One Form, One List, One Automation Flow - and Zero Email Approvals

Many organisations still approve critical documents — payment certificates, variation orders, supplier evaluations — the same way they did in the XX century: via endless email chains.

Someone sends a PDF, someone replies “Noted”, someone else forwards it, attachments get lost, and two weeks later everyone is hunting through their inbox for “the latest version”.

Due to its simplicity and availability, this process is still considered acceptable.

You don’t need Elon Musk to fix this. You can automate a clean, auditable approval workflow with nothing more than a Microsoft Form, a List, and a single Power Automate flow.

Below is a real example from a payment-certificate approval process. It’s simple, available to anyone with Microsoft 365, and arguably works better than email.

The Setup: A Form, a List, and One Trigger

We start with a Microsoft Form.

The requester receives a link, fills out the payment-certificate request form, attaches the documents, and submits it.

A connected Microsoft List stores every submission with attachments. The key status column here is “Reviewed by Administrator” — this is the backbone of the logic. It lets us run one flow with two branches instead of two separate triggers.

Once the item is added to the list, Power Automate reacts whenever the item is created or modified.

Step 1 — Administrator Review Without Email Chains

As soon as a new entry appears:

• The flow checks if it’s a fresh submission.

• It’s not reviewed yet.

• The title field is empty (because the admin hasn’t assigned an ID).

This tells the system: “This is a new request — wait for the administrator.”

The administrator opens the item, assigns a document ID, and flips “Reviewed by Administrator” to Yes.

No emails. No version hunting. No manual reminders.

Step 2 — Automated Multi-Level Approvals

That single modification triggers the second branch of the very same flow:

• The item has already been reviewed

• But not yet approved

• Therefore, launch approval sequence

The system automatically composes a clean approval card with dynamic elements:

• Certificate number

• Title

• Link to the exact list item

• All attachments are collected in one place.

Approver clicks. Opens. Reviews. Approves.

If you need a second approver? Add it.

If you need a third? Add it.

No change to the requester workflow. Zero email forwarding.

Once approvals come back:

• “Approved by Projects” flips automatically

• “Sent to Finance” fires

• SVP Finance receives a notification with the link

• Audit trail is stored automatically in a SharePoint library

This is where email-based processes fall apart.

People forget steps. Approvals get lost. Attachments disappear.

Here, every action is logged and visible.

Streamline your processes with automated approval, transforming email requests into efficient digital workflows.

The Audit Trail: The Unforgotten

The flow stores a structured audit file for every approval:

• Request details

• Approvers

• Timestamps

• Comments

• Final decision

• Linked attachments

Finance teams, auditors, and management would love this because they finally get transparency instead of a mix of screenshots and forwards.

And no one has to dig through Outlook ever again.

Automation Doesn’t Need to Be Complex

The entire solution uses:

• One Microsoft Form

• One Microsoft List

• One Power Automate flow

• One smart column (“Reviewed by Administrator”)

• Zero coding

• Zero email threads

This is the level of automation that every organisation can implement in a week, not a year.

If your team is still approving documents over email, the bottleneck isn’t technology — it’s habits. The hardest thing to overcome despite all the benefits of this achievable automation.