Automating the Vacation Request Process

Surely many of you have wondered at some point: How could I save time in the vacation request process? Could I get an automatic notification when someone submits a new request?Well, yes! Power Automate can send us a notification every time a colleague submits a new request.Below, I’ll explain how we can do this using SharePoint and Power Automate. In the following video, we’ll build a SharePoint list where the new requests will be stored.

As you can see, new fields are created to store the different information we consider important. Pay close attention: for the fields we consider mandatory, we must set the option “This column must contain information” to “Yes” whenever we want to require users to fill in that column.

Likewise, there are different types of data that can be stored in SharePoint. Among them, we have the “Date and Time” type, where we can decide whether we want to store only dates or both dates and times. Depending on the option we choose, the user will need to provide either both pieces of information or just one.

In the case of multi-line fields, we can decide whether to apply formatting or leave it without. It’s very important to choose this option carefully, since our flow may vary when working with this field.

Finally, I’m sharing a video of the flow setup. With just two simple actions within it, we’ve managed to automate the notifications for new requests.

If you enjoyed this post and found it interesting, stay tuned — next week we’ll look at how to add manager approvals for these requests.