SharePoint Approvals without Workflows

SharePoint document libraries are good for storing and sharing company files, but often new or changed documents should be approved before they are displayed to all users. The approval process can be configured and managed in many different ways, and I have begun introducing some of them in my SharePoint Workflow series.

Gone are the days when you printed your document and walked over to the boss or manager to have it approved before you printed and distributed more copies. Nowadays SharePoint has given us more efficient methods for approvals and distribution, but I have not found a built-in method that is perfect for everyone.

I plan to publish several articles on how a workflow or flow can streamline approval processes, but I have started with a description on how approvals of documents in SharePoint libraries can be managed without a workflow. It is important to know, to fully understand the subsequent articles.

The Tips article contains two demos, and you can also see them here below. In the first demo, I create a new SharePoint document library for files that should be approved and change the default setting so that approvals are required before publishing to all users.

In the second demo, I show what happens if you also enable major and minor versions in the library settings.

In my next Tips article, I will describe how you can manage approvals using one of the few existing built-in SharePoint workflows.

By Peter Kalmström
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions