--- schema_version: "1" id: 80246a747270ae5cb0c54cdc086102011962884e8a2dd88c7ba303b9fdd267cb title: Troubleshoot Email Responses to Approval Requests from 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_processing_approval_requests_email_debug.md canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.approvals_processing_approval_requests_email_debug.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 source_site: help.salesforce.com content_type: documentation content_hash: e22ca158dcabf858060c11aaf2274454cd7c883247601bbb8edc0e0df5ade80a description: When email responses aren’t working correctly, review these common issues. products: - Flow Builder - Salesforce Platform release: "264" --- # Troubleshoot Email Responses to Approval Requests from Classic Approval Processes When email responses aren’t working correctly, review these common issues. ### 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. ## I’m not receiving approval requests by email. Here are a few possible reasons why. - Your approval preferences opt you out of approval request emails. - Your mail server thinks the approval request email is spam. Contact your email admin, who can check the logs of all inbound email to see if it’s being delivered, rejected, or marked as spam. - Your email admin has to add the Salesforce email addresses that the approval requests come from to the allowed email addresses for your mail server. - Email delivery time can vary based on your ISP or connection. ## My response wasn’t delivered. - An email approval request can only be processed one time. If another user has responded to the approval request before you do, you get an error. - You must have the “API Enabled” user permission to respond to approval requests by email. ## I received an email that said, “The word used to approve or reject the item was not understood.” Salesforce doesn’t process replies to error emails. Reply again to the original email notification, but this time use one of the [supported response words](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.approvals_processing_approval_requests_email.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "If your admin enabled email approval response, you can approve or reject requests by responding to the email notification. It doesn’t matter which Salesforce experience or mobile email client you’re using. Delegated approvers can also respond to approval requests by email."). ## I received an email that said, “You are not authorized to update the referenced object.” The approval request email is tied to your email address. If you forward the request to another email address, or if your email client lets you respond from multiple email addresses, you receive this error. Reply again to the original email notification, but this time reply from the same email address that received the email approval request. #### See Also - [What Does This Approvals Error from a Classic Approval Process Mean?](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.approvals_troubleshoot.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Here are some errors that you can come across when you submit a record for approval or respond to an approval request.") - [Respond to an Approval Request from a Classic Approval Process via Email](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.approvals_processing_approval_requests_email.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "If your admin enabled email approval response, you can approve or reject requests by responding to the email notification. It doesn’t matter which Salesforce experience or mobile email client you’re using. Delegated approvers can also respond to approval requests by email.") - [Approval Requests from Classic Approval Processes for Users](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.approvals_users.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Your admin can set up classic approval processes that let you and other users submit records for approval, which results in approval requests.")