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From YouTube: Building a SharePoint Document Library Approvals System
Description
In this 12-minute citizen developer-focused demo, Lindsay Shelton walks viewers through the process of moving an on-prem Access database solution to cloud. The solution must be secure, accessible from mobile and have multiple approval levels. The flow shown utilizes a SharePoint document library and Approvals to request a file review, approve or reject the file, and update the SharePoint library. Power Automate Flow addresses “File is Locked” error handling. Finally, see what a Doc Library looks like as Power App! This PnP Community demo is taken from the Microsoft Power Platform community call – July 2022, recorded on July 20, 2022.
Demo Presenter
• Lindsay Shelton (Stowers Institute for Medical Research) | @lshelton_tech
Supporting materials
• Sample - Request Review and Approval for a Selected File | https://github.com/pnp/powerautomate-samples/tree/main/samples/request-review-and-approval-for-a-selected-file
• Article - Power Automate – Avoiding “File Locked For Shared Use” Failing Your Workflow | https://thrivenextgen.com/power-automate-file-lock-fail/
Stay connected
• Twitter https://twitter.com/microsoft365dev
• Call attention to your great work by using #PowerAppsCC and #PnPWeekly on Twitter.
Learn more
• Microsoft 365 Unified Sample gallery - https://aka.ms/m365/samples
• Microsoft 365 Platform Community in YouTube - https://aka.ms/m365/videos
• Microsoft 365 Platform Community Blog - https://aka.ms/m365pnp/blog
A
I'm
here
to
talk
to
you
way
too
quickly
about
how
you
can
build
a
sharepoint
document
library,
approvals
system
and
I
just
at
least
a
layer
of
approvals,
because
we've
got
multiple
layers
going
on
here.
I
would
introduce
myself
really
briefly:
I'm
lindsay
shelton
and
I'm
an
application
programmer
at
the
stowers
institute
for
medical
research.
I
like
to
joke
that
the
scientists
are
working
to
save
lives
and
I'm
working
to
help
the
scientists
save
files,
so
you
know
putting
in
the
work
in
whatever
way
I
can
I'm
a
former
teacher.
A
I
spent
10
years
as
a
classroom
teacher
and
I'm
also
a
very
proud
cat
mom.
So
if
any
of
that
is
interesting
to
you
feel
free
to
connect
with
me
at
l,
shelton
underscore
tech
on
twitter,
so
most
of
my
presentations
have
to
do
with
a
specific
use
case,
or
you
know
something
that's
actually
going
on
in
my
work
life.
So
what
did
our
users
need?
Where
did
this?
Come
from?
One
of
our
departments
had
a
pretty
outdated
old
access
database
on-prem
system
for
their
standard
operating
procedure
documents.
A
So
this
was
something
they
needed
to
access
regularly.
There's
you
know
legal
things
and
regulation
reasons
why
they
needed
to
be
able
to
get
to
all
of
these
sop
documents,
because
this
library
governs
everything
that
this
department
does,
and
it's
also
something
that
the
entire
institute
needs
to
be
able
to
see,
and
these
were
difficult
to
get
to
and
all
outdated.
So
they
wanted
to
have
a
more
modern
solution.
A
A
Let's
do
something:
that's
less
restrictive,
but
still
you
know
controlled
by
things
like
mfa,
azure,
id,
etc,
and
they
also
needed
us
to
be
able
to
bring
over
multiple
levels
and
layers
of
approvals.
It's
not
just
a
one
and
done
where
one
person
is
assigned
the
approval,
they
look
it
over.
They
say
yep.
The
sop
is
good
to
go
for
another
year,
so
the
basic
process-
you'll
notice,
is
not
actually
very
basic
because
there's
a
lot
of
words
on
this
screen,
but
we
essentially
have
five
different
flows
going
on.
A
We
have
a
scheduled
daily
flow
where-
and
this
is
just
to
give
you
an
overview
of
the
process
if
you're
needing
to
build
something
similar
for
your
own
organization.
We
have
scheduled
daily
flow
that
looks
at
a
completed
date
and
says:
okay,
if
that's
335
days
out,
meaning
okay
within
30
days
of
needing
to
review.
Let's
do
a
conditional
filter,
let's
clear
the
fields
you
know,
which
also
sets
the
content
approval
to
draft
again
and
let
them
know
this
needs
to
be
reviewed.
A
A
We've
also
got
approval
reminders
built
into
this,
and
we
had
to
do
a
special
step
where
we
write
all
of
the
historical
data
about
who's
approved.
What
and
when
to
a
sharepoint
list,
because
at
one
caveat
we've
discovered
working
with
approvals
and
document.
Libraries
is,
if
I
open
the
document
in
the
word
application
it
won't.
Let
me
save
it.
A
It
won't
if,
if
I've
got
a
comment
field
longer
than
255
characters,
so
we
write
all
of
that
over
and
then
we
have
the
last
flow,
which
clears
out
all
of
the
information,
because
we've
already
written
it
to
a
separate
list.
We
set
content
approval
to
approved
and
we
write
an
approved,
updated
copy
to
a
master
library.
A
A
So
you
need
want
error,
handling,
or
else
your
flow
is
going
to
stop
over
and
over
and
over
again,
and
you
don't
want
that
so
to
the
demo,
I'm
going
to
go
to
the
samples
gallery,
and
I
just
navigated
right
to
mine
the
request,
review
and
approval
for
a
selected
file.
All
you
have
to
do
is
go
into
the
solution.
Folder
and
all
of
these
instructions
are
in
the
readme
and
I
could
just
say,
download
this
zip
file.
Then
I
go
into
my
microsoft:
power,
automate
environment.
A
This
is
updated
import
package
legacy
and
I
select
the
file
that
I
want
to
import,
which
is
that
zip
file?
I
don't
want
to
update.
I
just
want
to
create
this
as
new
and
I
can
give
it
whatever
name
I
want.
I
can
select
my
connections
and
import
it
and
then
all
you
have
to
do.
You
can
customize
this
a
lot
more.
Like
david
said
this
is
a
starting
point,
but
the
main
thing
you
have
to
do
is
x
out
my
values
for
the
site,
address
and
library
name
and
then
put
in
your
own.
A
So
this
is
actually
a
site
called
doc
library
and
the
library
name
is
called
documents
so
to
go
over
this
flow
we're
just
we
like.
I
said
we
have
four
selected
file,
we're
collecting
the
reviewer
email
as
a
variable
and
then
we're
just
getting
the
information
about
the
file.
Now
this
update
metadata
one
and
two
variables
by
the
way
the
code
is
also
commented.
I've
got
notes
on
everything
that
you'll
be
able
to
see
to
explain
each
part.
A
This
is
a
boolean
variable
that
we
set
to
false,
and
that
is
because
we
use
this
every
time,
we're
trying
to
update
that
document
library
value
so
that
we
can
do
the
error
checking,
because
when
this
variable
is
turned
to
true,
we
exit
that
error
checking
loop,
I've
added
some
extra
stuff,
because
we
had
lots
of
uat
and
lots
of
use.
This
has
been
in
place
for
about
a
year,
and
so
we've
got
they
wanted
to
be
able
to
put
more
than
one
supervisor
in
there.
A
They
wanted
to
be
able
to
assign
one
flow
multiple
times.
So
that's
why
some
of
these
extra
variables
are
in
here.
As
long
as
the
file
is
here,
we
create
an
approval.
We
assign
it
to
the
reviewer
email,
which
is
a
variable
we've
created,
and
then
we
have
the
error
handling,
which
is
really
what
I
wanted
to
highlight.
A
So
this
was
a
do
until
loop
that
will
go
until
update
metadata,
which
we
know
is
set
to
false
right
now
is
equal
to
true,
so
I'm
trying
to
update
the
file
properties
and
go
in
and
say
here's
the
name
of
the
supervisor
who's
reviewing
this.
This
was
another
requirement
from
our
lab
that
we
were
working
with,
so
they
wanted
the
supervisors
to
be
able
to
just
filter.
In
a
view
and
say
here
are
the
six
sops.
I
need
to
review
well
the
file.
A
If
it's
locked,
it
would
have
just
terminated
this
flow
and
we
would
have
had
to
start
the
approval
over
again.
So
instead,
let
me
walk
you
through
the
logic
of
this
really
quick
in
a
slide
instead
of
trying
to
just
do
it
in
the
flow,
so
any
sort
of
sharepoint
action.
If
we
use
configure
run
after,
if
it's
fails
or
timeout,
we
send
an
email
that
the
file
is
locked.
A
If
it
succeeds,
we
skip
it.
We
don't
need
to
send
anyone
an
email.
We
have
an
extra
step
where
we
check.
If
the
file
is
locked
by
updating
sharepoint
we're
not
actually
updating
it,
we
just
have
the
action
there
and
then
we
don't
touch
any
of
the
fields
if
it
lets
us
update
sharepoint.
That
means
the
file
is
closed
and
we're
good
to
go
so
we
skip
and
we
set
update
metadata
to
true,
which
ends
the
loop.
A
If
we
can't
update
sharepoint,
we
set
a
delay
of
10
minutes
and
then
it
restarts
the
loop
which
is
trying
to
update
sharepoint
again,
so
you
can
set
that
delay
for
whatever
you
want.
I
just
have
it
set
to
10
minutes.
What
we
want
this
to
look
like
is
green
green.
We
can
update
the
file
properties,
we
skip
sending
an
email.
We
check
that
the
file
is
not
locked
by
updating
sharepoint.
We
skip
that
delay.
A
I've
got
all
the
comments
in
here.
We
have
error
checking
again
and
then,
at
the
very
end,
we
send
a
confirmation,
email
that
we've
gone
through
the
approval.
One
other
thing
that
we
did
do
with
the
solution
that
I'm
I'm
pretty
excited
about
after
checking
on
is.
We
also
did
turn
the
dock
library
into
my
first
and
only
power
app.
It's
nothing,
fancy
ui
wise.
We
designed
it
to
mimic
a
legacy
application.
They
were
already
using
just
for
change
management.
We
wanted
it
to
be
something
familiar
to
them
and
in
the
labs.
A
This
is
really
easy
for
them,
because
they
could
just
click
the
arrow
and
open
the
sop
and
view
it
and
they
can
filter
by
department.
And
I
checked
on
the
stats
I
figured
okay.
I
showed
them
how
to
put
it
on
their
phones
and
and
do
that,
but
they
actually
are
still
using
it
a
year
after
launch
last
takeaways
most,
you
probably
know
most
of
this,
but
things
that
we
always
try
to
do
in
my
organization.
A
Make
a
service
account
the
owner
of
the
flow
and
the
connections,
not
your
account
and
share
it
with
all
admins.
So
you
can
take
a
vacation,
sometimes
rename
the
section
and
leave
notes
like
you
saw
in
my
code,
even
if
it's
just
for
future.
You,
like
I
said
I
did
this
a
year
ago,
and
so
I
would
have
no
idea
why
I
did
some
of
the
things
I
did
and
then
uat
uat
uat
a
lot
of
these
tweaks
that
you
see
might
not
make
sense
immediately.
A
But
if
you
read
the
notes,
we
did
it
for
a
reason:
it's
because
our
users
wanted
those
features
in
there,
and
so
we
wanted
to
make
it
happen.
Happy
make
it
work.
Lastly,
I
just
want
to
cite
thrive.
Next
gen
they
were
the
source
for
the
basic
file
lock
check
pattern.
They
were
the
first
source
I
found
because
I
didn't
bookmark
the
actual
site
I
used
so
just
wanted
to
give
them
a
shout
out
all
right.
That
is
it
for
me.
Hopefully,
I
didn't
talk
too
fast.