Approval Process in Salesforce

In Salesforce, several declarative(point and click) tools automate the organizations’ business processes.

For automating the business process, it is crucial to identify the tool from which it should be implemented. Automation can be used in various business scenarios having requirements like sending mail to customers, sending records for approval to managers, assigning records to users of particular profiles, automatically generating invoices, etc.

There are several tools for automating the processes in Salesforce:

What Is Approval Process In Salesforce? 

The Approval Process is an automated process that an org uses to approve records in Salesforce. For example, When In the organization, someone is not able to decide a particular thing then he can ask someone else for approval.  So, for such frequent cases or situations, one can define the approval process. So, Users can take benefit of such an approval process whenever needed.
Records submitted for approval are approved by the user(s) in the organization. These users are called Approvers. A single Approval process 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.

An approval process consists of finalizing the basic properties of the approval process (as shown in the below image), approval steps, and actions to be executed.

There are 2 options to set the criteria:

1. As a condition (Criteria are met).
2. As a formula which evaluates to true.

They can be left blank if all the records that are submitted for approval should enter the approval process.

Automated Approval routing routes the approval request automatically to the user specified in Manager Field or any hierarchical relationship field in the submitter’s user record. 

If the “Use Approver field of [Object] owner” is checked then in the Approval steps the Manager Field or any hierarchical field whichever may be selected will be of the 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 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 that 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 the approver are specified. Approval History information can be displayed as a related list on a record. Users who can submit the records for approval are called 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 Salesforce Approval Process

There are 4 actions present except the approval steps which complete 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.

Salesforce Approval Process 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 criterion that qualifies whether 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 the approval steps, we can choose whether the record should get approved or rejected if it does not fulfill the criteria. It can also be determined whether the process should go back to the previous approval step or final rejection actions should be executed in case of rejection at any approval step (except step number 1).

Approvers of the approval step can be:

1. Manager Field of user record or any other hierarchical field.
2. Submitters can also choose manually the approver of that step.
3. Records can automatically be assigned to a queue for approval.
4. Or we can set a particular user(s) or a queue for a particular approval step.
   In this option, 2 options decide how the approver(s) will decide whether the record is approved or not.
5. 1. 1. Approve or reject based on the FIRST response. If any of the approvers approve the record it is considered to be approved.
      2. Require UNANIMOUS approval from all selected approvers. If any of the approvers 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 own approval and rejection actions. These actions can be any amongst Email Alerts, Tasks, Field Updates, and Outbound messages.

To activate an approval process, there should be at least one approval step.

Note:

1. If we do not select the Manager Field or any hierarchical relationship 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.
2. The standard Name field and Owner field cannot be removed from Approval Page layouts.
3. Initial submission default actions cannot be edited but final approval & rejection default actions can be edited.
4. Once an approval process is activated, no more steps can be added to it, so, then the only option is to clone the approval process.