The Ultimate Guide to Mastering Salesforce Approval Process

In any organization, approvals play a crucial role in maintaining control over important business decisions. Whether it is approving sales discounts, expense reports, or contract negotiations, having a structured approval process ensures consistency and compliance.

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Salesforce provides a built-in Approval Process feature that automates approval workflows, allowing records to be reviewed and approved by designated users. This feature helps businesses reduce manual work, improve efficiency, and track approvals systematically.

This blog offers a comprehensive, step-by-step walkthrough on setting up an approval process in Salesforce, exploring its main components, advantages, and typical use cases.

Understanding the Approval Process in Salesforce

An approval process in Salesforce is an automated system that manages how records move through different stages of submission, review, approval, or rejection. It ensures that decisions follow a structured hierarchy and that only authorized individuals can approve changes.

For example, a sales representative might request approval for a discount on an opportunity. The request will go through a predefined process where managers or executives review and approve the discount before it is applied.

Essential Elements of an Approval Process

Before setting up an approval process, it’s crucial to familiarize yourself with its core    components:

1. Entry Criteria

Entry criteria determine which records qualify for the approval process. These criteria can be defined using specific field values or conditional logic.

2. Approval Steps

Approval steps specify the order or sequence in which approvals must take place. The process can be single-step or multi-step, depending on the complexity of the approval workflow.

3. Approvers

Approvers are the users responsible for reviewing and approving records. Approvers can be assigned manually, automatically based on roles, or dynamically determined using lookup fields.

4. Approval Actions

Approval actions determine the outcome once a record is either approved or rejected. These actions may involve updating specific fields, sending email notifications, or locking the record to prevent further edits.

5. Final Outcome Actions

These actions define what takes place once the approval process reaches its final stage—either full approval or complete rejection. Approved records can trigger further automation, while rejected records can be sent back for modifications.

How to Set Up an Approval Process in Salesforce

Step One: Establish the Approval Criteria

The first step is to identify which records require approval, who needs to approve them, and what actions should be taken after approval or rejection.

For example, a company may want to require approval for discounts greater than twenty percent. In this case, only sales managers should be allowed to approve or reject such requests.

Step Two: Access the Approval Process Setup

Follow these steps to create a new approval process in Salesforce:

1. Sign in to Salesforce and open the Setup menu.
2. In the Quick Find search bar, type Approval Processes to locate the option.
3. Click on Approval Processes under the Process Automation section.
4. Select the object for which the approval process should be created, such as Opportunity, Case, or Quote.
5. Select Create New Approval Process, then pick either the Jump Start Wizard or the Standard Setup Wizard to be guided through the configuration step by step.

Step Three: Specify the Approval Process Details

1. Provide a Process Name and Description to clearly define the purpose of the approval process.
2. Set the entry criteria that a record must satisfy before it can enter the approval process.
3. Next, select an Approver Assignment Method:

• Allow the submitter to manually select the approver.
• Automatically assign the approver using a standard or custom hierarchy field.
• Designate multiple approvers, with options to:
  • Approve or reject based on the first response received, or
  • Require approval from all assigned approvers before proceeding.

Step Four: Initial Submission Actions

Initial submission actions are executed when a record is first sent for approval. For instance, these actions can update the record’s status to “Pending” or trigger an email notification.

• Record Lock: Locks the record to prevent further editing.
• Additionally, you can configure actions such as:
  • Task creation
  • Email alerts
  • Field updates
  • Flow executions
  • Outbound messages

Step Five: Add Approval Steps

Approval steps determine the users or roles to whom the approval request is sent and outline the actions to be carried out when a request is approved or rejected.

You can configure actions for both approval and rejection, including:

• Task creation
• Email alerts
• Field updates
• Flow executions
• Outbound messages

Step Six: Final Approval Actions

Final approval actions are executed after a record has obtained all required approvals.

• Record Lock: Locks the record to prevent further edits (this option can be modified if needed).
• Additionally, you can configure:
  • Task creation
  • Email alerts
  • Field updates
  • Flow executions
  • Outbound messages

Step Seven: Final Rejection Actions

Final rejection actions occur when a record is fully denied within the approval process.

• Record Lock: Unlocks the record, allowing it to be edited (this option can be modified if needed).
• Additionally, you can configure:
  • Task creation
  • Email alerts
  • Field updates
  • Flow executions
  • Outbound messages

Step Eight: Recall Actions

Recall actions take place when a submitted approval request is withdrawn or recalled.

• Record Lock: Unlocks the record for editing.
• Additionally, you can configure:
  • Task creation
  • Email alerts
  • Field updates
  • Flow executions
  • Outbound messages

Step Nine: Activate the Approval Process

After completing all configurations, review your settings carefully and click Activate to enable the approval process. The approval process is now live and ready for use.

How to Submit a Record for Approval

Once the approval process is activated, users can submit records for approval using the following steps:

1. Open the record that satisfies the defined approval criteria.
2. Click the Submit for Approval button.

3. Add comments if required and submit.

4. Select the approver (if manual assignment is enabled) and click Submit.

Tracking Approvals

Users can monitor the approval status through the Approval History related list on the record. From this section, approvers can either approve or reject the submission.

Viewing Pending Approvals

Pending approvals can be accessed under the Approval Requests tab via the App Launcher. Here, the approver can approve or reject the request.

Conclusion

The approval process in Salesforce serves as an effective automation tool for managing and streamlining approval workflows. By establishing well-defined processes, organizations can enhance efficiency, minimize errors, and maintain adherence to company policies.

Setting up an approval process may require careful planning, but once implemented, it significantly enhances workflow management and decision-making within an organization.