How to streamline your approval processes with the Microsoft Approvals Kit

Approval processes are essential for any organization that wants to ensure quality, compliance, and efficiency. However, creating and managing approval workflows can be challenging, especially when they involve multiple stages, conditions, and stakeholders. That’s why Microsoft has introduced the Approvals Kit, a no-code solution that leverages the power of the Power Platform to help you configure and automate your approval processes with ease.

What is the Approvals Kit?

The Approvals Kit is a template that you can install in any Dataverse environment. It is built on top of the standard Approvals connector, but it adds several features and components to make your approval processes more sophisticated and flexible. Some of the features that the Approvals Kit offers are:

• Multi-stage approvals: You can define multiple stages for your approval process, each with its own approvers, conditions, and actions.
• Conditional approvals: You can set up rules and logic to determine the flow of your approval process based on the input data, the stage status, or the outcome of previous stages.
• Delegation: You can assign delegates to handle approvals on behalf of the original approvers, either manually or automatically based on their out-of-office status or organizational calendar.
• Admin overrides: You can allow administrators to intervene and change the status or outcome of any approval stage, with a reason and audit trail.
• Workdays based timeout: You can set a timeout for each approval stage based on the number of workdays, and trigger actions or notifications when the timeout is reached.

How does the Approvals Kit work?

The Approvals Kit consists of several Power Platform components that work together to manage the end-to-end approval process. The key components are:

• Process designer: A Power Apps app that allows business users to create and version approval workflows with input application data, stages, and conditions. The data used by the process designer is stored in Dataverse design time tables.
• Custom connector: A connector that provides a simple way for makers to use a Power Automate trigger to start the process of a business approval based on the Power Platform connectors and actions.
• Dataverse: A set of custom tables that store the approval workflows, the application data, the stage status, the node status, and the conditions. Dataverse also provides auditing features to record the approval processes.
• Power Automate cloud flows: A set of cloud flows that react to changes in the Dataverse tables to manage the approval process, such as sending approval requests, updating stage status, handling delegation, and performing actions.

How to get started with the Approvals Kit?

To get started with the Approvals Kit, you need to have the following licenses and permissions:

• Power Apps licenses and Power Automate licenses for the users who design and manage the approval processes.
• Power Apps licenses for the end users who make approval decisions, depending on the integration required.
• System administrator or system customizer role for the Power Platform administrators who create and assign environments and import the Approvals Kit solution.

Once you have the required licenses and permissions, you can follow these steps to install and use the Approvals Kit:

1. Download the Approvals Kit solution from the Power Platform GitHub repository.
2. Import the solution into a Dataverse environment of your choice.
3. Open the Process Designer app and create a new approval workflow or modify an existing one.
4. Configure the input application data, the stages, the conditions, and the actions for your approval workflow.
5. Save and publish your approval workflow.
6. Create a connection reference to the Approvals Kit connector in your Power Platform solution.
7. Use the Approvals Kit connector as a trigger in your Power Automate cloud flow to start the approval process based on your business scenario.
8. Monitor and analyze the approval process using the Dataverse tables or the Power BI dashboard.

Summary

The Approvals Kit is a powerful and flexible solution that can help you streamline your approval processes with the Power Platform. It allows you to create and manage complex approval workflows without writing any code, and it integrates seamlessly with the standard Approvals connector and other Power Platform components. With the Approvals Kit, you can improve the quality, compliance, and efficiency of your business processes and empower every person in your organization to do more with less.