This post is part of a series where we examine the advantages and disadvantages of a document approval process, and then build an example automated solution with SharePoint and PowerAutomate.
Posts in this series:
- Should you automate your document approval process?
- Building a basic document approvals automation with SharePoint and PowerAutomate
In a previous post, Building a basic document approvals automation with SharePoint and PowerAutomate, one of the resources required for our example document approvals solution is a SharePoint Team Site to be used as a collaboration space for preparation of Finance documents.
In this post we show the steps to create that Team Site and grant access needed by the Document Approval and Publication automation.
Solution resources and actors
Based on our solution design, we need:
- To create a SharePoint Team site for the Finance documents authoring group.
- The new group shall be owned by user, Alex.
- There shall be a single group owner: Henrietta.
- User, Lynne, shall be granted read access to the group’s SharePoint Team site.
Create the Finance Team Site
To provide the collaboration space for use by the Finance authoring group, we need to create a SharePoint Team Site.
As user, Alex, sign in to Microsoft 365 and launch the SharePoint web app.
In the SharePoint web app, click the Create site button
Select Team site
We’ll create a standard team for the Finance authoring group.
Confirm that we want to create the new team site using the Standard Team template.
On the next screen we set the name of the new SharePoint Team Site.
In our example we name the site, D022 Draft Finance Documents.
At Watford Consulting, we often use a common prefix when naming resources created for demonstration purposes. This helps with identifying those resources we may want to clean up later. In this case we are using the prefix, D022.
Next we select the privacy settings and language to use for the new team site.
In this case we leave the default privacy and language choices and then click the Create site button.
At this point SharePoint will start creating the Team Site for the Finance authoring group.
At the next screen we are given a chance to add new members to the Microsoft 365 Group which (mostly) controls access to the new collaboration space.
Per our solution requirements, we add Henrietta to the group’s membership.
After the new SharePoint Team Site has been created and members added, the new site is displayed.
Grant the PowerAutomate Flow read access to the Finance Team Site
The PowerAutomate Flow that will handle publishing of approved documents will need to read the original approved document.
To do this we will grant Lynne – the owner of the flow – read access to the SharePoint Team Site.
Note: There are a few other approaches to grant the PowerAutomate Flow access to the approved document – but giving permission to the flow owner keeps things simple for this example.
To grant permission to the SharePoint site, click the gear icon towards the top-right of the site’s page and the select the Site permissions option.
On the Permissions side-panel, click the Add members drop-down menu and choose Share site only.
The Share site side-panel is then displayed.
Here we search for and select user, Lynne, ensuring that only Read permissions are configured.
We also ensure that the Send email checkbox is cleared to avoid sending unnecessary messages to Lynne.
Conclusion
In this blog post we have created a SharePoint Team site, named D022 Finance Draft Documents, as a collaboration space for members of the Finance documents authoring group to create draft documents.
The Team site was created by Alex, causing him to be the owner of the site. The remaining member of the authoring group was also added to the site.
To ensure the PowerAutomate Flow that will orchestrate the document approval and publication process has access to the authoring group’s draft documents, the owner of the flow – Lynne – was granted read access to the SharePoint Team site.
