Approval Process in Salesforce

Approval Process in Salesforce is an automated process that an organization uses to approve records in Salesforce. Records submitted for approval are approved by the users in the organization. These users are called as Approvers. It is bound to a single object because when a rule is defined this object influences the fields that will be available to set the criteria.

There are 2 options to set the criteria:

• As a condition where criteria are met.
• As a formula that evaluates to true.

They can be left blank if all the records that are submitted for approval should enter the approval process in salesforce. Automated Approval routing routes the approval request automatically to user-specified in Manager Field or any hierarchical relationship field in submitter’s user record.

Note: 

If we do not select Manager Field or any hierarchal field of user record at the time of approval process definition then the automated approval routing for any approval step in this process will not be enabled.

If the “Use Approver field of [Object] owner” is checked then in Approval steps the Manager Field or any hierarchical field whichever may be selected will be of record owner instead of the submitter.

Records when submitted for approval automatically get locked which means they cannot be edited. However, administrators can edit the records during an approval process in salesforce, and also when defining the approval process administrators can select whether the approver is allowed to edit the record or not.

We can also assign a notification email template which will send an email notification to approvers whenever a record is submitted for approval.

Similar to Action Layouts in Actions, approval processes also have Approval Page Layouts in which fields that will be visible to approver are specified.

Note: 

Standard Name field and Owner field cannot be removed from Approval Page layouts.

Approval History information can be displayed as a related list within a record. Users who can submit the records for approvals are called as submitters. We can specify the submitters in the approval process definition. Also, there is an option that gives additional functionality using which the submitters can recall the approval requests.

Actions in the Approval Process:

There are 4 actions present except the approval steps which completes an approval process, following are:

1. Initial Submission Actions:

Initial submission actions are the actions that occur when a user first submits a record for approval. By default, an action to lock the record runs automatically on initial submission. Initial submission actions can include any approval actions such as email alerts, field updates, tasks, or outbound messages.

2. Final Approval Actions:

Final Approval actions are the actions that occur when a record is approved from all the approval steps. It also locks or unlocks the record, as specified. It can include any approval actions such as email alerts, field updates, tasks, or outbound messages.

3. Final Rejection Actions:

Final Rejection actions are the actions that occur when a record is rejected from any of the approval steps. It also locks or unlocks the record, as specified. It can include any approval actions such as email alerts, field updates, tasks, or outbound messages.

4. Recall Actions:

Recall actions are the actions that occur when a record is recalled after submission for approval. It can include any approval actions such as email alerts, field updates, tasks, or outbound messages.

Note: Initial submission default actions cannot be edited but final approval & rejection default actions can be edited.

Approval Steps:

The approval process consists of one or more than one approval steps. Every approval step contains its criteria and approvers.

Approval Steps are given step numbers to identify the hierarchy in which the approval steps should execute. Every step consists of a criteria which qualifies that the record needs to get into this step for approval or not.

If the record does not fulfill the criteria for any step except the first step then the record gets approved and executes Final Approval actions after it.

In approval step 1 we can choose whether the record should get approved or rejected if does not fulfills the criteria.

Approvers of approval step can be:

• Manager Field of user record or any other hierarchal field.
• Submitters can also choose manually the approver of that step.
• The record can automatically be assigned to a queue for approval.
• Or we can set a particular user or a queue for a particular approval step.
  In this option, there are 2 options that decides how the approver/approvers will decide whether the record is approved or not.
  1. Approve or reject based on the FIRST response. Any of the approver if approves the record it is considered to be approved.
  2. Require UNANIMOUS approval from all selected approves. If any of the approves rejects the record it is considered to be rejected.

Delegated approvers can also approve the record if they are allowed to approve explicitly in the approval step definition. Approvers can also reassign the approval request to another user. Every approval step contains its approval and rejection actions. These actions can be any amongst Email Alert, Task, Field Update, and outbound message. In order to activate an approval process, there should be at least one approval step.

Note:

Once an approval process is activated no more steps can be added into it.