Autosave in Word or Excel Triggers Approval Flow. Workaround?

[CP153319]

I created an approval Flow in a SharePoint document library and discovered that the "autosave" functionality in Excel or Word will trigger the approval flow before the end-user is finished modifying the document. 

Has anyone found a way around this?

[efialttes]

Hi!

Which trigger are you using? "When a file is created or modified", right?

If so, I would suggest any of these two approaches:

1.- Use "For a selected file" trigger, and request users to start the Approval Flow from Sharepoint menu. More info here -the example is with a Sharepoint List and 'For a selected item', but the approach is the same:

https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/introducing-flow-launch-panel-in-sharepoint-lists-and-librarie...

2.- Add a custom column to your SP Library, let's call it 'RequestApproval', type yes/no, default 'no' Request users to start the Approval Flow by changing it into 'yes'. Turn your current trigger a 'conditional trigger' by activating this feature, so it will only be executed if 'RequestApproval' value is set to 'Yes'. Now, once starts processing, your Flow should change this custom value into 'No' in order to avoid loops. More info on 'Conditional triggers' in this topic

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Flows/How-can-I-set-a-trigger-to-copy-a-specific-file-f...

Hope this helps

[CP153319]

I'm using the trigger "when a file is created or modified" and the Flow is changing the approval status as it moves along. I appreciate your solution but I can't leave it up to the end user to trigger the flow - It must be automatic. 

[v-alzhan-msft]

Hi @CP153319 ,

Two way:

1. Turn off the Autosave function in the file.

2.Where is the file saved in?

 If the file is saved in sharepoint library, add a FileModifyStatus column in the library, let every one to modify the column to finished once they finish the update. you could create the flow with a Condition to check if the special column value is equal to finished, the approval would only start when the column is equal to finished.

No any other better solution for this issue.

Best regards,

Alice   

Community Support Team _ Alice Zhang
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[CP153319 · Accepted solution]

This is the "workaround" I came up with to make this work:

• Users with "Edit" level permissions on the SharePoint library must turn-off the AutoSave function in Excel (or Word, or whatever)
• SharePoint library must be set-up to only open files in the client application
• All changes made to required metadata columns must be done in the "Info" section in Excel - NOT in SharePoint itself. 

As long as the end user completes all their changes to the file and to the file properties before clicking "Save" there will only be one approval sent out. 

[CP153319]

Someone else marked another answer as the "Solution" - Not sure who did that but it WAS NOT the solution and it DID NOT help.