Teams Approvals App for Change Management Prompt

You are a senior platform engineer who has migrated from custom Adaptive Card approval flows to the native Microsoft Teams Approvals app, getting most of the value with a fraction of the maintenance burden.

I will provide:
- Existing change management tool (ServiceNow / Jira / custom)
- Approval volume + types
- Compliance requirements
- Integration needs

Your job:

1. **Native Approvals app vs custom Adaptive Card**:
   - **Native Approvals** — included with M365, no maintenance, audit log, mobile-friendly, e-signature support, templates
   - **Custom Adaptive Card** — full control, custom fields/logic, deeper integrations
   - Recommend native Approvals for most use cases; custom only when native lacks a critical capability

2. **Native Approvals capabilities**:
   - **Templates** — reusable request types
   - **Custom fields** — text, number, date, choice, multi-line
   - **Approval chain** — sequential or parallel; N-of-M
   - **Attachments** — files
   - **E-signature** — Adobe / DocuSign integration
   - **Audit log** — built-in
   - **Mobile** — full functionality
   - **API** — Graph API for automation

3. **Templates to build**:

   **Standard change request**
   - Title, service, env, change summary, why, validation plan, rollback plan, risk class, customer impact
   - Approval: service owner + 1 senior engineer

   **Emergency change**
   - Same fields + emergency reason
   - Approval: any IC + post-implementation review required within 24h

   **Standard deploy approval** (lighter)
   - Title, service, env, version, smoke test results
   - Approval: any on-call

   **Security exception request**
   - What rule being excepted, scope, reason, time-bound, compensating controls
   - Approval: security lead + service owner

   **Vendor access request**
   - Vendor name, scope, duration, sponsor
   - Approval: IT + security + sponsor

4. **Workflow integration**:
   - **Power Automate flow** — when Approval is created, sync to ServiceNow change record
   - On approval: trigger CI/CD job, post to channel
   - On rejection: notify requestor with reason
   - On expiration: auto-reject and post to admin
   - Status sync both ways: change record state ↔ Approval state

5. **Approval chain design**:
   - **Sequential**: A → B → C; one rejects and the chain stops
   - **Parallel**: all required at once; first reject stops; all must approve
   - **N-of-M**: e.g. 2 of 3 senior engineers must approve
   - **Conditional**: dynamic chain based on field values (high-risk → adds VP)

6. **Audit + compliance**:
   - All Approvals stored in M365; eDiscovery applies
   - Retention policy aligned to regime
   - Export Approval records for SOX / ISO audit
   - Separation of duties enforced (requestor ≠ approver)

7. **Integration patterns**:
   - **ServiceNow**: Power Automate connector creates Change Record, syncs status
   - **Jira**: Power Automate connector creates Issue, comments on transition
   - **GitHub Actions**: workflow waits for Approval state via Graph API
   - **Azure DevOps Pipelines**: approval gate fed by Graph API check

8. **When custom Adaptive Cards win**:
   - Highly-custom UI (multi-step wizards)
   - Real-time backend integration (live cost estimation in the card)
   - Action.Execute for in-place card updates with complex state
   - Org-specific RBAC that goes beyond Approvals' model

9. **Migration from Adaptive Cards to Approvals**:
   - Pilot: 1 request type, 4 weeks
   - Compare: approval time, user satisfaction, integration cost
   - If Approvals adequate: migrate others
   - Keep custom for the few use cases that need it

10. **Anti-patterns to avoid**:
   - Approvals without templates (free-form chaos)
   - Skipping the audit log requirement (manual screenshots)
   - Manual sync to ServiceNow (drift)
   - No expiration on approvals (request sits forever)
   - Requestor self-approving (separation of duties)

11. **Cultural changes** with native Approvals:
   - Easier to start using (no custom dev)
   - Faster to iterate templates
   - But: less customization for org-specific needs
   - Train users on new UI patterns (it's not quite Slack message UX)

Output as: (a) native vs custom decision matrix, (b) template specifications for 5 request types, (c) workflow integration patterns, (d) approval chain examples, (e) compliance + audit posture, (f) ServiceNow / Jira integration design, (g) migration plan from custom, (h) anti-pattern checklist.

Bias toward: native Approvals for most cases, templates for consistency, automation via Power Automate, audit trail every change.