New to PA. Not sure where to start

[jleebiker]

So our HR Dept wants to automate a flow. We're new to PA so don't even know where to start. Here's the process:

1. Hiring Manager completes a form. (Start from a MS Excel based Form? Or SP List?)
2. On completion of the form, it is routed to their boss for approval.
3. On approval, the Hiring Manager and HR gets a copy of approved form. (Can't this just be an approval notice?)
4. The Hiring Manager and HR gets the signed Form. (Do they really need a signed form? Is this for HR CYA reasons?)
5. HR would like all of these completed forms to be routed to an shared mailbox.
6. They also want each member of the HR dept to get cc’d on all the approval emails.

Where do we even start with this?
We're a big MS Teams and SPO shop. Each dept has their own private team as well as an org-wide team to facilitate them sharing info out to the rest of the org and the rest of the org sharing info back to them.
Any info is appreciated. Thanks!

[Diksha]

@jleebiker,

You can create the approval process using Power Automate quickly.

For ex- 

1. Use a Microsoft Forms to create a form.

2. Get the responses and store it in SharePoint list.

3. Use Power Automate to send an approval request to multiple people to approve/reject.

4. Send an email back to the form submitter about the approval details.

Refer this link for more detailed step to achieve this.

Hope this will help you in some way.

[yashkamdar]

Hello Team,

This is quite simple. 

I am creating a basic structure for you that you can use as is and try to implement this for your organization.

Step 1 - Create a Microsoft form

You need to configure a Microsoft form. I am creating a simple form so you can understand the example, you can create a complex form that suits your needs.

Here is a snip of my form-

Step no 2 - Flow Trigger -> When a new response is submitted

So whenever a new response is submitted by your Hiring manager the flow will get triggered automatically.

Step 3 - Get response details

Here we will grab the details of the form submitted by your Hiring manager.

Step 4 - Compose action to create a copy of the submitted form entry dynamically

Now since the form submitted needs to be sent to Hiring manager's boss for approval, we will need to recreate the copy of the form with its responses.

So include a compose action and configure it as below which will create a dynamic copy of the form that was submitted which can then be sent to the boss for approval.

Step 5 - Run an Approval

Add an approval action as shown below. In the Assigned to field you can enter the email address of your boss.

Step 6 - Approval received to your boss with the dynamic form and the submitted entries.

Now your boss will receive an email like below-

So he does not need to navigate anywhere, the form is embedded in his email itself. He just needs to either Approve or Reject from that same email 

Time save is money saved !!

Step 7 - Send to a shared mailbox if outcome is approved.

We will now check in the Flow with a condition whether the outcome is Approve or reject. If your Boss clicked on approved button in the step above, the outcome will be approve in the back end.

If the outcome is approve move the form to a shared mailbox and CC your HR associates.

This can be done using Send an Email action.

If you follow the above to the point you will be able to set this solution very easily. I have implemented this tons of times.

I have answered this in great detail for you, just follow the screenshots and all should be easy peasy !!

If this reply has answered your question or solved your issue, please mark this question as answered. Answered questions helps users in the future who may have the same issue or question quickly find a resolution via search. If you liked my response, please consider giving it a thumbs up. THANKS!

[jleebiker]

Thanks to you both for your help! We'll take a look and give it a try!

[jleebiker]

If we create the Form, won't it store all the results in the form? What if we want to create a SP list? 
There is a sample that stores the results in a SP list, but doesn't actually where/how to create that list? Thanks!

[jleebiker]

How are you capturing the email of the approvers in the flow? Are you having them manually enter the email address or are you pulling that from AD somehow?

[jleebiker]

Maybe we're not doing something right. We are trying to embed the form in the email that is sent so the approver can see the nature of the request. Not just something was submitted by whom and the date/time.

[jleebiker]

Hello, we think we're getting this figured out. 

Question, how would you do a 2 step approval flow?

We want the mgr to approve a change and then for it to go one level up for that mgr to approve before it goes back to HR. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks!

[Jronash]

When you create an approval, you also need to create a Condition so that you can set what happens if the item is approved, and what happens if it is not.

If you want to do a 2-step approval, you'll just need to create a second approval on the branch of your flow that will run when the first approval is approved.  Here's an example of what that might look like.

[jleebiker]

Thank you. Can you expand what the "No" condition looks like? Thanks!

[Jronash]

The No condition can contain any actions that you want to run if the approval is rejected.  Or it can contain nothing, if you don't want anything to happen when an approval is rejected.  I just put some blocks there to show that you could add actions if you wanted to.