Approval Process in Salesforce: A Step-by-Step Guide

Salesforce has a lot of automated work and consists of many processes which can be performed automatically. One of the processes is the approval process in Salesforce. Records submitted for approval are either auto-approved in the approval process in Salesforce or by the users in the organization.

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What is the Approval Process in Salesforce?

Let’s understand the approval process with an example of an employee and a manager,  where the employee has applied for a leave. Now, this leave will be approved by the manager. So this leave will be sent to the manager or either can be approved automatically if some conditions are addressed earlier in the Salesforce dashboard.

This whole process of automatic approval is how the approval process works basically on Salesforce.

To understand this approval process let’s dive deep to understand how to deploy the approval process in Salesforce.

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How to Deploy Approval Process in Salesforce?

To deploy an approval process in Salesforce we need to follow the following steps-

• Click on Setup => Create => WorkFlow and Approval => Approval Process or go to Quick Find and search Approval Processes. A new page opens up
• Click on Create New Approval Processes and choose Use Jump Start Wizard.
• Note- You can also use the Standard Setup Wizard which allows you to formulate your approvals. For more easy and quick actions use Jump Start Wizard
• Here is one of the approval process examples in Salesforce.

• Enter the name of the approval, a unique name will be the default value the same as the name itself but if you want you can change it too. You can add a small Description too which is optional

• Enter the filter criteria where you want to add as approval processes in Salesforce. Leave the filter blank if you want all records submitted to be included in the approval process. You can also choose the option “formula evaluates to true” where you can specify the particular formula.

• Fill up the criteria from either of the options as suited. 
• Now scroll down to select the approver. This part allows you to choose your approver. Here you can choose from various options who you want to make the approver. It can either be a manager, any custom user field, or even the author itself. Click on Next.

• Select View Approval Process Detail Page and you will be redirected to the final page.

• Enter the initial submission actions- Add New => Field update / Task / Email => Conditions => Save.
• Enter the final approval steps – Add New => Field update / Task / Email => Conditions => Save.
• Enter the final rejection actions- Add new field => Provide the conditions => Click Save.
• Note- As soon as the Salesforce approval process is activated no more steps can be added.
• Your approval process in Salesforce is now completed.
• Now, this process is where the user has to approve the process, but we can also auto-approve in Salesforce by applying the criteria for example-
  • Name: Opportunity Approval
  • Entry Criteria: HeadName = ‘CEO’
  • Criteria: Amount < 100000, else approve record
  • Approvers: Hemant or Kodee, whoever responds first
• In this way, the auto-approval process of Salesforce works.

Let’s understand more concepts about the approval process in Salesforce.

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Difference between Static and Dynamic Salesforce Approving Process

In a “static” approval process, the approver at each stage is clearly identified at each stage of the approval process. You have some flexibility, such as requiring the sender to manually select approvers or assigning them to the sender’s manager or queue or record owner, but the people who can approve are limited.

Dynamic approval routing also known as the custom approval process in Salesforce permits you to specify the approvers for every record using User search fields on the record requiring approval. The fields are inhabited using Apex, taking information from a special custom object (the “approval matrix”) that contains all the data required to route the record. 

The approval method then uses the values within the Lookup field, instead of the restricted pool of users accessible in the so-called static process. This provides a lot of flexibility to the user.

Steps for Dynamic approval Process are-

• Create a lookup field on the object required to be approved.
• Create a custom object which will be used as an approval matrix.
• Create Apex code to fill in the lookup fields on the record, from the approval matrix.
• Create or update an approval process to utilize the new lookup fields.

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Recall Approval Request in Salesforce

Suppose you have submitted an approval but realized that there has to be some update required in the record, then we can recall the approval. So, how does a recall approval request work in Salesforce? Recalling an approval process depends mainly on how the  Salesforce admin has configured the approval process. If the configuration allows recalling, then follow these steps-

• Go to the detail page for the record with an approval request.
• In the list, you can click on the option recall.

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How to Delete Approval Process in Salesforce?

To delete an approval process in Salesforce you need to follow the following steps-

• First, we will be required to delete the records in the recycle bin.

• Then we need to deactivate the approval process in Salesforce.

• Note- Only inactive processes can be deleted so at first, you need to make the approval process inactive then delete it.
• You can also deactivate by clicking on the list of active approval processes too.

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Conclusion

This article focuses on how an approval process in Salesforce works. There are various steps and customization which Salesforce provides to make the process efficient and user-friendly at the same time. The process can be either made automated or can be approved manually by specified people.