Approvals and Business Scenarios | Guided by A Guide to Cloud

Approvals in Power Automate

Simple explanation

Think of it like passing a permission slip.

You write a request, hand it to your manager, and wait for a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. But instead of walking to their desk, Power Automate sends the request digitally — straight to their Teams, email, or phone. They tap Approve or Reject, and the flow continues automatically.

No more chasing people down the hallway. No more “I forgot to sign that form.” It just happens.

How approvals work

The approval process in Power Automate follows a clear pattern:

A flow triggers (event, button, or schedule)
The flow reaches an approval action and sends a request
The approver receives the request in Teams, Outlook, or the mobile app
The approver responds — Approve, Reject, or a custom response
The flow continues based on the response (different actions for approve vs reject)

Types of approval

Approval Type	How It Works
Approve/Reject — First to respond	Sent to multiple approvers. The first person to respond decides the outcome.
Approve/Reject — Everyone must approve	Sent to multiple approvers. ALL must approve for the request to pass. One rejection rejects it.
Custom responses	You define your own response options (e.g., “Approved”, “Needs revision”, “Escalate to director”)

Adaptive cards in Teams

When an approval request arrives in Teams, it shows up as an adaptive card — a rich, interactive card that displays the request details and action buttons right inside the chat.

The approver does not need to leave Teams. They see the request, review the details, add an optional comment, and click Approve or Reject. The response flows back to Power Automate instantly.

This is one of the most popular Power Automate features in organisations that use Teams heavily.

Carlos’s leave approval flow

Carlos builds a leave request system for Greenleaf Health:

Trigger: A staff member submits a leave request via a Microsoft Form
Action 1: The flow reads the form response (name, dates, leave type, reason)
Action 2: Start an approval — sent to the staff member’s manager
Action 3 (if approved): Update the shared leave calendar, send confirmation email to the employee
Action 3 (if rejected): Send a notification email explaining the rejection

The whole process takes seconds. No paper forms, no email chains, no forgotten requests.

Power Automate scenarios by service

Power Automate connects to all the major Microsoft 365 services. Here are the most common scenarios the exam expects you to know:

Power Automate Scenarios by Service
Service	Common Triggers	Common Actions
Microsoft Teams	When a message is posted, keyword mentioned	Post message, create channel, send adaptive card
Outlook	When an email arrives, when flagged	Send email, create event, send approval via email
SharePoint	When item is created/modified, file created	Create item, update item, get items, move/copy files
Microsoft Forms	When a new response is submitted	Get response details, use data in downstream actions
OneDrive	When a file is created/modified	Copy file, create file, convert file, get file content
Planner	When a task is assigned	Create task, update task, list tasks

Exam tip: You do not need to memorise every trigger and action. Focus on understanding which service handles which scenario and that triggers start flows while actions do work.

Document automation

Power Automate includes document automation capabilities that use AI to extract information from documents:

Document processing actions — extract data from invoices, receipts, business cards, and custom forms using pre-built or custom AI models
PDF actions — merge PDFs, extract text, add watermarks
Word templates — populate Word documents with dynamic data (e.g., generate a contract with a customer name and date pulled from SharePoint)

Carlos’s invoice processing

Greenleaf Health receives dozens of supplier invoices weekly. Carlos builds a flow:

Trigger: When a PDF is uploaded to the “Invoices” SharePoint folder
Action 1: Document processing extracts the vendor name, amount, and due date from the PDF
Action 2: Create a row in the finance tracking SharePoint list
Action 3: If the amount is over 5,000 dollars, start an approval to the finance director
Action 4: Move the processed invoice to the “Processed” folder

No more manually reading invoices and typing numbers into spreadsheets.

What is AI Builder?

AI Builder is a Power Platform feature that lets you add AI capabilities to your flows and apps without writing code. For document automation, it provides:

Pre-built models for invoices, receipts, business cards, and ID documents
Custom models that you train on your own document types
Text recognition (OCR) to extract text from images and scanned documents

In Power Automate, you add AI Builder as an action in your flow — the AI model processes the document and returns the extracted data as outputs you can use in later steps.

Putting it all together

Here is why Power Automate is powerful — it connects services that would otherwise require manual work between them:

Scenario	Services Connected	Manual Work Eliminated
Leave requests	Forms, Approvals, Teams, Outlook, Calendar	Paper forms, email chains, calendar updates
Invoice processing	SharePoint, Document processing, Approvals, Excel	Manual data entry, approval emails, filing
New hire onboarding	SharePoint, Outlook, Teams, Planner	Welcome emails, task creation, notifications
Customer feedback	Forms, Teams, SharePoint, Outlook	Reading responses, routing to teams, tracking
Document generation	SharePoint, Word Online, OneDrive	Copy-paste into templates, file management

🎬 Video walkthrough

🎬 Video coming soon

Approvals and Business Scenarios — PL-900 Domain 4

~10 min

Flashcards

Question

What are the two main approval types in Power Automate?

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Answer

1) First to respond — any one approver decides. 2) Everyone must approve — all approvers must agree. You can also create custom response options beyond Approve/Reject.

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Question

How do approvals appear in Microsoft Teams?

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Answer

As adaptive cards — rich, interactive cards that show the request details and Approve/Reject buttons directly in the Teams chat. The approver never needs to leave Teams.

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Question

What is document automation in Power Automate?

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Answer

Using document processing actions to extract data from invoices, receipts, and forms, PDF actions for manipulation, and Word templates for generating documents with dynamic data.

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Question

What happens when a flow reaches an approval action?

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Answer

The flow PAUSES and sends the approval request to the designated approver(s). It waits until the approver responds, then continues down different paths based on whether it was approved or rejected.

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Knowledge Check

Carlos needs an approval where three department heads must ALL agree before a budget request is approved. Which approval type should he use?

Knowledge Check

A Power Automate flow needs to extract vendor names and amounts from PDF invoices automatically. Which feature should be used?

Knowledge CheckSelect all that apply

Which of the following are common Power Automate triggers for SharePoint? (Select TWO)

Next up: We will dive into the logic inside flows — conditions, loops, and branching that make your flows smart enough to handle different scenarios.