Approval workflow Sharepoint List Field Update

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I am new to Sharepoint and Flow.  I am creating a Leave Request Approval.  I was able to create the request, the flow to send an approval message, and the email sent to the employee with the Accept or Refused.  I want the Sharepoint List to be updated with this response.  How can I have the Sharepoint status field updated with the response sent via Work Flow?

[abm]

Hi @Anonymous,

If your SharePoint status is choice field type then it is not supported for the updates from flow. This is a limitation in current SharePoint flow templates and infurture we are hoping to get this resolved. There are similar posts around in this forum mentioned about choice field SharePoint item updates.

Thanks

[v-yamao-msft]

Hi Kath,

Say you have a SharePoint list likes below. The Approve Status is a Text column.

Then I create a flow to send an Approval email when a new item is created, then send an email with the Accept or Reject status, then update item in the list. Below is a screenshot of the flow configuration:

Hope this can be a reference for you.

Best regards,
Mabel Mao

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your answer.

Here is the list that I have created.  The colomn "Approval Status" was not created by me. It is added automatically by the system.  The status change to pending when the request is send, but it doesn't change when the request is approved or rejected by supervisor.

Also, in the Versioning setting, I selected: 

Require content approval for submitted items?
	Yes

The flow is still not working.

[abm]

Hi @Anonymous,

Can you please check the list settings and find more about the Approval Status column? Most likely it is not a text field. Please let us know.

Thanks

[v-yamao-msft]

Hi Kath,

Just as @abm said, please check the type of Approve Status column. I have created a similar list with you, but there is no “Approve Status” column was added automatically by the system.

If I create a Choice column “Approve Status” in the list, when I configure the “Update item” action in the flow, there is no field for “Approve Status”. It seems that Choice column type is not supported in flow.

Best regards,
Mabel Mao

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

I was able to fix the problem by removing the Versioning setting and set it to "no".  Now the colomn is updating. Thank you!

[abm]

Hi @Anonymous,

That is good news and letting us know. Can you please confirm that it was a text field or not?

Thanks

[Anonymous]

The added colunm by the system is not in the list.  So, I don't know if it is a text field.

[Jazzy]

This solution worked perfectly for me! We just need to get the communication formatting down. I want to train others on this!

[Tskauffmani]

Would you be so kind to share a screen shot of your expanded Approval FLOW.

I set versioning to "NO" but still can't get Approval Status to switch from "Pending" to "Approved/Rejected". Besides this issue my Flow runs fine.

thanks

---

@Kath wrote:

I was able to fix the problem by removing the Versioning setting and set it to "no".  Now the colomn is updating. Thank you!

---

[BenDaneliuk]

Kath,

My flow doesn't allow the system column approved/rejected to be amended.

I'm guessing this updated automatically...

Can you please confirm you didn't add this into your flow.

Could you also provide a sceenshot of the the validation setting you changed.

Thanks

[manlapkp]

If you removed the Versioning Setting and set to know, what happens now with the idea of new items not viewable to others until approved?

[wanderinjen]

I have the same problem! I need versioning on as I don't want drafts viewed until approved/major version created.

Did anyone find a solution to this. Is seems that an 'approval workflow' should include update of the 'approval status'?

[Kurt]

I am having the same issue. I can get the emails to send out, but can not switch Approval Status from "Pending". Could anyone share screenshots of their FLOW with this working?

[UpTimize]

I succeeded to update approval status in a library using versioning (minor and major versions) by using HTTP POST Rest API and updating field OData__ModerationStatus to value 0 (accepted) or 1 (Rejected) depending of approval response.

[simonjhudson]

Can you share the code you used in Flow to achieve this (with as much detail on what you actually did as possible please, as Flow documenation is almost non-existent)?

Cheers

[UpTimize]

Hello @simonjhudson

Sorry for late reply, I had some issues to log in to the community

When the action "Approvals" is approved (or rejected) you need to update sharepoint list using API.

1 . You need to get your authorization bearer token as it is explained here

http://sharepointscribblings.blogspot.be/2017/07/call-any-sharepoint-rest-api-from.html

2.Collect answer(s) from approvals action (using data operations select or parse json) depending of which data you need for further actions

3.Use variable to transform answer to the appropriate number accroding moderationstatus values (0 1 2 or 3)

4.Post to yoursite/_api/contextinfo with your token from step 1 as authorization (using Accept and Content type headers : application/json;odata=verbose) to get you formdigestvalue

5.From output 4, get the FormDigestValue value from outout4 using Compose action.

The expression is

d.GetContextWebInformation.FormDigestValue

6.Compose the body for post 7 using the metadata moderation status schema

{ "__metadata": { "type": "SP.Data.<listname>Item" }, "OData__ModerationStatus": <your status>" }

7.Post to your doclist using api

{ "Accept": "application/json;odata=verbose", "Content-Type": "application/json;odata=verbose", "Authorization": "Bearer <Token>", "X-RequestDigest": <Output 6>", "IF-MATCH": "*", "X-HTTP-Method": "MERGE", "content-length": <length of output6> }

Hope it helps

[Lexnnn]

I have an approval list for creation of new O365 groups.

I wanted to approve the list items directly from the email using Flow.

I tried out myself but for some reason it did not work but using the method described below, I was able to do it. Thank you to the author!

Found this solution: https://www.techmikael.com/2018/05/use-microsoft-flow-to-implement.html#comment-form

I tried it out, I also works for me for approval of Sharepoint list items. Really helpful since microsoft has not implemented list items in "set content approval status".

Note: this solution is for Lists where Approval is enabled and the field is not a manually created field but maintained by the system so you can not use it in the Flow.

Note: the approval process can take some time, for test purpose, wait multiple hours, first time took time for some reason, now it works fine.

Note: In "set content approval status", in Library name use List name but not the one from the URL

eg. https://...sites/teamsites/team-orders and the list name is Team orders, use Team orders as library name and not team-orders.

I though of using PATCH function to update the "approval status" field instead of "Set content approval status" but I lack the developers knowledge to write the command.

Don't know if all these steps are needed but it works for me.

Hope this helps!

[Michel_Laplane]

I arrive after the battle but the trick is that if you want to access to the automatically generated column "ApprovalStatus" you need to get "OData__ModerationStatus" value :

  The value is 0 if the ApprovalStatus is "Approved" 

  The value is 1 if the ApprovalStatus is "Rejected" 

  The value is 2 if the ApprovalStatus is "Pending"  

Hope it helps