Microsoft Teams comes with several features that help collaborate work and teams. It also lets you add additional apps that further help in work and team management. One such app is Approvals. Microsoft Teams Approvals is a way to streamline all of your requests and processes with your team or partners. You can create new approvals, view the ones sent your way, and see all of your previous approvals in one place.
What does Microsoft Teams Approvals app do?
Approvals app manages all sorts of approval requests. It is a great organizational tool for both the requester and the approver. It is an easy-to-use and intuitive platform to record all approval requests and see their status; whether the request is pending, approved, or rejected.
The Approvals app is not only limited to managing time-off requests, but it majorly focuses on work-related approvals. Some of the Approvals examples include client agreements for a new contract, project proposals, and so on. Approvals tool collaborates with other Office 365 tools such as SharePoint, Power Automate, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and more.
Features of Microsoft Teams Approvals
The Approvals app provides several ways to see and approve requests to its user. Its features mainly offer an easy platform to manage all approval requests.
Here is a description of various tabs and sections of Approvals on Microsoft Teams:
- Approvals hub
- Approvals from chat
- Approvals card
- Basic approval
- Workflow approval
- Notifications
- Endless options
Let us look at these tabs and functions in more detail.
1] Approvals hub
This is where you’ll see all of the approvals that you’ve sent or received, including the ones that are already complete. Approvals show up across all of your systems, including Power Automate, SharePoint, and Microsoft Dynamics 365.
2] Approvals from chat
Send an approval right from your Teams conversation. Set it up from the compose box, then see the approvals card in your chat. Note that only people in the conversation can be added as approvers.
3] Approvals card
The card gives a real-time summary of the approval’s status. See who’s responded, and who still needs a little more time.
4] Basic approval
A basic approval is what you’ll typically use when you start from the hub or a chat. All approvals are stored in the Common Data Service, where only people on the approval and a tenant admin can access them.
5] Workflow approval
When you create an approval through Power Automate, it’ll appear in your list of approvals in the app. This is considered a workflow approval, as you can create a new flow and select a trigger such as a system-driven event from one of the 350+ connectors provided, or your own LOB connector.
6] Notifications
Customize your notification settings on the Notifications page within Teams.
7] Different options
Whether you need the approval to file an expense report, give a discount to a customer, or request time off, use Approvals to get it all done within Teams.
Requirements: permissions and licenses
To use the Approvals app, you need permission for the following items:
- Permission to create a Microsoft Dataverse database.
- An account on powerautomate.microsoft.com
- Administrator Role in the target environment.
- License for Power Automate, Office 365, or Dynamics 365.
- A license for Microsoft Forms is required for users to set up new approval templates.
When you get a license for Power Automate, your account is automatically added to the Approvals User role in the target environment on your first approval assignment.
How to create an approval on Microsoft Teams Approvals?
It is quite easy to create an approval request on this app. Follow the next steps to create an approval from the Approvals hub:
- Open the Approvals app in Microsoft Teams.
- Select New approval request.
- Now, fill in the name of the request, who needs to approve it, and any additional info.
- When you add more than one approver name in the form, the toggle in front of Require a response from all approvers turns ON automatically.
- You can support your approval request with additional documents. There is a provision of attaching these documents to the request.
- Once you have completed the form, click on Send. This newly created request can be seen in the Sent section in the hub.
For the approver, this request looks as follows:
How to create an approval from chat?
Microsoft Teams Approvals app offers various ways to create an approval request. One of the ways is to create it through a New approval request. Another way is to create it from the chat option.
When you have installed the Approvals app on Microsoft Teams, you can see its icon at the bottom of the chat window.
Click on this icon and it opens the same approval request form mentioned above.
However, when you create an approval request from a chat, you can only add the people involved in the chat as the Approvers in the form. In other words, the approvers must be the members of your original chat.
Once the chat request is created, it will be seen in the Approval hub as well as in the chat window.
Click on the View details tab to view whether your request was approved by all the chat members.
Do try the Microsoft Teams Approvals app and let us know your feedback.
Credit: The images in this post have been sourced from Microsoft.com.
How can I set up approvals on Microsoft Teams?
Follow these steps to create an approval from the approvals app in Teams.
- Sign into Microsoft Teams.
- Select More added apps (…), search for Approvals, and then select the Approvals app.
- Select New Approval request on the top right of the app.
- Enter the details of the approval.
- Click on Send.
How long do approvals stay in Teams?
Users report that Power Automate run history retention is 30 days. Hence, the approvals stay in Teams for 30 days. However, you can check the duration and retention limits on Power Automate.
