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SharePoint & Viva Connections Developer Documentation
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/
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Another broken approval process? #7353

Open TrevorEdLtd opened 2 years ago

TrevorEdLtd commented 2 years ago

There is no working approval process for SharePoint using Workflows.

If you follow this process, you will end up with this flow being run every time a document is created, not just when the document is ready to be approved. Why on earth would you want that?

Ahh ha I hear you say, but you could create the same approval flow, but start it manually...well no you can't because then the approval run in the context of the user that submitted it, which means everyone on the library submitting for approval, must have Approval permissions, which means they can approve their own document!

Ahh ha, I hear you say, but why not just create a column in the library that isn't linked to the in-built approval process...well because it isn't then in-built to the SharePoint approval process!!!

Ah haaa, I hear you say, why not just use Adobe sign...well, as that clearly stated in the approvals tab in teams that they are the 'Microsoft preferred E-Signature solution', but they're not, because you can't even sign-into Adobe sign, using your Office 365 single sign-on, you have to created a brand-new Adobe sign account! Or wait for it ( this will make you chuckle), you can use a GOOGLE account to sign-in!

Ideal scenario for document (any) approval:

User created document, user checks-in document and then hit the 'Submit for approval' button, they then fill-in the names of all people who they want to approve. All people in the approval group, would also be in a security group that give approval permissions on that library. Approvers review the document and then either reject or approve with comments, document is update as needed by user (they are notified of various approvals/rejections. If approved, the flow transfer context to the last person to approved and uses their identity to change the approval status on the library column. All users approval that have approved and their comments appear in the version history and a record.

Add to this integration with the digital signature (that travel WITH the document, once signed) and you have the perfect E-sign process for Office documents.

One other question that literally appears to have no answer, is do flow approvals live with the document or the host/tenant? e.g. if you move a document, how does anyone know that document was ever in the past approved?!

Pretty simple, but MS is intent on breaking approvals, or making them not fit for purpose.

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ghost commented 2 years ago

Thank you for reporting this issue. We will be triaging your incoming issue as soon as possible.

bcameron1231 commented 2 years ago

I can understand the frustration.

Have you thought about changing your trigger instead to be when an Item is modified, and using Trigger conditions to only run when a certain condition is met? e.g, a column is changed or contains a value?

Also, Flow Approvals live outside of SharePoint, but you can track past approvals based on the version history in SP and version on the document being approved.

TrevorEdLtd commented 2 years ago

Hi Beau, Thanks for the reply, you actually don't get anything in the version history, unless it's added as part of a check in comment. Approval comments don't appear to get logged in there, for some reason. yes I've considered switching to Automated, but it takes away that 'I'm ready for approval' bit and relies on either, using a user column status, or some other method trigger, like Checked-in? or a flow to run a flow?

If the context was transferred at the point the approvers took-over action in the flow, that would solve all these issues. At the moment, the work-around in the business to avoid giving all users approval permissions, is to have the flow run in the context of a specially created user account, that has 'God' permissions on the SharePoint site, thereby, allowing the flow access to everything it needs, with the down-side of having to log everything to the audit trail is strong enough.

It can't be beyond the wit of MS to fix this... the approvals process has been broken since SP2007, with the digital signatures not being integrated into Workflows and guess what? they still aren't integrated into MS Flow, as I can't tell the 'Final' status of the document, else that could be another option and preferred from a legal standpoint, due to certificate authorities and the approval moving with the document!