Choosing the Right Power Automate Approval Type (And Why It Matters)

Most Power Automate approval flows I see in the wild are built with whatever option was at the top of the list. That tends to be "Approve/Reject, everyone must approve", which sounds safe but causes real problems: one approver on holiday, and the whole process stalls indefinitely. There's a better way, and it starts with picking the right approval type before you build anything.

Why approval type is the first decision to make

Power Automate stores approval state in Microsoft Dataverse. Once you run an approval action, the flow is waiting, and it will wait until it gets what it needs. If you've chosen the wrong type, you can't fix the live flow mid-run. Choosing correctly upfront avoids having to rebuild flows that have already gone into production, which is always awkward.

The approval type controls three things: who gets notified, what happens if one person responds before others, and what options the approver actually sees. Get those three right and the rest of the flow design becomes straightforward.

The five approval types and what they actually mean

Power Automate's "Start and wait for an approval" action gives you five approval types. Two are sequential, two are parallel/simultaneous, and one is fully custom.

The simplest way to think about it: sequential means approvers go one at a time in order; parallel means everyone gets notified at once; and "first to respond" (available in parallel mode) means the first person to click Approve or Reject closes out the request for everyone.

Sequential: when order matters

Sequential approvals are right for any process where the chain of sign-off matters, not just the final outcome. A common example is a budget request that needs a line manager's sign-off before it reaches Finance. Finance shouldn't see requests that the line manager has already rejected. That's a sequential pattern.

To build this in Power Automate, go to make.powerautomate.com and create a new automated flow. Add the "Start and wait for an approval" action and select the Sequential type. You then list approvers in order, separated by semicolons. The flow sends the request to the first approver, waits for their response, then moves to the next. If anyone rejects, you can branch the flow to stop and notify immediately rather than continuing down the chain.

One thing to watch: sequential flows can run for days. Make sure your flow's timeout settings account for that, and consider sending a reminder notification if someone hasn't responded within 24 or 48 hours. You can do this with a parallel branch running a delay action alongside the approval, triggering a Teams message if the approval hasn't completed.

Parallel and first-to-respond: when speed matters

If you have multiple approvers and any one of them can give the green light, "First to respond" is the right choice. A practical example: an IT change request that can be approved by any one of three senior engineers on the team. The first available person approves, and the rest are notified the request has been handled.

"Everyone must approve" in parallel mode is appropriate when you genuinely need all parties to sign off, but they don't need to go in order. Think of a project kick-off that needs sign-off from both the Finance director and the IT lead, and neither needs to see the other's decision first.

The difference from sequential is subtle but important. Parallel, everyone must approve: all three people get the request simultaneously, and the flow waits until all three have responded. If one rejects, the flow can be configured to stop waiting and proceed to the rejection branch. First to respond: everyone gets notified simultaneously, but the moment any one person responds, the flow moves on and the others' pending actions are cancelled.

Custom responses: when Approve/Reject isn't enough

Sometimes a binary choice isn't the right interface. A "More information needed" or "Send to another department" option can save a lot of back-and-forth. Custom responses let you define whatever options make sense for your process.

You can use "Custom Responses, Wait for all" or "Custom Responses, Wait for one" depending on whether you need everyone to weigh in or just the first response. Build these the same way as standard approvals, but instead of the Approve/Reject fields, you define your own response options as a list.

One practical note: whatever options you define become the outcomes your condition checks later in the flow. Keep the option text consistent and simple, since the flow's condition logic will need to match it exactly.

Where to build this

All approval flows are built at make.powerautomate.com. Look for the "Start and wait for an approval" action, which is what most flows should use. The alternative "Create an approval" action creates the approval without waiting, which is an advanced pattern for multi-stage flows where you want to kick off several approvals before waiting on any of them.

Approvals land in the Power Automate action centre, in Microsoft Teams (if the approver has the Teams app), and via email. Approvers don't need to log in to Power Automate to respond: they can approve or reject directly from the Outlook email or from the Teams adaptive card. That matters for adoption, especially with senior stakeholders who aren't going to open yet another portal.

Wrapping Up

The approval type is a small decision that has a big impact on how your flow behaves under real-world conditions. Sequential for ordered sign-off chains, parallel/first-to-respond for speed, custom responses when you need more nuance than a binary choice. Getting this right at the start saves you from rebuilding flows that have already gone live.

If your team is building approval workflows but hitting walls, whether that's flows that stall, approvers who can't find their requests, or processes that need governance baked in, that's exactly the kind of thing we help with at Cloudbliss. Our Power Platform work ranges from a single flow through to full process automation programmes. Take a look at cloudbliss.co.uk to find out more.