Approvals fundamentals: Start and wait
1. Approvals fundamentals: Start and wait
A flow that branches on contract value is useful, but a high-value renewal shouldn't auto-send. Someone has to say yes first. This video covers the Approvals connector and its core action, Start and wait for an approval.2. Why pause a flow for a human?
Most of the actions you've used so far run to completion in seconds. Approvals are different. They pause the flow, sometimes for minutes and sometimes for days, until a human responds. That sounds heavy, but it's exactly what you want when the next step commits real money or sends a contract. The Approvals connector handles the email, the buttons, and the wait state for you. You don't wire any of that yourself. You just configure who decides and what they need to see.3. Anatomy of Start and wait
The action is called Start and wait for an approval, and five fields matter. Approval type picks the response style, and we'll start with binary Approve/Reject. Assigned to is the approver's email; comma-separate for multiple. Title and Details are the summary text the approver reads in their inbox. And Item Link is the field that turns the approval into something useful, a clickable URL that opens the underlying record. For a renewal, that's the contract PDF in SharePoint.4. What the approver actually sees
This is the email the approver receives. Notice the buttons live inside the email itself, and that's what actionable means in Outlook. The approver never leaves their inbox to respond, so there's no separate website to visit and no Power Automate login required. They hit Approve or Reject right there and the flow resumes. Title and Details are the summary fields you populated. Item Link is the clickable hyperlink that opens the underlying record, in this case the contract PDF in SharePoint, so the approver can read the document before deciding.5. Outcome: the casing trap
When the approver responds, the flow resumes and exposes a token called `Outcome`. It's a string, either `'Approve'` or `'Reject'`, with capital letters. This is the single most-hit gotcha in real Power Automate. Drop the token into a Condition, type the comparison value as lowercase `'approve'`, and the Condition silently routes every approval down the If no branch. Flow Checker won't catch it. The flow runs green. Approvers complain that their approvals aren't sticking, and you spend an afternoon hunting a one-character bug, so remember capital A on Approve every time.6. Where the approval slots into the flow
Approvals usually live on one branch of a Condition, not on the main path. Low-value renewals run end-to-end without anyone's input. High-value renewals, the ones over a threshold like a hundred thousand, route into the approval, wait for a yes or no, and then take their own downstream path based on `Outcome`. That's why you almost always pair Start and wait with a Condition immediately after, branching on the Outcome string. Approve fires the renewal email; Reject fires a declined notification. That pairing means one approval with one downstream Condition on Outcome.7. Let's practice!
Pause, email, resume - that's the Approvals pattern. Let's wire one up.Create Your Free Account
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