How do you stop a bad purchase from happening in a company, and how do you make sure every support ticket is handled the same way every time? That's the problem approvals and business process flows solve — they bring order, control, and predictability to business operations, and the PL-900 exam tests your understanding of these automation superpowers.
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A simple way to picture Approvals and Business Process Flows
When you order a custom pizza, the chef doesn't just start making it immediately. First, your order triggers a process. The waiter writes down your specific requests, then hands that ticket to the head chef. The head chef reviews it: is the requested topping in stock? Does the special request make sense? If yes, they stamp 'APPROVED' and pass it to the pizza maker. If no, they send it back to the waiter with a note: 'No anchovies in stock, please ask customer to choose a different topping.' That back-and-forth continues until the order is correct and approved.
Your pizza then follows a fixed, repeatable process: prepare the dough, spread the sauce, add the cheese, place the approved toppings, bake at 450 degrees, slice, box, and serve. Every pizza goes through the same stages in the same order, regardless of the toppings. If a step is missed (like baking before adding toppings), the pizza is ruined. This maps directly to the IT concepts of 'approvals' and 'business process flows'. The order is a 'request' needing approval before moving to the next stage. The fixed sequence of pizza-making steps is the 'business process flow' — a mandatory, consistent pathway that guarantees a standard outcome, no matter who makes the pizza.
To understand approvals and business process flows, you first need to understand what they replace. Before these tools existed, if an employee wanted to buy a new laptop, they might send an email to their manager saying 'I need a laptop.' The manager might reply 'OK, go ahead.' That email was an 'approval', but it was informal, hard to track, and easy to lose. If the manager was on holiday, the laptop might get ordered without permission. Business process flows replaced the 'who do I ask next?' panic by creating a clear, step-by-step map that every single request or case must follow.
An 'approval' in Power Platform (specifically in Power Automate and Microsoft Power Apps) is a structured, recorded decision on a request. Think of it as a digital signature and audit trail combined. When someone requests something — a holiday, a new piece of software, a refund — Power Automate can send that request to the right person (the 'approver') via email or Microsoft Teams. The approver can tap 'Approve' or 'Reject', and the system then automatically triggers the next action. If approved, it might update a database and send a confirmation email. If rejected, it sends a 'request denied' message and logs why. This is completely automated, so no one needs to chase down a manager for a signature.
A 'business process flow' (BPF) is a guided set of stages and steps that a user must follow when working with a record in a model-driven app (a type of Power App that connects directly to Microsoft Dataverse, the underlying database). You can think of a BPF as a checklist that cannot be ignored. For example, if you are processing a loan application, the BPF might have stages: 'Application Received', 'Credit Check', 'Document Verification', 'Decision', and 'Approval'. The user cannot skip to Decision until they have completed the 'Credit Check' stage. The BPF ensures consistency, compliance, and no skipped steps. Critically, BPFs are different from approval flows. A BPF is a user-facing guidance tool for human workers, whereas an approval flow is an automated decision-making process often triggered by a change in a record. They work together nicely: a BPF can trigger an approval flow when a user moves to a specific stage.
How do they work in practice? In Power Platform, you build a 'cloud flow' (an automated workflow) in Power Automate. You choose a trigger — for example, 'When a new item is created in a SharePoint list'. Then you add an action called 'Start and wait for an approval'. This action sends a request to a specified person or group. The flow then pauses and waits. The approver receives an email with buttons. When they click 'Approve', the flow continues — perhaps it sends a thank-you email to the requester and updates the item's status to 'Approved'. If they click 'Reject', the flow might send a different message and set the status to 'Rejected'.
Business process flows are designed in Power Apps (model-driven app designer). You define stages, each stage containing a set of data fields the user must fill in. You can also define 'workflow automation logic' — for example, 'When a stage is completed, send an email to the customer.' The BPF appears as a thin bar across the top of the form, showing the user exactly where they are in the process and what to do next.
Why do these exist? Because without them, businesses suffer from three problems: inconsistency (each employee handles requests differently), lack of accountability (no record of who approved what or why), and bottlenecks (work gets stuck waiting for someone to remember to ask for permission). Approvals and BPFs automate the boring, repetitive parts of decision-making and provide ironclad audit trails for compliance (like GDPR or financial regulations). For the PL-900 exam, you must be able to describe the purpose of each, when to use one versus the other, and how they fit into the larger Power Platform ecosystem. The exam will not ask you to build a flow, but it will ask you to identify the correct tool for a given scenario.
Identify the Business Need
You first determine whether the problem requires a human decision (approval) or a consistent data entry path (business process flow). For example, 'manager must approve holiday request' = approval need. 'Every support ticket must go through Log, Diagnose, Resolve stages' = BPF need.
Design the Approval Flow in Power Automate
Create a cloud flow with a trigger (e.g., new item in SharePoint list). Add the 'Start and wait for an approval' action. Configure the approver (individual, group, or dynamic from the record). Set the approval type (sequential or parallel). This step defines who gets asked and what happens next.
Add Conditional Actions After Approval
Add a condition: if approved, update the record status to 'Approved' and send a confirmation email. If rejected, update status to 'Rejected' and send a polite decline. This step ensures the flow completes the full business logic, not just the approval request.
Design the Business Process Flow in Power Apps
In the model-driven app designer, select a Dataverse table (e.g., 'Support Ticket'). Add stages like 'New', 'In Progress', 'Resolved'. For each stage, add required data fields (e.g., in 'In Progress' stage, require 'Assigned To' and 'Root Cause'). This step creates the visual checklist the user will see.
Link the BPF to an Automated Workflow
Configure the BPF to trigger a Power Automate flow when a stage changes. For example, when the record moves to 'Resolved' stage, trigger a flow that sends a customer satisfaction survey. This step connects the human-driven process (BPF) with automated actions.
Test and Monitor
Create a test record and run through the BPF stages. Submit a test approval request and check the run history in Power Automate to see if the flow executed correctly. Monitor for stuck approvals or skipped stages. This step ensures the solution works before going live.
An IT professional sets up approvals and business process flows to solve a real, messy business problem. Imagine a small company, 'GreenGadgets', that sells eco-friendly electronics. They have a manual purchasing process: an employee emails their manager with a request, the manager forwards the email to finance, finance checks the budget, then emails the employee back. This process takes days, emails get lost, and sometimes purchases are made without proper approval because the manager is away. An IT professional uses Power Automate to fix this.
Here is the step-by-step scenario:
The employee fills out a Microsoft Form titled 'Purchase Request'. When they hit Submit, the form data goes into a SharePoint list called 'Pending Purchases'. A cloud flow in Power Automate is triggered 'When a new item is created' in that SharePoint list. The flow reads the item details: item name, cost, department, and a 'justification' field.
The flow then uses the 'Start and wait for an approval' action. The approver is dynamically set to the employee's manager, found using Microsoft Entra ID (the identity and access management service from Microsoft). The approval request is sent via email and Microsoft Teams. The manager receives a card with Approve and Reject buttons.
If the manager approves, the flow automatically updates the SharePoint list item's status to 'Approved', sends a confirmation email to the employee with a purchase order number, and creates a new record in a Dataverse table called 'Purchase Orders' for the finance team to work on.
If the manager rejects, the flow updates the status to 'Rejected', sends a polite decline email to the employee, and logs the reason in a separate 'Audit Log' SharePoint list.
Now, the IT professional also builds a business process flow for the finance team's 'Purchase Order Processing' model-driven app. The BPF has four stages: 'Received', 'Budget Check', 'Vendor Selection', and 'Complete'. The finance user cannot move from 'Received' to 'Budget Check' without entering the purchase amount and department code. The BPF forces them to complete a 'Budget Check' sub-flow (another automated approval) that checks if the department has enough remaining budget. If the budget check fails, the BPF automatically moves the record back to 'Received' with an error message. This prevents the team from accidentally ordering something the company cannot afford.
What does the IT professional actually do? They don't write code. They use the graphical drag-and-drop designers in Power Automate and Power Apps. They configure the triggers, actions, conditions, and approver lists. They test the flow by creating a test request and watching the approval chain. They monitor the flow run history to see if any approvals are stuck or failing. They also update the business process flow when the company changes its purchasing policy — for example, adding a new stage for 'CEO Approval' for purchases over £10,000.
The key difference: the IT pro uses approvals for one-time decisions (should we buy this laptop?) and BPFs for multi-step guided processes (the entire loan application journey). They often combine them: a BPF stage can trigger an approval flow automatically. The PL-900 exam loves testing whether you can distinguish between these two tools and recognise when you'd use which.
The PL-900 exam tests your conceptual understanding of approvals and business process flows, not your ability to build them. You will not be asked to write a flow or configure a BPF stage. Instead, you will face scenario-based questions that ask 'Which tool should the company use?' or 'What is the primary purpose of this feature?'
Here is exactly what you need to learn for the exam:
Distinguishing approvals from business process flows: This is the single most tested concept in this area. A question will describe a problem: 'A company needs a manager to sign off on each expense report before it is paid.' That is an approval. Another question: 'A customer service team needs to follow the same three steps for every support ticket: Log Call, Diagnose Issue, Resolve Issue.' That is a business process flow. Memorise the shortcut: Approvals = one-time yes/no decision by a person. BPFs = step-by-step guided checklist for humans.
When to use Power Automate vs Power Apps for these: Approvals are built in Power Automate (specifically, the 'approval' connector/action). Business process flows are built in Power Apps (model-driven app designer). A common trick question describes a BPF scenario but lists Power Automate as the tool — that is a trap. Power Automate handles the 'automation' part (like sending an approval email), but the BPF itself is designed inside Power Apps.
The role of Dataverse: Business process flows require a model-driven app, which requires Microsoft Dataverse (the underlying data platform). Approvals can work with SharePoint, Microsoft Entra ID, and other data sources, but BPFs are specifically tied to Dataverse tables. The exam may ask: 'Which data source is required for a business process flow?' The answer is Dataverse.
Approval types and behaviours: The exam expects you to know that approvals can be 'sequential' (approver 1, then approver 2) or 'parallel' (all approvers at once). You should also know that approvals create a full audit trail in the flow's run history. A common trap question claims that approvals require manual tracking — this is false, as Power Automate logs everything automatically.\
Business process flow stages and steps: A BPF has stages (broad phases like 'Lead Qualification') and steps (specific fields to fill within that stage, like 'Company Name' or 'Contact Phone Number'). The exam might ask: 'What is the difference between a stage and a step?' A stage groups multiple steps. A user cannot move to the next stage until all steps in the current stage are completed (if configured as required).
Integration with other Power Platform components: BPFs can trigger Power Automate flows (called 'workflow flows' or 'instant flows') automatically when a stage changes. For example, when a record moves to the 'Approved' stage, a flow sends an email. This is a common exam scenario: 'When the BPF stage changes to 'Final Review', an automated email is sent to the manager.' Identify that this requires Power Automate.
Key definitions to memorise: 'Approval' = a structured decision request with an audit trail. 'Business process flow' = a guided set of stages and steps for consistent data entry. 'Stage' = a phase in a BPF (e.g., 'Initial Contact'). 'Step' = a data field within a stage. 'Model-driven app' = the type of app that hosts business process flows. 'Dataverse' = the database that stores the records and BPF configurations.
Common trap patterns include: mixing up approval flows with BPFs (a question will describe one but claim the other), saying that BPFs can be used with SharePoint (they cannot — they require Dataverse), or suggesting that approvals are only available in the premium version of Power Automate (they are available with some standard plans, but the exam focuses on the concept, not licensing nuances). The correct answer pattern always maps the problem to the correct tool based on 'does it need a human decision?' (approval) or 'does it need a consistent step-by-step process?' (BPF).
An approval is a one-time yes/no decision requested from a person via an automated flow in Power Automate, with a complete audit trail of who decided and when.
A business process flow is a user-facing checklist in a model-driven app that forces a user to follow a specific sequence of stages and steps before moving on.
Business process flows require Microsoft Dataverse as the data source and can only be used inside model-driven apps.
Approvals in Power Automate can be sequential (one approver after another) or parallel (multiple approvers at the same time).
A business process flow's stages contain steps (data fields), and the user cannot advance to the next stage until all required steps in the current stage are completed.
You can trigger an approval flow automatically when a user moves a record to a specific stage in a business process flow, combining both tools.
These come up on the exam all the time. Here's how to tell them apart.
Approval Flow
Designed in Power Automate as a cloud flow
Automates a one-time human decision (Approve/Reject)
Works with multiple data sources (SharePoint, Dataverse, etc.)
Business Process Flow
Designed in Power Apps within a model-driven app
Guides a human through multiple required data entry stages
Requires Microsoft Dataverse as the underlying data store
Sequential Approval
Approval goes to one person at a time in a specific order
The next approver only receives the request after the previous approves
Good for multi-level approvals (e.g., manager then director)
Parallel Approval
All approvers receive the request at the same time
Any single approver can approve or reject on behalf of the group
Good for quick decisions where any team member can authorise
Business Process Flow Stage
Represents a phase in the process (e.g., 'Qualification', 'Negotiation')
Can contain multiple steps (data fields)
Must complete all required steps to move to the next stage
Business Process Flow Step
Represents a single data field within a stage (e.g., 'Company Name')
Can be required or optional for completion of the stage
The smallest unit of data entry in the BPF
Mistake
A business process flow and an approval flow are the same thing — both are just automated email approvals.
Correct
They are different. A business process flow is a step-by-step guide for a human user to fill in data in a model-driven app, while an approval flow is an automated decision request (Approve/Reject) that runs in Power Automate. They often work together but serve distinct purposes.
Both terms contain the word 'flow' and both are used in process automation, so beginners lump them together. The confusion grows because you can trigger an approval from inside a BPF stage.
Mistake
Business process flows can be used with any data source, like SharePoint lists or Excel files.
Correct
Business process flows require Microsoft Dataverse as the underlying data store. They only work inside model-driven apps, which are built on Dataverse tables. SharePoint lists and Excel cannot host a BPF.
Newcomers assume that because Power Automate works with many connectors (SharePoint, Excel, SQL), all Power Platform features have the same flexibility. They do not realise that BPFs are tightly coupled to Dataverse.
Mistake
Approvals in Power Automate require the approver to have a special app or a Power Automate license to approve requests.
Correct
Approvers do not need a Power Automate license. They can approve directly from the email notification they receive, through Microsoft Teams, or via the Power Automate mobile app — but the email approval works without any additional setup.
Many learners think any feature in Power Platform requires a premium license for everyone involved. In reality, receiving and approving an email-based approval is a low-friction action for the approver.
Mistake
A business process flow enforces that every single field must be filled before moving to the next stage.
Correct
A BPF stage can have required fields (marked with an asterisk), but not all fields in a stage must be filled. The creator decides which fields are mandatory. The BPF only enforces completion of steps that are explicitly set as required.
Beginners assume that because a BPF is a 'guided process', it forces all fields. They confuse mandatory data validation with optional guidance. Microsoft documentation uses the word 'steps' loosely, leading to this misinterpretation.
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The person who creates the approval flow needs a Power Automate license (free or premium). However, the people who receive and approve the requests do not need a license — they can approve directly from the email notification.
Yes. You can configure sequential approval (approver 1 must approve before it goes to approver 2) or parallel approval (all approvers get the request at the same time and any of them can approve).
A stage is a broad phase of the process (e.g., 'Qualification'), and a step is a specific data field within that stage (e.g., 'Company Name'). A user must complete all required steps in a stage before moving to the next stage.
No. Business process flows require Microsoft Dataverse as the data source and only work inside model-driven apps built on Dataverse tables. They cannot be used with SharePoint lists.
Yes. When you configure the approval flow in Power Automate, you add actions for what happens after approval (e.g., 'Update item status to Approved'). The flow executes those actions automatically once the approver clicks Approve.
The flow will wait indefinitely for a response unless you set a timeout. You can configure the flow to send reminder emails or automatically escalate to a different approver after a specified number of days.
You've finished Approvals and Business Process Flows. Continue through the PL-900 study guide to build a complete picture of the exam.
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