Most businesses that use Microsoft 365 are still running document approvals through email. Someone uploads a file, sends a message to say it is ready, the approver replies when they get around to it, and the status gets updated manually — or not at all.

This works when a team has three people and everyone is in the same office. It stops working when approvals involve multiple people, when the volume grows, when approvers are remote, or when a business needs to demonstrate a documented approval trail for compliance purposes.

SharePoint, combined with Power Automate, can handle all of this automatically — and the entire workflow can be built without a developer, without custom code, and without any tools beyond what your business is already paying for inside Microsoft 365.

This post walks through exactly how to build a SharePoint document approval workflow from scratch, what to get right before you start, and the specific mistakes that cause these workflows to fail after launch.

What a SharePoint Approval Workflow Actually Does

Before building anything, it helps to be clear about what the workflow is doing and why it is worth setting up properly.

A SharePoint document approval workflow does the following automatically: when a document is added to or updated in a specific SharePoint library, Power Automate detects the trigger and sends an approval request to the designated approver — directly in Microsoft Teams or by email. The approver reviews the document and clicks Approve or Reject, with an optional comment. Power Automate then updates the document’s approval status in SharePoint automatically, notifies the submitter of the outcome, and logs the full decision trail. If the approver does not respond within a defined period, an escalation reminder is sent.

The result is a documented, auditable approval process that runs without anyone chasing anyone through email.

This is one of the highest-value automations available to Irish SMEs through Microsoft 365 — and it is included in the licence most businesses are already paying for. The only thing required to activate it is the right configuration.

Before You Start: What Needs to Be in Place

The most common reason SharePoint approval workflows fail is that they are built before the underlying SharePoint environment is ready for them. Power Automate can only work with what SharePoint provides — if the library structure, metadata, and permissions are not set up correctly, the workflow will produce inconsistent results.

  • The document library exists and is structured with the right metadata columns — at minimum, an Approval Status column (typically a Choice column with values: Pending, Approved, Rejected) and a Submitted By column.
  • Content types are configured if you have multiple document types going through different approval processes — a contract approval and a policy approval may need different approvers and different routing logic.
  • Permissions on the library are set correctly — submitters can add documents, approvers can edit the Approval Status column, and the workflow service account has the access it needs.
  • The approvers are identified and confirmed — Power Automate needs specific names or group memberships to route approvals. “The relevant manager” is not a Power Automate configuration; it needs to be a named person or a defined group.
  • Microsoft Teams is connected to your Microsoft 365 environment — approval notifications in Teams are significantly more reliable and faster to act on than email notifications.

Building the Workflow: Step by Step

Step 01
Set Up the SharePoint Document Library

In SharePoint, create or identify the document library where the approval workflow will operate. Add a choice column named Approval Status with the options Pending, Approved, and Rejected. Set the default value to Pending so every new document enters the workflow in the right state automatically.

If different document types need different approvers — contracts going to Legal, invoices going to Finance — add a Document Type column and use it later in Power Automate to route the approval conditionally.

Tip: Set the Approval Status column to read-only for submitters using column-level permissions or a Power Automate write-back. This prevents submitters from changing their own approval status manually.
Step 02
Open Power Automate and Create a New Flow

Go to make.powerautomate.com and sign in with your Microsoft 365 account. Click Create and choose Automated cloud flow. Name the flow something descriptive — for example, “Contract Approval — Legal Team” — and search for the trigger “When an item is created or modified” under SharePoint.

Select your SharePoint site and the specific document library you configured in Step 01. This trigger fires every time a document is added or updated in that library.

Tip: Use a condition immediately after the trigger to check that the Approval Status is Pending before the flow continues. Without this, the flow fires again every time the status is updated to Approved or Rejected — creating an infinite loop.
Step 03
Add the Approval Action

After the condition, add an action and search for Approvals. Select Start and wait for an approval. Choose the approval type — Approve/Reject: First to respond works for single approvers; Approve/Reject: Everyone must approve works when multiple sign-offs are needed sequentially.

In the Title field, use dynamic content to pull the document name from the trigger. Add the document link so approvers can open it directly from the approval request. Set the Assigned to field to the approver’s email address — this can be a fixed email, a SharePoint column value, or a distribution group.

Tip: In the Details field, include the document type, the submitter’s name (from the Created By field in dynamic content), and any relevant context. An approver who can see what they are approving and why responds faster than one who gets a bare notification with no context.
Step 04
Handle the Approval Outcome

After the approval action, add a condition that checks whether the outcome is Approve or Reject. In the Yes branch (Approved): use a SharePoint Update item action to set the Approval Status column to Approved, then send a Teams or email notification to the submitter confirming approval. In the No branch (Rejected): update the status to Rejected and notify the submitter with the approver’s comment so they know what needs to change.

This is also where you add any downstream actions — moving the approved document to a different library, triggering a second approval stage, or creating a task in Planner for the next step in the process.

Tip: Always include the approver’s comments in the rejection notification. A rejection with no explanation means the submitter cannot fix the problem — defeating the purpose of the workflow.
Step 05
Add a Reminder for Non-Response

Power Automate’s approval action has a built-in timeout option. Set a response deadline — typically 48 to 72 hours for business approvals — and add a parallel branch that sends a reminder notification to the approver if no response is received within that window. For high-priority approvals, add escalation logic that notifies the approver’s manager if the deadline passes without a response.

This is the single most important addition to any approval workflow. Without it, documents sit in a Pending state indefinitely when an approver is on leave or overwhelmed — and the submitter has no visibility into why.

Step 06
Test, Publish and Monitor

Before going live, run the flow in test mode — Power Automate allows you to trigger a test run and trace every action step by step. Check that the approval notification arrives correctly in Teams, that the SharePoint status updates correctly on both outcomes, and that the submitter notification contains all the right information.

After publishing, use the Power Automate run history to monitor the first ten to twenty real approvals. The most common issues at this stage are permission errors (the flow cannot update the SharePoint column), timeout mismatches (the approval window is too short for realistic response times), and notification delivery failures (approver email addresses are incorrect or have changed).

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What Irish Businesses Use SharePoint Approval Workflows For

The approval workflow described above is the foundation. Once it is working reliably for one document type, the same pattern applies to any process where a document needs a sign-off before it is live, distributed, or filed.

  • Contract approvals — new supplier contracts, client agreements, and renewals routed to Legal or the relevant director before countersigning.
  • Invoice approvals — purchase invoices routed to Finance with conditional routing based on amount (under €1,000 to Finance Manager, over €1,000 to CFO).
  • HR policy approvals — policy document updates routed to HR Director and then to Legal before the updated version replaces the current one in the policy library.
  • Project deliverable reviews — client-facing documents routed to the account manager for review before they are sent externally.
  • Compliance document sign-offs — GDPR-related documents, risk assessments, and audit reports routed through a defined approval chain with a full decision trail.
  • Marketing content approvals — blog posts, case studies, and campaign materials routed to the relevant stakeholder before publication.

The Mistakes That Cause These Workflows to Fail

Building the workflow before the library is structured

Power Automate can only update columns that exist. If the Approval Status column was not added before the flow was built, the update action fails silently. Get the library structure right first.

Not testing the rejection path

Most people test the approval path and assume the rejection path works the same way. It does not always. Test both outcomes before going live — particularly the comment handback and the submitter notification.

No timeout or escalation logic

An approval workflow without a timeout is an approval workflow that produces indefinitely pending documents. Every workflow needs a defined response window and a reminder or escalation action for when that window passes.

Approver names hardcoded instead of role-based

If the approver leaves the business, a hardcoded email address means the workflow sends approval requests to a defunct inbox indefinitely. Use a SharePoint column or a Microsoft 365 group to define approvers — that way changing the approver is a one-line update in SharePoint, not a flow rebuild.

Where to Start

If your business runs any kind of document approval process through email today, this workflow is the right place to start with Microsoft 365 automation. It is one of the highest-impact, lowest-complexity automations available — and it directly reduces the email overhead that slows down every team that runs approvals manually.

Mata365’s workflow automation service covers the full build — SharePoint library configuration, Power Automate flow design, testing, launch, and staff training — for Irish and UK businesses that want approvals running automatically without the trial-and-error of building from scratch.

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