How To Add Power Automate Approval Attachments (SharePoint)

Power Automate approval flows can include attachments from SharePoint lists and document libraries. The approver is able to open the file and review it before choosing to approve or reject it. Document libraries and list attachments must be handled different ways in an approval flow. I will show you both methods and provide templates you can use when building your own flows

Table of Contents
• Introduction: The Approval Flow With SharePoint Attachments

SharePoint Document Library Flow Attachments
• Create A SharePoint Document Library File
• Add Document Library File To Approval Attachments
• Run The Approval Flow With Document Library Attachments

SharePoint List Item Approval Attachments
• Create A SharePoint List Item With Multiple Attachments
• Add List Item Attachments To An Approval Action
• Run The Approval Flow With List Item Attachments

Introduction: The Approval Flow With SharePoint Attachments

The finance department uses Power Automate approval flows to approve invoices and expenses. The approval attachments can come from a SharePoint document library or a SharePoint list item attachments.

SharePoint Document Library Approval Attachment

Create A SharePoint Document Library File

Open SharePoint an create a new document library named Invoice Approvals. Upload a document to the document library.

Add Document Library File To Approval Attachments

Go to Power Automate and start a new automated flow with the SharePoint – When an item or a file is modified trigger. Get file content from the file that triggered the flow. Then add the file name with extension from the trigger and the body from the get file content action into the approval attachment fields.

Run The Approval Flow With Document Library Attachments

That’s all it takes to build the Power Automate approval flow with an document library file as an attachment. Save the flow and add a new file to the library to see it run.

The approval action now includes a document file from SharePoint.

SharePoint List Item Approval Attachments

Create A SharePoint List Item With Multiple Attachments

Go to SharePoint and create a new list named Travel Expenses with the following columns.

Then add a new SharePoint list item and upload multiple attachment files.

Add List Item Attachments To An Approval Action

Start a new Power Automate flow with a SharePoint – When an item or a file is modified trigger. Get the attachments for list item that triggered the flow and then get the attachment content. Compose an attachment object with a name and content field. Then add an approvals action, switch the approvals input fields to entire array and reference the compose action inside of the apply to each loop.

Use this code in the inputs field of the Compose action.

{
  "name": "@{items('Apply_to_each')?['DisplayName']}",
  "content": @{body('Get_attachment_content')}
}

Then write this expression in the Attachments field of the Create Approval action.

outputs('Compose:_Attachment')

Run The Approval Flow With List Item Attachments

Save the flow and add a new list item to the Travel Expenses table with multiple attachments to see it run.

The flow approval appears with multiple attachments from the SharePoint list item.

Questions?

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