Have you ever wished you could streamline your SharePoint tasks without diving into complex code or workflows? Good news! Microsoft has introduced SharePoint Quick Steps – a feature designed to make your SharePoint experience smoother and more efficient. As Microsoft retires SharePoint alerts, Quick Steps steps is a more versatile solution for automating common tasks in your lists and libraries.
What Are SharePoint Quick Steps?
Quick Steps are exactly what they sound like – shortcuts that let you perform common actions in SharePoint lists (AKA Microsoft Lists) and libraries with minimal effort. Think of them as your personal efficiency boosters that eliminate repetitive clicking and manual data entry.
These handy little tools allow you to:
- Draft emails with pre-populated information
- Start Teams chats directly from list items
- Update column values with a single click
- Send approval requests effortlessly
- Execute Power Automate flows
The beauty of Quick Steps is that they’re accessible right where you need them – within your SharePoint lists and libraries. No need to switch contexts or remember complex procedures.
Finding Your Way to Quick Steps
Getting started with Quick Steps is straightforward:
- Navigate to your SharePoint list or library
- Click on the Automate button in the top menu
- Select either Create a quick step to build a new one or Manage quick steps to modify existing ones.
Once you’re there, SharePoint offers two categories of Quick Steps:
- For Selected Items: Actions that apply to specific items you’ve selected
- For the Current List: Actions that apply to the entire list
Let’s explore what you can do with each Quick Step type!
📧 Draft an Email
The Draft an Email Quick Step is perfect for those situations where you regularly need to communicate about list items. Whether you’re following up with vendors, notifying team members, or sending updates to stakeholders, this feature has you covered.
Here’s why it’s so useful:
- It pre-fills email recipient information from your list columns, in a new email that will pop up.
- You can customize a subject line and CC
- It can optionally include a link to the SharePoint item
- The email remains a draft, so you can review and personalize before sending
Real-world example: Imagine managing a purchase request list with vendor contact information. Instead of copy-pasting details into new emails, you can create a Quick Step that:
- Pulls the vendor’s email from your “Vendor Email” column, which can be a people picker or text.
- Creates a subject line like “About this purchase request”.
- Optionally add a CC of dynamic data from any people picker.
- Optionally add a link to the specific item.
With this setup, you’re just a click away from sending professional, consistent communications without the repetitive work. In the above screenshot, the dynamic fields (drop-downs) are highlighted.
Here is what it would look like to trigger the quick step. The full demonstration is in the video below.
💬 Start a Teams Chat
Need to discuss a SharePoint item or file with colleagues? The Start a Teams Chat Quick Step bridges the gap between your data and your conversations.
This Quick Step:
- Initiates a Teams chat directly from SharePoint
- Can include one or multiple people (great for approvals) when there needs to be a discussion about an item
- Optionally include a link to the item being discussed
- Provides context for your conversation
In this example, I have a list of classes being taught at work, and I want to chat with the speakers of an event. Notice that in the drop-down I can either type an email address, or pick from the list of people columns in this list.
How to use it: Let’s say you manage a project task list with an “Assigned To” column. Create a Quick Step named “Discuss with Assignee” that starts a Teams chat with whoever is listed in that column. When you select a task and use this Quick Step, Teams opens with a chat to that person, including a link to the task. You can immediately start discussing details, timeline adjustments, or dependencies without switching between apps.
🎯 Set a Field Value
The Set a Value Quick Step is a game-changer for maintaining accurate data in your lists. It allows you to update column values instantly without editing each item individually.
This is particularly useful for:
- Changing status fields (like marking tasks complete)
- Setting dates (like recording when an action was taken)
- Updating multiple items simultaneously
The best part? You can select multiple list items, and set them all at once with this Quick Step, without having to use grid view – perfect for those end-of-sprint cleanups or when a single fix resolves multiple issues.
Here is what it would look like in the list, with multiple items selected:
For those comfortable with more technical solutions, you can achieve similar functionality using JSON formatting on columns. But Quick Steps offer a more user-friendly approach that doesn’t require coding knowledge. Here is my post on how to achieve that: Action button in SharePoint / Microsoft Lists to set column value
✅ Send an Approval Request
Approvals are a common need in many business processes, and Quick Steps makes them remarkably easier to manage within SharePoint. Before using this Quick Step, you’ll need to enable content approval for your list:
- Go to the list or library
- Click the Automate drop-down
- Click Configure Approvals
- Enable Approvals.
Once that’s configured, you can create a Quick Step to send approval requests with:
- Predefined approvers (pulled from people picker columns)
- Options for confirmation dialogs. If you choose Immediately, the approval will kick off without the end user having to enter more information.
- Settings for approval types to require responses from (any approver or all approvers)
In this example, I’ve created a list with the Recruitment tracker template, and would like to send a recruit through an approval process with the interviewers.
Another Example workflow: For an event planning list, create a “Send to Speakers for Approval” Quick Step. When you’ve drafted an event schedule, select the item and use your Quick Step. The approval request goes to the speakers listed in your “Event Speakers” column, and you can track who has responded directly from the list.
What makes this particularly powerful is how it resets if approved items are changed. This prevents unauthorized modifications to already-approved content – critical for maintaining integrity in your processes.
⚙️ Execute a Flow
When the built-in Quick Steps aren’t quite enough, Execute a Flow opens up virtually limitless automation potential by connecting with Power Automate.
This option comes in two flavors:
- Execute a flow for selected items
- Execute a flow for the current list
To use this Quick Step:
1. Create your flow in Power Automate first (make.powerautomate.com).
If you’d like it to run for a specific item you select, use a for a selected item (for a list) or For a selected file (for a library) SharePoint trigger.
If you’d like it to run just for the whole list, use a manual or recurrence trigger. Actually the flow can be completely unrelated to the list or library or SharePoint at all. It can be any flow that has a manual or recurrence trigger.
2. Get the Flow identifier (from the export option in Power Automate) and copy it to the clipboard.
3. Create an Execute a flow Quick Step that references this Flow ID
4. Give it a meaningful name so users understand what it does.
Advanced scenario: Create a flow that takes a selected document, converts it to PDF, stores it in an archive library, and notifies stakeholders. Then create a Quick Step called “Archive and Notify” that executes this flow. Users don’t need to understand the complex automation – they just select a document and click your Quick Step.
This approach works particularly well for sequential approval processes or complex business workflows that would be cumbersome to build natively in SharePoint. Note that the screenshot above states the it will run for any selected file or folder. If you put items or files in a folder and try to execute a flow on the folder, it will NOT go through all those items and kick off the flow for each of them.
Quick Steps vs. Other Automation Methods
You might be wondering how Quick Steps compare to other SharePoint automation options. Here’s a quick comparison:
- Compared to manually constructing solutions: Quick Steps are significantly more user-friendly and require less technical knowledge.
- Compared to JSON formatting: Quick Steps offer a simpler setup process, though with somewhat less customization.
- Compared to Power Automate flows: Quick Steps provide immediate, visible actions within the SharePoint interface, while flows can handle more complex logic and cross-application, cross-list, cross-site, multiple connector scenarios.
- Compared to SharePoint alerts: Quick Steps offer more versatile action options beyond simple notifications, which is timely as Microsoft is retiring the traditional SharePoint alerts.
Permissions and Quick Steps
It’s important to understand who can create and use Quick Steps in your SharePoint environment:
- Users with Edit permissions can create, modify, and use Quick Steps.
- Users with Contribute permissions can use existing Quick Steps but cannot create or modify them.
For sensitive lists, consider carefully who should have the ability to create Quick Steps. As a best practice, you might want to restrict Quick Step creation to site owners or designated power users, while allowing regular team members to use the quick steps but not modify them. This is done by giving them Contribute permissions, which is demonstrated in the video below.
Final Thoughts
SharePoint Quick Steps represent an excellent middle ground between basic SharePoint functionality and complex custom solutions. They provide enough power to streamline many common tasks without requiring extensive technical knowledge. By taking advantage of these tools, you can save time, reduce errors from manual processes, and create more consistent workflows for your team.
Whether you’re managing projects, tracking issues, or coordinating approvals, take some time to explore how Quick Steps might simplify your SharePoint experience. Your future self (and your team) will thank you for the time saved and the headaches avoided! Here is my associated demonstration video:
Have you implemented any creative Quick Steps in your SharePoint environment? I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments below!