Design an Approval Workflow

Available in: Lightning Experience

Available in: Enterprise, Unlimited, and Developer Editions where Advanced Approvals is enabled

This functionality leverages the Flow Orchestration engine, which manages and coordinates these approval processes, providing a flexible and powerful way to manage both simple and complex approval scenarios of the Flow Approval Process Type.

Approval workflows manage processes using your organization's staffing structure. They link together different Salesforce Flows, assign tasks to various people or queues, and automatically manage the handoffs and sequencing of work. These workflows are made up of sequential or parallel steps, and you can easily configure them to create smart, flexible governance strategies that span multiple teams (like Sales, Finance, and Legal). Furthermore, the process can pause to await user input and provides clear audit tracking, simplifying the understanding and management of complex approvals.

Before you design an approval workflow, we recommend you understand the fundamental details about the Flow Approval Process.

• Building Blocks of Flow Approval Processes
• Flow Approval Processes Concepts
• Build a Flow Approval Process

You can create flow approval processes in Flow Builder, including the autolaunched flow from the Approvals app on your org or the Flow Approval Process from Setup.

1. Create a Draft Autolaunched Flow Approval Process
2. Create a Flow Approval Process from Scratch

• Approval Workflow Types
  You can implement approvals in your workflow using two primary methods: serial or parallel. These are managed by setting up an approval chain, which is a label that identifies the specific group and sequence of approvers for a given process.
• Smart Approvals and Rule-Based Auto-Approvals
  Smart Approvals and Rule-Based Auto-Approvals speed up resubmissions by auto-approving steps that don’t need another manual review. They differ in how the auto-approval decision is made and the level of control you have over that decision.
• Example: Configure an Approval Workflow
  Let’s build a complete approval workflow to determine the approvals required on a quote’s discounts, implementing both Smart Approvals and Dynamic Approval Notifications.
• Use the Stage Exit Condition
  Serial and approval workflows can easily get stuck in a “waiting” state if the Stage element's exit condition isn't configured properly. The problem occurs when the stage is set to wait for all steps to finish, as it can't account for conditional steps that were never triggered. This creates a deadlock.
• Flow Core Action: Override Approval Work Item
  Update the status of an approval work item to reflect the approval admin's decision, allowing admins to override the decision for any assignee.
• Use Advanced Approvals in a Quote
  Now that your Approval Designer has created and activated an approval workflow for discounts, you’re ready to create quotes as a sales rep and use it.