tenants in SharePoint Online

Documentation:

1. Configure page approval

2. Page approval flow

Known issues

1. If the page is checked-out by another user and you (the author in this case) submit the page for approval, the page will not notify and proceed with the approval. The flow will run and send an email indicating to the author indicating an error occurred in publishing the page. 
   
   
2. If you have only major versions enabled for the Site Pages library, submit for approval will result in int he following error:
   • Could not complete that action: The type of data at position 0 is different than the one expected.
     
     
3. There an issue with the Flow service for the UK region. Any existing UK tenants created before March 2018 will work while it affects only new tenants created after March 2018. We expect to have this resolved by end of September if everything goes according to the plan. See this thread for more information.

Good news is that these will be fixed soon are fixed!

If you have any feedback, please make sure you discuss here!

Configure page approval

Site owners can configure page approval to add to the standard publishing process for a site. After adding page approval flow, new and updated pages will be not be published directly. Instead, only the completion of the approval flow will make changes visible to all readers of the site.

A site owner can configure page approval flow from the Flow menu of a pages library.

Create page approval flow

Submit page for approval

Once the page approval is configured, authors will be able to submit page for approval. The publish button will be replaced by a submit for approval button.

Submit page for approval

The page will be published once the page is approved. Rejecting a page will put that page back to draft status.

Approve page

Approvers will get an email regarding the page approval request. They can either approve the page directly in the email (in email clients that support actionable messages) or open the page from the email to review and approve the page in SharePoint.

Approve page

Customizing the page approval flow

Since page approvals use Microsoft Flow behind the scenes, the page approval flow is available to site owners to modify and add any custom business process items in the flow. After creating the flow, the site owner can click on Flows -> See your flows in the pages library to find the page approval flow.

For example, The default approval type is set to ‘anyone can approve’. Site owners can modify the flow and change the approval type to ‘everyone must approve’ if that is the requirement.

Change approval type

[#2]

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@Justin Pettet wrote:

This is awesome, the only issue I am seeing is the Submit for Approval button is not checking the document in.  This is the error after submitting for approval:

Error in the Console: The HTTP method 'GET' cannot be used to access the resource 'CheckIn'. The operation type of the resource is specified as 'Default'. Please use correct HTTP method to invoke the resource.

I've temporarily added a step in the Flow to check the document in so I can continue testing.

How can we see the functionality with other users. I seem to be the only one that can see the new features.

Standard users only see the old Publish button.

thanks

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Can you give us more information on the page status by browsing to the Site Pages library? We believe you are trying to submit a page that is been checked-out by another user but wanted to confirm the page status from the Site Pages library. 

[#3]

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@Chakkaradeep (Chaks) Chinnakonda Chandran wrote:

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@Justin Pettet wrote:

This is awesome, the only issue I am seeing is the Submit for Approval button is not checking the document in.  This is the error after submitting for approval:

Error in the Console: The HTTP method 'GET' cannot be used to access the resource 'CheckIn'. The operation type of the resource is specified as 'Default'. Please use correct HTTP method to invoke the resource.

I've temporarily added a step in the Flow to check the document in so I can continue testing.

How can we see the functionality with other users. I seem to be the only one that can see the new features.

Standard users only see the old Publish button.

thanks

---

Can you give us more information on the page status by browsing to the Site Pages library? We believe you are trying to submit a page that is been checked-out by another user but wanted to confirm the page status from the Site Pages library. 

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Can you check to see if you have set the version history to be 'Create major versions only'?I think that is the bug here.

[#4]

Good news everyone: We are now 100% deployed to TR tenants!

I also updated the main post with known issues.

Please let us know any feedback you have!

[#5]

Hi Chakkaradeep, I have changed the versioning settings to Major and Minor and the issue is now resolved.

Thank you for your assistance and quick reply. 

Justin

[#6]

I would like to understand how this works with the Common Data Service. My tenancy was created after the March update to the Common Data Service. This means that I cannot create a Common Data Service against the default environment. When I try to create any Flow in the default environment that uses the approval connector I am told that a Common Data Service does not exist and so the Approval cannot run. With this being the case if I create a new environment and  Common Data Service (I need PowerApps Plan 2 do this) I can create approvals in that environments. So here is the questions when creating the "SharePoint Approval" Workflow it always goes into the default environment and will not work as there is no Common Data Service there what do I do to allow it to work? My tenancy, Azure AD and Environments are all in the UK.

[#7]

I've been testing this out and it's been great...Love the Flow approvals. A minor thing is when approving the page from the review approvals window, the Toolbar does not refresh. 

Toolbar after approving:

Toolbar after refreshing the Browser

Also, I needed to add my users into the 'run only users' area in flow for them to be able to use the Flow approvals. Even though my SharePoint list is an owner of the flow, my standard users (with contribute access) could not see the flow.

Other than that, brilliant work! 

thanks

[#8]

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@Ben Haynes wrote:

I would like to understand how this works with the Common Data Service. My tenancy was created after the March update to the Common Data Service. This means that I cannot create a Common Data Service against the default environment. When I try to create any Flow in the default environment that uses the approval connector I am told that a Common Data Service does not exist and so the Approval cannot run. With this being the case if I create a new environment and  Common Data Service (I need PowerApps Plan 2 do this) I can create approvals in that environments. So here is the questions when creating the "SharePoint Approval" Workflow it always goes into the default environment and will not work as there is no Common Data Service there what do I do to allow it to work? My tenancy, Azure AD and Environments are all in the UK.

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While I try to get some insights on this, can you please try just creating a flow by going to the Flow website and use approvals? Though SharePoint is creating the flow, it is not doing anything special and uses the generic Flow approvals. 

[#9]

Thanks Chakkaradeep

It appears to ba UK problem:

I get :

When I try to create a Common Data Service Database in the default environment I get:

Looking at this thread It appears as a UK problem thus we will not be able to use Page Approval if we have a tenancy created after March. Which is a real shame that we are excluded from the functionality

[#10]

Hi,

I am unable to creating flow, because "Create" option is grayed out. I have a doubt like whether it is released fully or not. Please help me for this. Thanks in advance.

[#11]

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@Sowmya Sree wrote:

Hi,

I am unable to creating flow, because "Create" option is grayed out. I have a doubt like whether it is released fully or not. Please help me for this. Thanks in advance.

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You have to fill in who the approvers are going to be for the flow. It is a required field and since the field is empty, the Create button is disabled. Once you add approvers, you will see the Create button enabled. 

[#12]

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@Ben Haynes wrote:

Thanks Chakkaradeep

It appears to ba UK problem:

I get :

When I try to create a Common Data Service Database in the default environment I get:

Looking at this thread It appears as a UK problem thus we will not be able to use Page Approval if we have a tenancy created after March. Which is a real shame that we are excluded from the functionality

---

Thanks for providing more information on this. I am investigating this issue internally and will report back once I can confirm whats going on. 

[#13]

Hi Thanks for the reply. But i have added approvers. But i am unable to Selecting "Create" button. Now also its grayed out. I think for my tenant it will take some more time to release.

[#14]

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@Sowmya Sree wrote:

Hi Thanks for the reply. But i have added approvers. But i am unable to Selecting "Create" button. Now also its grayed out. I think for my tenant it will take some more time to release.

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Did the addresses or person names resolve? The input requires a valid user in your organization. If you are seeing this panel, the feature is already available for your tenant. 

[#15]

Might be a simple thing, but I cannot figure out how to remove this from the Site Pages library once it's been added. Any pointers?

[#16]

Turn off content approval in settings version settings on library. Then go to flow and you will have a flow that you can delete.

[#17]

Worked, thanks!

[#18]

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@Ben Haynes wrote:

Thanks Chakkaradeep

It appears to ba UK problem:

I get :

When I try to create a Common Data Service Database in the default environment I get:

Looking at this thread It appears as a UK problem thus we will not be able to use Page Approval if we have a tenancy created after March. Which is a real shame that we are excluded from the functionality

---

@Ben Haynes I can confirm this is indeed an issue with the Flow service for the UK region. Good news is that this is being addressed and we expect to have this resolved by end of September if everything goes according to the plan. Any existing UK tenants created before March 2018 will work while it affects only new tenants created after March 2018.

[#19]

I'm experiencing the same thing. I see the 'Submit for approval' button, but all other users still see the 'Publish' button. Does the Page Approvals Flow take a while to replicate to all servers for all users to see?

[#20]

I just spent a lot of time on this and think it's because I am one of the few people on "Targeted Release".  Most of my users are on Standard release.  I really need this for News approvals before my intranet goes live next month, so have to weigh putting key staff on Targeted release.

[#21]

Thanks again, yes, I believe the reason I can see the Page Approvals feature and other users cannot is because I'm on a targeted release path and other users are on the standard release path. Kirk