Box Approval-Gated File Publishing

Overview

This flow adds a governed review gate to Box publishing. When a new file lands in a Box review folder, it starts a Basic (Approve/Reject) approval routed to a reviewer via Teams and Outlook. On approval it copies the file to the published folder, applies a Box shared link, deletes the original (completing a move), and posts a confirmation to Teams. On rejection it moves the file to a rework folder and notifies Teams with the reviewer's comments.

Why it matters: content shouldn't go live unreviewed. An approval gate over Box folders enforces sign-off with an audit trail, and routes rejected drafts back for rework automatically.

Ships Off (demo).

Use Case

A content or operations team drafts in Box and needs approval before files are published or shared externally. This flow watches the review folder, gates each new file behind an approval, and routes the file to the right destination based on the decision - keeping all activity visible in Teams.

Flow Architecture

Environment Variables

Connectors & Connections

Connector	API name	Actions used
Box	shared_box	OnNewFilesV2 CopyFile DeleteFile
Approvals	shared_approvals	StartAndWaitForAnApproval
Microsoft Teams	shared_teams	PostMessageToConversation
HHTTP	shared_http	PUT /2.0/files/{id}

Note — All connections are referenced as solution connection references; the flow is portable between environments as long as a connection is mapped at import time.

Customization Guide

Almost every realistic variant of this flow can be implemented by changing environment variable values. A few cases require small edits inside the flow definition — those are called out explicitly below.

Multi-reviewer approval

Switch StartAndWaitForAnApproval to a Custom / Everyone must approve type for sign-off from multiple reviewers.

Shared-link scope & expiry

Change varSharedLinkAccess (open / company / collaborators); extend the HTTP body with unshared_at for an expiring link.

Watermark / stamp

Add a step to stamp or watermark approved files before publishing.

Metadata write-back

Record the approval outcome, approver, and timestamp to a Box metadata template or a Dataverse log table for full audit history.

Filter by file type

Add a Condition after the trigger to gate only certain extensions.

Key Expressions

The flow is intentionally light on Power Fx / WDL gymnastics — the heaviest expressions are the branch-name concatenation and the approval outcome check. They are listed below in the order they appear in the flow.

equals(outputs('Start_Publishing_Approval')?['body/outcome'],'Approve')

concat(variables('varPublishedFolderId'), '/', triggerOutputs()?['body/Name'])

first(outputs('Start_Publishing_Approval')?['body/responses'])?['comments']

concat('Bearer ', variables('varBoxAccessToken'))