Approvals are what many teams use Power Automate for. Google Workspace has its own approvals now, but they do a narrower job. This guide maps each Power Automate approval type to what Google offers, and shows how to move the flows that don't fit.
What's in this guide
If your approvals run on Power Automate and you are about to move to Google Workspace, the first question is not which tool replaces the flow. It is what the approval was actually doing: asking one person to sign off on a file, or running a request through several people with rules attached. Google covers the first well. The second is where migrations stall, so that is where this guide spends most of its time.
How Power Automate approvals work
Power Automate's approvals live in the Approvals connector. The workhorse is Start and wait for an approval: the flow pauses until the approvers respond, then carries on with the outcome. Microsoft's documentation lists these approval types: Everyone must approve (the flow continues once all have responded, or at the first rejection), First to respond, Custom responses where you define the options and wait for all or for one, and Sequential approval, where approvers are asked one at a time in a set order.
The connector is Standard tier, so any license that can use Standard connectors can build approval flows, Microsoft 365 licenses included. Approvals are stored in Dataverse, which is created automatically in the default environment. Approvers can be any user in the Dataverse environment or the Microsoft Entra tenant, guests and Microsoft 365 groups included, and they answer from an Outlook email, a Teams adaptive card or the Power Automate action center.
That last detail matters for a Google migration. A Power Automate approval assumes the approver exists in the Microsoft tenant. Someone who only has a Google account can't be assigned one unless they are also a guest in Entra, so we would expect the approver list to be the first thing that stops resolving once users move.
Two quirks are worth knowing before you copy behavior across. The connector page warns that approvals with custom responses can fail when sent to many users with Everyone must approve, because of data size limits on the results field. And Outlook shows at most five custom responses.
What Google Workspace gives you for approvals
Drive Approvals
Drive Approvals is built around a file. A user requests approval on a document in Drive, Docs, Sheets or Slides, names the reviewers, optionally sets a due date and chooses whether to lock the file. Reviewers approve, reject or comment from the file. They are notified by email or in Drive, and they get reminders when a due date passes. With several reviewers, the file counts as approved only when all of them approve, and as rejected if any one does. An edit after the request means everyone has to re-approve the latest version, and when the last reviewer approves, the file is locked.
Admins can allow reviewers outside the organization and approvals on files owned elsewhere. The feature is available on Business Standard and Plus, Enterprise Standard and Plus, Education Plus and the Essentials editions, which leaves out Business Starter, according to the Google Admin Help page.
Two additions made it more flexible this year. Alignment approvals, rolled out from June 2026, add a checkbox so that file changes no longer reset pending approvals. And the Drive API now exposes approvals, with methods to start, approve, decline, reassign, cancel and comment, so a script or a platform can start a request. Google's guide adds a catch: you have to share the file with the reviewers yourself, and if a reviewer has no access, the request succeeds but they get no notification.
Our read: Drive Approvals is good at the job it was built for, a contract, policy or proposal that needs sign-off from a fixed group, with a lock so the approved version is the reviewed version. It is not a workflow engine, and it doesn't try to be.
Workspace Studio
Workspace Studio is the other tool Google points Power Automate users to, and its approvals are of a different kind. The Approvals tab in Studio is a security control: depending on policies the admin sets, some steps pause for the flow owner to approve before they run, such as a reply that goes to people outside the organization. We found no step in Google's current step catalog that waits for another person's business decision. Our Workspace Studio comparison goes through that gap in detail.
Google's June 2026 migration announcement lists workflow approvals as generally available, described as lightweight approval tools and API support. That description matches what we found: the tools are lightweight by design.
Power Automate and Google approvals side by side
This table compares Power Automate with Drive Approvals and with Zenphi, a third-party Google equivalent to Power Automate. The Zenphi column comes from our own approval workflow page.
| Power Automate | Drive Approvals | Zenphi | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it approves | A request from any flow: a form, a list item, a document | A file in Drive, Docs, Sheets or Slides | Zenphi, like Power Automate, can approve a request, a file, a list item or a document. An approval can be a separate workflow (triggered by a Form submission or a Google Chat message) or part of a larger workflow (for example, an onboarding workflow that includes access provisioning to data that requires approval) |
| Several approvers | Everyone must approve, first to respond, custom responses or sequential | All reviewers must approve, and one rejection rejects | Sequential, parallel and/or conditional routing. Approval logic is 100% flexible: a workflow can require explicit approval from all approvers, or approval from the most senior one, or approval from most approvers. The workflow architecture depends on every company's individual policy |
| Who can approve | Users in the Dataverse environment or Entra tenant, guests and Microsoft 365 groups included | People with access to the file, and reviewers outside the organization if the admin allows it | Approvers chosen by rule, including a manager lookup in Google Directory |
| Where approvers respond | Outlook email, Teams adaptive card or the action center | The file itself, with email or Drive notifications | One-click email or Google Chat |
| The record | Approvals history in Dataverse | Reviewers and decisions recorded on the file | Every step logged with approver, timestamp and context, plus status dashboards |
| What you need | A Standard-connector license and a Dataverse database | Business Standard or higher, or an Essentials edition | A Zenphi plan, priced per workflow with unlimited users |
Where each Power Automate approval type lands
Mapping the approval type is the quickest way to see how much of a flow you can move as it is. The left column is Microsoft's list, and the middle column is what Drive Approvals does with it.
Power Automate
Everyone must approve
All approvers are asked
The flow continues once all have responded, or at the first rejection.
Power Automate
First to respond
All approvers are asked
Any one answer completes the request.
Power Automate
Sequential approval
Approvers are asked one at a time
Each approver must respond before the request moves to the next one.
Google Workspace
Drive Approvals
All reviewers are asked at the same time
Approved when all approve, rejected if one rejects. An edit asks everyone again, and the last approval locks the file.
| In Power Automate | On the Google side | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Everyone must approve | Drive Approvals does this for a file: all reviewers approve, and one rejection rejects | It works for files only. A request that isn't a file needs something else. |
| First to respond | No Drive Approvals equivalent, because every reviewer has to approve | Parallel routing in a workflow platform, which advances once the required approvals are in. |
| Sequential approval | Drive Approvals asks all reviewers at the same time | Chain requests by hand, or use sequential routing in a platform. |
| Custom responses | Drive Approvals offers approve, reject and comments | Ask how any platform models extra outcomes before you commit. |
| Approver picked by manager or department | The person requesting the approval names the reviewers | A platform can look the manager up in Google Directory, a sheet or a table. |
| Reply from an Outlook email or Teams card | Notifications by email or in Drive, with the decision made on the file | Zenphi approvers can decide by one-click email or in Google Chat. |
| Approvals history | Decisions recorded on each file | The Power Automate history stays in Dataverse, so plan what to export for audits. |
How to move an approval flow
The steps are the same whichever tool you land on. What changes is how much of the routing you have to rebuild.
List every approval flow and what it really does
For each flow, write down the approval type, who approves (a fixed person or a lookup), what happens on rejection, any timeout, and where the answers come in. Add the trigger as well: a form, a list item or an app button. We would expect the trigger to need more work than the approval, because Microsoft Forms and SharePoint lists have no one-to-one Google counterpart.
Sort them by how much routing they carry
A single sign-off on a file by a fixed group fits Drive Approvals. Anything with an order, a condition, a lookup or an escalation needs a workflow platform. Anything tied to Dynamics 365 or Dataverse is better left where it is.
Rebuild the routing, not the actions
Replace the Entra lookups with Google Directory, a sheet or a table. Write thresholds as conditions in the new flow instead of copying the old actions one by one. If you use Zenphi, ZAIA can read the Power Automate export and draft a first version, and you check the approval routing by hand.
Move the notifications
Outlook and Teams messages become Gmail and Chat. Send a real request to a real approver before you trust the flow.
Run both, then switch off the old one
Keep the Power Automate flow running beside the new one for a full approval cycle. Before you turn it off, export the approvals history you need for audits, because it stays in Dataverse and doesn't travel with the flow.
Check your own approval flow
Pick what your approval covers and how it behaves. The checker shows which parts Drive Approvals handles natively, which it handles partly and which need a workflow platform. The verdicts come from the Google documentation above, and they are a planning aid, not a promise that a feature behaves the same way in your domain.
The interactive checker loads here with JavaScript. The two tables above cover the same ground.
When a workflow platform fits
If every approval you run is a sign-off on a file, you may not need anything beyond Drive Approvals, and it costs nothing extra on the editions that include it. Keep it simple.
The case for a platform starts when the thing being approved is a request, such as leave, a purchase or an access grant, or when the process has an order, thresholds or an escalation path. Zenphi runs those natively in Google Workspace. It routes sequentially, in parallel and by condition, looks managers up in Google Directory, a sheet or a Zenphi table, sends reminders and escalates after a deadline, and takes decisions by one-click email or in Chat. Approval is a step you decide on: where AI output doesn't need review, for example when the confidence score for a data extraction is over 9, the workflow can skip the approval stage. Zenphi also keeps native SharePoint, OneDrive and Outlook actions, so an approval can still cross both ecosystems during a migration. For form-based approvals, add-ons in the Google Workspace Marketplace are another route.
We compare the two platforms more broadly in Zenphi vs Power Automate, including where Power Automate is the better choice.
FAQ
Does Google Workspace have approvals like Power Automate?
Partly. Drive Approvals covers sign-off on a file, with all reviewers required to approve. It has no sequence, no manager lookup and no custom responses, so multi-step approvals need a workflow platform such as Zenphi.
Can I use Power Automate approvals with Google Workspace?
Only with limits. Approvals can be assigned to users in the Dataverse environment or the Microsoft Entra tenant, guests included, so people who only have Google accounts can't approve unless they are also guests in Entra.
Which Google Workspace plans include Drive Approvals?
Business Standard and Plus, Enterprise Standard and Plus, Education Plus and the Essentials editions, according to Google's admin documentation. Business Starter isn't on the list.
Can Drive Approvals do sequential approvals?
No. When a request has several reviewers, they all receive it at the same time, and the file is approved once all of them approve. For an order such as manager first, then finance, you need a workflow platform or a chain of separate requests.
Does Workspace Studio support approvals?
Not for business decisions. Studio's approvals are security checks set by the admin, and we found no step in Google's current catalog that waits for another person's decision.
How do I move Power Automate approval flows to Google Workspace?
List each flow and its approval type, sort them by how much routing they carry, rebuild the routing and notifications, then run old and new side by side before switching the old one off. Single sign-offs on a file fit Drive Approvals, and anything with order, conditions or escalation needs a workflow platform.
What happens to my approval history after the migration?
It doesn't move with the flow. Power Automate approvals are stored in Dataverse, so decide what you need for audits and export it before you turn the old flows off.
Sources
- Microsoft Learn — Get started with approvals (updated April 29, 2026)
- Microsoft Learn — Approvals connector
- Microsoft Learn — Create custom response options for approval flows
- Google Workspace Admin Help — Manage Approvals (updated September 24, 2026)
- Google Drive API — Manage approvals
- Google Workspace Blog — Simplify the move to Google Workspace
- Google Help — Guide to Starters & Steps in Workspace Studio
- Zenphi — Approval workflow software for Google Workspace
Documentation and editions were checked on October 1, 2026 and can change.
Related reading
Approval Workflow Software for Google Workspace
Sequential, parallel and conditional routing, built for Google.
Read more →Replacing Power Automate flows in Google Workspace
A step-by-step migration guide with a walkthrough of ZAIA.
Read more →Google Workspace Studio vs Power Automate
What each can and can't automate, including approvals.
Read more →Can You Use Power Automate with Google Workspace?
What the Google connectors can and can't do.
Read more →Bring one Power Automate approval flow and see it built in Google Workspace.
Start with the approval that has the most routing rules today.
