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How do I create a sequential approval in Power automate with maintaining approval history.

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Posted on by CU10061411-0

I have 1 PDF file, It needs approval signature from 3 people, start from employee, department head and then VP IT, How do I create a sequential approval in Power automate with maintaining approval history.

Approval history means audit trail if I want to see what time the approval approve the PDF file(Approve means PDF file required his/her signature)

for Example, I am a employee, I need some software tool access, for this there is a PDF approval form, which Required my signature, then my department head signature and then final signature required from VP IT to approve my access for the software tool. It's a kind of sequential signature.

Glimpse of my PDF form with signature is attached

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Building flows

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MMcCloud 357 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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I have a solution for this and I will walk you through it step by step:

Option A (If Longer than 30 days for full process):

You will need a SharePoint list, 1 Flow and users with access to approvals and the list:

1. Create your SharePoint list to store your approval case whatever fields you need but, you will need a status field with the different approval tiers. And a column called something like "History"

2. Create a Power Automate flow that is triggered when a case is created or updated from a sharepoint list

3. Use a "Switch" to check if the "Status Value" field is equal to your Step 1-3 values you decide upon for example (VP, President, Executive).

4. Dependent on who its assigned to send the approval to the person.

5. When the person responds to your approval take their comments the field is labeled as "Responses Comments" to the "History" field and do a "Update Item" to the sharepoint list for this and to move the status to the needed field (next approver for status or to a denied and send an email or notification to the submitter)

When you create the "Update Item" step here in the "History" update value for each subsequential approver you need to put the old value from the original trigger action. So it will be something like

History: "Dynamic History Value from/Trigger Action"

New "Reponse Approver Name": "Responses Comments"

6. The flow will then end this run then your next run will take off and go into the next status if it goes back to the same person you didn't update the status field during step 5 to the next person.

Option B (30 day window but, way simpler to track):

1. Create the same list as in A but, you don't need the status column unless you or the team wants it (I would either way)

2. Create a flow trigger when an item is created only unless you want to be able to restart(takes more work)

3. Send your approval to your first user

4. Capture them in the "History" field of your list with a "Update Item" action with the

History: "Dynamic History Value from/Trigger Action"

New "Reponse Approver Name": "Responses Comments"

Same concept

5. Continues through flow to next user.

6. Follow this process through the same.

If this solves your question, please choose me as the answer. If you need any more assistance feel free to drop a response, I will do my best to try and help.

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CU10061411-0 8 on at

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Seems like a crisp solution, let me implement this. thank you for your feedback its very vital to understand the cycle as u explained

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MMcCloud 357 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Glad I could be of help reposting the solution so that it can be pinned. Sorry I forgot to tag as an answer.

Option A (If Longer than 30 days for full process):

You will need a SharePoint list, 1 Flow and users with access to approvals and the list:

1. Create your SharePoint list to store your approval case whatever fields you need but, you will need a status field with the different approval tiers. And a column called something like "History"

2. Create a Power Automate flow that is triggered when a case is created or updated from a sharepoint list

3. Use a "Switch" to check if the "Status Value" field is equal to your Step 1-3 values you decide upon for example (VP, President, Executive).

4. Dependent on who its assigned to send the approval to the person.

5. When the person responds to your approval take their comments the field is labeled as "Responses Comments" to the "History" field and do a "Update Item" to the sharepoint list for this and to move the status to the needed field (next approver for status or to a denied and send an email or notification to the submitter)

When you create the "Update Item" step here in the "History" update value for each subsequential approver you need to put the old value from the original trigger action. So it will be something like

History: "Dynamic History Value from/Trigger Action"

New "Reponse Approver Name": "Responses Comments"

6. The flow will then end this run then your next run will take off and go into the next status if it goes back to the same person you didn't update the status field during step 5 to the next person.

Option B (30 day window but, way simpler to track):

1. Create the same list as in A but, you don't need the status column unless you or the team wants it (I would either way)

2. Create a flow trigger when an item is created only unless you want to be able to restart(takes more work)

3. Send your approval to your first user

4. Capture them in the "History" field of your list with a "Update Item" action with the

History: "Dynamic History Value from/Trigger Action"

New "Reponse Approver Name": "Responses Comments"

Same concept

5. Continues through flow to next user.

6. Follow this process through the same.

If this solves your question, please choose me as the answer. If you need any more assistance feel free to drop a response, I will do my best to try and help.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No