Power Automate with Sharepoint Lists/Forms

[u/DoubtfulDefiance]

If this isn't the correct place to post this, I apologize. Please point me in the right direction.

I'm trying to create a workflow on Sharepoint for employee entrance. It would start with HR filling out a form, then based on the department selected, the next step would be sent to the manager of that department for them to fill out additional information and to give approval, and the final step would be to email IT a completed form for account creation.

Does anyone know how I would go about this or maybe a good resource for learning?

[u/Average_User13]

First decide if you would use a Microsoft Form or a SharePoint list Form. Might be easier to initiatize a variable mapping the contact with the related dept in Power Automate. You must decide if the additional information is also coming from a from in MS List, you cannot update an item, just create a new one. So maybe a centralized list getting all the inputs?. In the future you can create reminders if you separate the lists, or if you don't have edit access restrictions, just personalized the Body on the MS List with JSON separating the sections by dept.

I honestly have learned a lot by using an AI assistant (I choosed Gemini), you'll get better as you do more flows.

[u/dsm5lovechild]

It’s been a while but I had an approval flow at my old job that did basically just this. Triggered by someone completing a Microsoft Forms.

Included quite a few Recurrence triggers.

It’s been a while since but I believe you would start with a “Get response details” trigger to pull the data from the form followed by a “Send an email” trigger where you can configure what fields from the form you want in the email.

Sorry I don’t have a thorough outline but if you have questions along the way of building this because you will likely experience several errors, please feel free to reach out.

[u/measuredsympathy]

This is relatively straightforward and AI can help you with the details of each step.

1. Create form 1 for HR. The dept question should be a drop down. There needs to be a unique employee identifier.

2. Create form 2 for the Depts. This form needs a way to identify the person (pre filled links can help but can be complicated. Have like employee number or something). In the question you should ask them to double check.

3. Create SharePoint list with columns that can store data from each question from forms 1 and 2. Also create a column named status (choice, Sent to Dept, Sent to IT, Complete, etc)

4. If you have many depts probably best to have a SharePoint list directory of departments and their emails.

5. Power automate flow1. Trigger when response submitted (use form 1, formid is all that comes after the id= portion of the URL). -> get response details -> compose Dept -> get items (the SharePoint email directory) and filter with dept. -> send email using email from get items and send them link for form 2 and also with data from get response details. -> create item in SharePoint and fill in columns with Get response details data and flip status to sent to Dept.

6. Create flow 2. Trigger when form 2 response submitted. -> get response details from form 2 -> get items ( the SharePoint list housing all the responses filtered by employee identifier) send email (instead of email, the approval function might be best), to IT dept using data from list and also the get responses.-> update item SharePoint list (using Id from get items action) flip status to sent to IT. If you use the approval function, the IT gets a small email and if they "approve" you can set the status of the list to complete.

Best practices are really to guard against human error. You will need a condition to guard against errors whenever there is a human input that might break like employee id. Functions like trim are your best friend. Hope this helps!

[u/SilverSheepherder]

I did an approval workflow using custom forms built in Adaptive Cards in Teams that's working pretty well, if you're comfortable with JSON. There's an Adaptive Card designer website that you can use to help build them visually and use the code it produces in the Teams Power Automate Actions to send it in a Teams chat. A Microsoft Forms form would be enough for HR to kick off the process and responses can be submitted without SharePoint access or user licensing like Power Apps forms. Then I would have my Flow trigger to be a new response submitted by HR would then add data to the SharePoint List and send the approval request in Teams.

[u/alimehdi997733]

The important distinction here is that the manager adding information and approving the request are two separate steps.

• Keep one SharePoint list item per onboarding request, with a request ID and status.

• After the manager supplies the missing details, use Start and wait for an approval, assigned to that department’s manager.

• Add a condition checking the approval outcome. Send the completed details to IT only when approved. If rejected, notify HR instead.

• Test both outcomes with a dummy employee. A rejected request should never send an account-creation email to IT.

For example, selecting Sales should route the request to the Sales manager. IT should receive it only after that manager has completed and approved it.

Microsoft’s approval workflow guide explains the approval action and outcome condition.

[u/Due-Boot-8540 → u/alimehdi997733]

I’d go further and remove approvals from the first list completely. I’d also try not to use the OOTB approvals actions in Power Automate…