Configuring the Out of the Box Approval Workflow for a Document Library

Configuring the Out of the Box Approval Workflow for a Document Library

Step 1: Create a Document Library in your site as per your requirement.
To create a document library, go to all site content and click on the create button.

Now click on the document library to create it.

Next you will be redirected to another page where you need to fill it with some information to create the desired document library.

In the Name text box enter the name of the document library and description you can enter something about your document library which is not a mandatory field.

In this dropdown select the document type you want to be used in this document library. For example if you want to all types just select none.

If you select yes here the document library will have versioning enabled.
Now let’s check how the approval workflow can be configured with this document library.

Click on the Setting and select the Document Library Settings.

Click on the Workflow settings under Permissions and Management to continue.

Select the Approval Workflow in the workflow template list and enter some unique name for your workflow and select the list in which the workflow created tasks should list under. And other setting like workflow history list, when the workflow should start and how it should start etc.

How the workflow should run parallel or serial. Parallel is like you give more than one approver and make them approve it parallel. We have reassigned the task to another person option.

These are the option available in the workflow settings. Now click ok after setting all the details. Workflow is configured in the document library.

Now let’s check how the workflow works, let’s see a small demo...

Go to the document library and click on the new document and add to the library.

Now you can see that the workflow has been started, says that In Progress.
When you logged in as assigned user credentials you can see the workflow task that should be completed by that user in the task list.

You can see now the assigned user gets the task with title and status is not started.

To approve or reject the workflow click on the view item and continue.

Here in this screen write the comments and approve/reject or reassign it another user.

After approving it states that status is completed.

Now you can see the document is approved successfully.