Approval Processes

Dmitry Skrakovsky

What is the Approval Process?

An approval process is an automated process your organization can use to approve records in Salesforce. An approval process specifies the steps necessary for a record to be approved and who must approve it at each step. A step can apply to all records included in the process, or just records that have certain attributes. An approval process also specifies the actions to take when a record is approved, rejected, recalled, or first submitted for approval.

Diagram

Multimedia Record Submitted for Approval

Initial Submission Actions Occur

Final Approval

Action

Final Rejection

Action

Accepted

Accepted Rejected

Rejected

Approval Step 1Approver:

Administrator

Approval Step 2Approver: Historian

An approval process includes the following elements:• A name and description to distinguish it from other approval processes• Entry criteria if you only want records with certain attributes to be

included• A designated user who can approve requests• Settings to specify who, if anyone, can change a record once it has been

submitted for approval• Any number of steps that determine the sequence of actions to take when

a record matches the criteria. Each step can have up to 40 actions, 10 of each type: email alerts, field updates, tasks, and outbound messages.

• Up to 40 additional actions that occur when a record is initially submitted• Up to 40 additional actions that occur when a record is approved• Up to 40 additional actions that occur when a record is rejected• Up to 40 additional actions that occur when a record is recalled

For Enterprise, Developer, and Unlimited Editions, each approval process can have up to:

15 steps per process 25 approvers per step

Each organization can have up to:

500 approval processes per object 1,000 processes per organization

Each approval process can have:

40 immediate actions

Immediate actions:

10 email alerts 10 tasks 10 field updates 10 outbound messages