title: How to create an Approval Workflow associated to a List in SharePoint 2010?
body: <p>I was recently tasked with taking over the SharePoint administration for my company, but I have very limited SharePoint experience. I'm using SharePoint 2010.</p>
  
  <p>I have a List with a few built-in columns (like Status, Assigned To, etc) and I'd like to perform a few actions when a new List item is created: change the Status and Assigned To columns of the List item, send out an email, and then create a task for the user's manager to approve it. However, in SharePoint Designer, I cannot figure out how to create a Reusable Approval Workflow and associate it to a List, or a List Workflow and add an Approval Task to it.</p>
  
  <p>If I create a Reusable Approval Workflow, when I try to use the "Set Field in Current Item" Action, I don't have any of the List Columns available (to set the Status, Assigned To, etc).</p>
  
  <p>And when I create a List Workflow, I can access the columns for the list (Status, Assigned To, etc) but I can't figure out how to make the new List item go through the Approval process.</p>
  
  <p><strong>So my question is: how do I Associate a Workflow to a List, change some of the List column properties, and create an Approval Task for the Manager when a new item is created?</strong></p>
  
  <p>Am I missing something here or am I not approaching this correctly?</p>