Division of Business Services

How to review a policy exception request for an expense report (Divisional Business Office)

When a new Policy Exception Approval Request form has been submitted by a claimant, both the primary and backup exception approvers for a Division will receive an email from Microsoft Power Automate (flow-noreply@microsoft.com) and a Microsoft Teams Activity notification that the request is pending withing the Microsoft Teams Approvals application. The exception request may be reviewed and acted upon in either Microsoft Outlook or in Microsoft Teams Approvals. Directions for each process follow below.

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Related resource: How to obtain a policy exception for a noncompliant expense report (Claimant/Submitter)

Reviewing a Policy Exception Approval Request Form in Microsoft Outlook

A screenshot showing how a Policy Exemption Approval Request appears in Microsoft Outlook, with numbers next to key areas described in the Outlook approval instructions
Click on image to enlarge – How a Policy Exemption Approval Request appears in Microsoft Outlook
  1. Every Policy Exception Approval Request form will show at the top of the request as “Created by DEXTER FIERRO.” This only indicates that Dexter Fierro, Division of Business Services Business Analyst, created the Power Automate workflow as a whole. He did not create the specific request that is being submitted.
  3. The second line, “Requested for Rebecca Lin” indicates that this Policy Exception Approval Request has been submitted by claimant Rebecca Lin (or on behalf of claimant Rebecca Lin), followed by a date and time stamp for unique identifiers of the request.
  4. In the following section, a summary of form field answers is displayed. Here is where exception approvers will find the Department ID and Department Name logged, as well as the dollar amount and relevant expense report number. The exception request notes exactly which policies were violated and contains claimant responses regarding the circumstances of the exception request and the steps taken to prevent future exception requests of a similar nature.
  5. The hyperlinked text Here is a link to the item you are approving contains a link to the Microsoft SharePoint item record for the specific policy exception approval request form being reviewed. This link is utilized to access attachments added to the Policy Exception Approval Request form, which can be found at the bottom of the SharePoint item page. This link should be used to access attachments, to request additional information from the claimant or submitter via the Comments functionality in SharePoint, or to grant access to another ad-hoc reviewer of the form via the Comments functionality in SharePoint. A comment may be directed to any individual with an Outlook account via @mentions. This functionality may be leveraged to ask the claimant or submitter for more information or to ask other individuals to review the request and comment on it, such as a Department Administrator. It is envisioned that this @mention functionality would be used most often to request more information from the claimant or submitter. The @mention functionality triggers an email to the mentioned individual, which grants them access to the SharePoint item to provide further information via comments. See below for an example of where to find attachments and to see a comment added triggering the claimant to provide more information.

    Screenshot showing how to find Policy Exception Approval Request details in Sharepoint, including seeing attachments and the ability to tag the claimant who submitted the form
    Click on image to enlarge – How to access request attachments and add comments to a request (including tagging a claimant)
  6. When an approver is ready to Approve or Reject the request, the approver should return to the email in their inbox and click their desired action button. Exception approvers have the opportunity to add a comment, but it is not required. Click “Submit” to complete the action step (this is the same regardless of whether Approve or Reject is selected). An email will be sent to the claimant and submitter notifying them of the decision.
  7. For the approver who completed the action step, the Microsoft Power Automate email for the request will dynamically update reflecting the status to Approved or Rejected (Figure A below). For the other approver who did not complete the action step, their Microsoft Outlook email regarding the request will be updated to note “Others have already completed this request” (Figure B below).

    1. Screenshot showing how the Outlook version of the Policy Exception Approval Request dynamically changes to reflect its status -- this example shows what the approving individual sees: "Approved" status
      Figure A. What the approving individual sees they complete the approval process: “Approved” status in the email

    2. Screenshot showing how the Outlook version of the Policy Exception Approval Request dynamically changes to reflect its status -- this example shows what an approving individual sees when a different approver has completed the approval process: "Others have already completed this request" status
      Figure B. What an approving individual sees when a different approver has completed the approval process: “Others have already completed this request” status in the email

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Reviewing a Policy Exception Approval Request Form in Microsoft Teams Approvals

A screenshot of Teams, where Divisional Business Office approved employees will be able to access various Policy Exception Approval Requests and see their status
Click on image to enlarge – How to find requests in Teams under the “Approvals” section
  1. Microsoft Teams has an application called Approvals. All Power Automate Policy Exception Approval Request Forms are visible within and actionable within Microsoft Teams Approvals. This application can be added to Microsoft Teams by clicking on the sidebar View More Apps “…”, searching for Approvals, and then pinning to your taskbar by right-clicking on the icon and selecting Pin. An exception approver will receive an Activity notification every time a Power Automate Policy Exception is submitted for their approval.
  2. Navigate to a requested policy exception form in the Approvals Any items with Status “Requested” are still pending action from approvers. Click anywhere on the Request title to view the details of the submitted form.
  3. A screenshot of the Teams workflow for Policy Exception Approval Requests; this screenshot has a label pointing to the area where you can see why a request was submitted
    Click on image to enlarge – You can see request details when a Policy Exception Approval Request is selected in the Teams workflow, including why the request was completed

    A summary of form field answers is displayed. Here is where exception approvers will find the Department ID and Department Name logged, as well as the dollar amount and relevant expense report number. The exception request notes exactly which policies were violated and contains claimant responses regarding the circumstances of the exception request and the steps taken to prevent future exception requests of a similar nature.

  4. A screenshot of the Teams workflow for Policy Exception Approval Requests; this screenshot has labels to show where you can find attachments, the approval workflow (who needs to do what), a space for comments, and other details
    Click on image to enlarge – The details of a Policy Exception Approval Request, including where you can find attachments, the approval workflow, where to add comments, a reassign option, and the ability to reject or approve the request

    Continue scrolling on the form to view the SharePoint item link Here is a link to the item you are approving. This link is utilized to access attachments added to the Policy Exception Approval Request form, which can be found at the bottom of the SharePoint item page. This link should be used to access attachments, to request additional information from the claimant or submitter via the Comments functionality in SharePoint, or to grant access to another ad-hoc reviewer of the form via the Comments functionality in SharePoint. A comment may be directed to any individual with an Outlook account via @mentions. This functionality may be leveraged to ask the claimant or submitter for more information or to ask other individuals to review the request and comment on it, such as a Department Administrator, for instance. It is envisioned that this @mention functionality would be used most often to request more information from the claimant or submitter. The @mention functionality triggers an email to the mentioned individual, which grants them access to the SharePoint item to provide further information via comments.

  5. A diagram of the approval workflow is provided with both the primary approver and backup approver listed.
  6. If an approver would like to add comments, they may do so in the Comments section.
  7. The form approval may be reassigned to another Teams user with a Microsoft account. Note: This is not recommended as a best practice. The primary and backup approvers should be approving all requests. The SharePoint @mention functionality can be used to gain additional feedback from individuals, but the requests themselves should always be approved by the Divisional CFO or delegate (the primary or secondary approver).
  8. When an approver is ready to take action on the form, click Reject to deny the request or Approve to approve of the exception request. An email will be sent to the claimant and submitter notifying them of the decision. The Microsoft Teams Approvals log will dynamically update the status of the form once this is completed.

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