SharePoint Online - Using a Flow to update a Column in a List

[JR8]

In SharePoint 2012 I used a simple out of the Box Workflow and it worked great. Trying to convert these to Flows have been problematic. SharePoint online handles many things differently. I wanted a simple Approval Flow that would update the Approval Status to "Approved". Though in SharePoint online you need to enable Content Approval to even get that Column and then once it's Approved if the list is modified(which in this case is needed) it goes back to Pending. In SharePoint 2012 I had the Approval Status Column without Content Approval being turned on so list entries could be updated after the initial approval.

So my idea for a workaround was to create a Manual Approval Column as a Choice selection. List entries are added with a default value of "No". Initiating the Flow will set to "Pending" and output of Flow will determine if it gets set to "Yes" or "Rejected". I think this will work, though when you use the Flow Action "Update Item" you have to set a value for every single column and not just the one that you want to update. If you don't then the data for drop down columns gets wiped out and set to the default(maybe others as well). When you try to specify the Value it Nests the "Update Item" action within a bunch of "Apply to Each" Sections.  A Couple of the Columns do no require an "Apply to Each" section though...no idea why. Then if you make a mistake I have no idea how you remove one of the apply to each sections without deleting the whole thing making you start over from scratch.

This makes adding a simple action in the Flow very tedious(Tying the column value to it's current value)....especially when you want to Add 3 of these types of actions within the Flow. Even if you get all of this working(I haven't yet) how do I restrict that Column so users cannot update it?

How else could I go about accomplishing this?

Why do I have to specify all the Column Values in the Flow Action when I just want to update 1 single Column?

Can you restrict a List Column from user modification?

[JR8]

Update:  I've built the Flow as described to Update the Approval Column I created, though the flow is unable to Retain the values for Multi-Choice Drop Downs. Even when specifying the value in the "Update Item" action the column value gets set to the last item selected in the list. Who knew it would be so hard to do something that was built into SharePoint 2012. Below is an example of Before the flow runs and After for a few of the Columns. I'm back to the drawing board...not sure how to do this.