Forum Discussion
Kerem Yuceturk
Microsoft
MicrosoftIntroducing "Request sign-off" - an approval flow that requires no set up
We are happy to announce a new feature in SharePoint called "Request sign-off". The goal is to provide you an easy way to send an item for approval to someone else. This feature enables an open approval process that allows you to easily record whether or not a document or list item was approved or not. There is no setup required.
Request sign-off makes use of SharePoint's integration with Microsoft Flow. You can use it by selecting a file or list item (but not a folder), and then pulling down the Flow menu in the modern library or list UI, and selecting "Request sign-off". This flow will appear alongside any other custom flow that you or others may have added to the library.
Once it is invoked, Request sign-off will create a new text column in your library called "Sign-off status". This column will record the state of your request. It works just like any other text column, you can sort, filter or group by it to organize your library.
On invocation, this will tell you that it will send an approval request on your behalf, and ask your consent. Once this is provided, you can pick one or more approvers, and write a message to them for your approval request. If you add more than one approver, any one of them can approve your request:
The person you sent the approval to will receive an approval request. This will be an actionable message on clients that support it (meaning you can approve it directly from within Outlook). The approver can also provide some comments along with their decision. There will also be a link included that lets the approver view the item in question:
The sign-off status column is then updated with the decision, and the person who sent the approval request will receive an email with the comments:
By saving you the trouble of setting up a flow and creating a new column to track status, we hope that this feature will make it easy to add a lightweight approval process to your libraries and lists.
We expect this feature to start rolling out to our customers in targeted release (previously called first release) after April 9. Barring any issues we will continue to roll it out to the rest of our customers in two phases late April and early May.
Kerem Yuceturk Approximately 2.5 years later, is this ready for GCC G3 G5 Government Community Cloud subscriptions/tenants?
If so, how do we enable Request sign-off in a library if it isn't showing up but should be?
- After a document has been signed of, I modified it.
It’s status stays approved.
It does not really make sense to me.
Or do I miss something?
Thanks Kerem Yuceturk Is there a way to create an outlook search folder to display only pending sign-off requests?
this flow is only working for administrators in our SharePoint-library but not for ordinary users. Is there any default I have to change before the "Request sign-off" will appear once clicked on Flow?
Can external users use this feature to send approval ? Also do they require E3 license ?
We tested with external account without E3 license and it does not show up the Approver's text box
Kerem Yuceturk Can external users use this feature to send approval ? Also do they require E3 license ?
We tested with external account without E3 license and it does not show up the Approver's text box .
Kerem Yuceturk Can external users use this feature to send approval ? Also do they require E3 license ?
We tested with external account without E3 license and it does not show up the Approver's text box .
This is a really helpful addition and seems to work well apart from, after something has been approved I keep getting the following error message:
"Note that we were not able to update the column in SharePoint because the file was locked by a user."
So, my item has been successfully sign off but none of the files (in the document library) are checked out to anyone, therefore I'm confused as to why the 'Sign-off Status' column can't automatically be updated?
Any ideas?
Thank you.
SLJ13 wrote:This is a really helpful addition and seems to work well apart from, after something has been approved I keep getting the following error message:
"Note that we were not able to update the column in SharePoint because the file was locked by a user."
So, my item has been successfully sign off but none of the files (in the document library) are checked out to anyone, therefore I'm confused as to why the 'Sign-off Status' column can't automatically be updated?
Any ideas?
Thank you.
SLJ13 - That's what the last couple of pages in this thread are all about. The Flow stopped working properly in January and supposedly it's being worked on as a high priority (see my updates of a support ticket), but obviously it isn't that high of a priority.
Thank you. I have read all the posts, but thought I was maybe missing something and it had supposedly been fixed back in January? But, glad to know I'm not still the only one having issues with it! Hopefully support will get it fixed sooner rather than later :-)
Do you know if it is possible to create a column to display who has signed off the specific document?
Thanks
Dan Wright wrote:Do you know if it is possible to create a column to display who has signed off the specific document?
Thanks
With this existing Flow it would have to be a manual input by someone. You wouldn't be able to modify the Flow, but could create a new custom Flow with approval just like it and then add an update item step with the approval data in a separate column. This is pretty simple to do, like this example of an Approval History column, and there are a number of walk-through steps in this community and blogs and YouTube videos.
Jer Harwood could you point me in the right direction for an Approval History Column example? I'm struggling how to get this column updated. What is the full flow to update a List item upon List item approval (not document).
Thanks,
Dan
The "Request sign-off" works for me until it is time to update the Sign-off column. I receive an email stating the following "(the person's name) signed off on your item. Note that we were not able to update the column in SharePoint because the file was locked by a user".
I'm not sure how to fix this issue. Help, please.
Thank you
I think this may be related to Microsoft changing the default way in which documents are opened.
It used to be that clicking on a document link opened it in the browser in Preview mode; if the user wanted to edit the document they had to click an Edit button.
But now, clicking on a document by default opens it in Edit mode in the browser.
Here's what's happening, as far as I can tell:
- User receives request to sign-off
- User clicks on the document link to look at it
- Document opens in Edit mode (which places a lock on the document)
- User switches back to request and Approves without first closing the document to release the lock
You can test this if you want by sending three requests:
- Have the Approver approve without looking at the document at all - should succeed.
- Have the Approver look at the document and then close it before approving - should succeed, but leave a few seconds between closing the document and Approving.
- Have the Approver look at the document and leave it open while approving - should FAIL.
I really wish the default behavior when clicking on a document link would be to Read the document, not Edit it. I believe that would solve this issue (and a few others we're having).
Jim Duncan wrote:Here's what's happening, as far as I can tell:
- User receives request to sign-off
- User clicks on the document link to look at it
- Document opens in Edit mode (which places a lock on the document)
- User switches back to request and Approves without first closing the document to release the lock
You can test this if you want by sending three requests:
- Have the Approver approve without looking at the document at all - should succeed.
- Have the Approver look at the document and then close it before approving - should succeed, but leave a few seconds between closing the document and Approving.
- Have the Approver look at the document and leave it open while approving - should FAIL.
As far as I can determine there is no way to get this Flow to work end to end (without changing the status manually yourself)
are ANY Flows that try to update document/list item columns working at the moment?
It wouldn't surprise me if this file locking issue was not only impacting the OOTB Request sign-off and approval Flows
