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Hello it's Matt and this is Collaboration Coach
and this time we're going to be looking at how to use approvals in Microsoft Teams.
So approvals is a Teams app that lets us automate requests for things in our organisation.
These requests could be things like permission to work from home
or take overtime or a business trip.
Approvals automate all these types of requests
and you can set them up once and anyone can use them wherever they are in Teams.
Approvals are built into the Teams app on desktop and mobile
and in this video I'm going to show you how to create and manage your approvals
and how to create and use templates to customise them.
So let's take a look.
To start with, I'm going to install the Approvals app.
I'm going to go to the ellipsis on the left hand rail,
type 'approvals' in the search box
and then choose 'add'.
Now I can see the approvals app on the left hand rail
and I can right-click and pin it to keep it there if I want to
and I can also pop it out so it becomes its own window.
I thought to get started we'd just jump right in and create a new approval request.
To do that I'm going to go to the new approval request button up here
and that opens the 'create new approval' page.
And notice here at the bottom I can toggle between 'classic' and 'new'.
For this demo I'm going to use the 'new' view.
Next I'm going to choose the 'Basic request' approval
and I'm going to call the approval 'Please approve my report'.
Now Amrit is going to be the person who approves
so I type his name and pick him
and I'm going to add a message.
Then I'm going to attach the file that I want to be approved
so I choose 'add attachment' and the file is in my OneDrive so I go find it there.
I pick the file and then share a link.
Now note here that I'm sharing a link to the original file and not making a copy
so the file itself doesn't move at all.
Now back on the approvals I choose 'send' and it creates the request
and off it goes to Amrit for approval.
Once an approval has been sent it's added to my sent list
and you can see the approval I just created here at the top.
The status is 'requested' until Amrit either approves it or rejects it.
I can also see when it was created and who it was sent to
and if I open it up I can see the detail including what state it's in
and it shows me here that I'm waiting for Amrit to respond.
I can cancel the approval request from here and I can follow up
which sends Amrit a notification to his Teams feed.
Now let's switch to what Amrit the approver sees in Teams.
Approvers see a notification in their feed and possibly a banner
and you can see in the Activity app here that Amrit has some notifications
from Approvals to follow up on.
When he clicks on the notification it will open up the request
and he can see who it was sent from,
review the document that he's been asked to approve.
He can add a message to explain his choice.
He can even reassign this request
if he doesn't think he's the right person to be the approver.
And finally he can either approve or reject it.
Now luckily, Amrit's going to approve my request
and now in his received list he can see my request and that it's been approved.
So his job is done.
Now switching back to my view
I can see the request that Amrit's just approved listed at the top here
and if I open it up I can see when Amrit approved it
and the message he left me.
Okay so that was a 'basic approval' workflow.
Now let's take it to the next level and look at templates.
So if you have common approvals that you want to share with others
you can create a template.
The template is then available to everyone when they create a new approval.
Next we'll create a 'leave' approval request from a template and share it with the finance team.
So to do that, I'm going to 'create or manage templates' down here
and then I choose 'new template'.
I know there's a Leave template already here that I can choose to get me started.
Now it shows me all the questions that are already assigned to that template
so I just choose 'next'.
Then it asks me who I want to share it with.
Now I'm just going to choose 'Team wide' for this particular template
and then I'm going to choose the Finance team
from the list of teams that I'm a member of
and then 'done'.
Now I can start editing my new approval.
I can set the category
and I can type in a description and then press 'next'
and now I can actually design the form.
I can open up the existing questions.
I can move and duplicate and delete them
and I can add new 'choice', 'text' and 'date' questions if I need more information.
When I have all my questions I choose 'next'
and now I can choose the other settings.
The first one is to allow attaching files.
I can set whether it's me - the creator, or the requester who sets who the approver should be
and I can set what the response should be and the default is just 'approve' or 'reject'.
I can also set whether to allow comments.
And once that's all set up and ready I can preview the approval
and if I'm happy with how it looks I can hit 'publish'.
Now the approval is ready and I can see it listed.
Now notice up here, it's showing me all the templates in Finance now
so I could drop this list down and change the context.
So for example, I could see a list of all the organisation templates
or I could switch to a specific team that I'm a member of like this coaching one here
and see their templates.
If I close the templates page down and create a new approval request,
I'll now see my leave approval request listed under Finance
and that's available to everyone who's a member of the Finance team.
Okay so that's how you use the Approvals app in Teams.
Don't forget to subscribe to the channel if you like the video.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.
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