--- schema_version: "1" id: 31ade36f6a10876d4321a3aed99107d40ec697aae0bd27d66477ebdd0ecab302 title: Considerations for Managing Classic Approval Processes collection: admin version: current locale: en-us portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/platform/264-0-0/approvals_considerations_manage.md canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.approvals_considerations_manage.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 source_site: help.salesforce.com content_type: documentation content_hash: 124500d5fe408dcdd453be71da18acf00855fffacba65e9e00f888f97c2a5473 description: Keep these things in mind when maintaining existing classic approval processes—including activating and deleting them. products: - Flow Builder - Salesforce Platform release: "264" --- # Considerations for Managing Classic Approval Processes Keep these things in mind when maintaining existing classic approval processes—including activating and deleting them. ### Required Editions
Available in: both Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience
Available in: Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions
![Important](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-platform-platform_automation-264-0-0-production-enus/60568438-ec7e-4665-acd1-7c80dcbe60d5/images/icon_important.png) Important Try [Flow Approval Processes](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.automate_automated_approvals.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "As your company grows, so does the complexity of your approvals, often requiring input from multiple people in different departments across different time zones. This complexity can mean that you spend more time waiting for each person to complete their review in the right order. Flow Approval Processes helps you coordinate multistep reviews that involve users, systems, and conditional paths."), a modern alternative to Classic Approval Processes. This new feature provides a more flexible, user-friendly flow-based interface, and it can trigger on record changes, supporting Apex extensibility and detailed logging for compliance and audit trails. It supports dynamic routing based on data and business rules, unlike Classic Approval Processes, which are tied to specific objects and offer limited support for processes by using conditions. With Flow Approval Processes, you can monitor submitted records and quickly identify bottlenecks, giving you unprecedented visibility into approval workflows. And, like Classic Approval Processes, Flow Approval Processes don’t consume automation credits or orchestration runs. ## Admin Permissions Users with one of these permissions are considered approval admins. - Modify All Records object-level permission for the given object - Modify All Data user permission Approval admins can: - Approve or reject pending approval requests without being part of the classic approval process - Edit records that have been locked for approval ## Activating Approval Processes - A classic approval process must have at least one step before you can activate it. - Before you activate your classic approval process, test it in your Salesforce sandbox. - After a classic approval process is activated, you can’t add, delete, or change the order of the steps or change its reject or skip behavior, even if the process is inactive. ## Monitoring In-Flight Classic Approval Processes Standard reports for approval requests are included in both the Administrative Reports folder and the Activity Reports folder. ## Deploying over Existing Classic Approval Processes When you deploy a classic approval process with no entry criteria to overwrite an existing classic approval process with entry criteria, then the entry criteria from the existing process are applied to the deployed process. ## Deleting Classic Approval Processes Before you delete a classic approval process: - Make sure it’s inactive. - Delete all approval requests that are associated with it, and remove them from the Recycle Bin. - Delete all records, for example, accounts that were submitted through the approval process regardless of status. By deleting the records, the associated ProcessInstanceWorkitem and ProcessInstance records are also deleted automatically. - If you can't delete the classic approval process, try again after 2 days. Salesforce can take up to 2 days to delete the files that you removed from the recycle bin. - Before deleting a custom object, deactivate and delete any classic approval processes associated with it. An approval process associated with a deleted custom object can prevent Metadata API tools from listing or retrieving classic approval process metadata. #### See Also - [Activate a Classic Approval Process](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.approvals_activate.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "After you’ve created at least one step for the classic approval process, activate the process.") - [Manage Multiple Approval Requests for Classic Approval Processes](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.data_approval_requests.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Transfer multiple approval requests from one user to another or remove multiple approval requests from the classic approval process.") - [Limits and Considerations for Classic Approval Processes](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.approvals_considerations.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Before you automate something with a classic approval process, be aware of the limits and considerations.")