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Design an Approval Workflow
Approval workflows enable businesses to implement complex, multi-step approval rules and efficiently manage transaction compliance.
Required Editions
| Available in: Lightning Experience |
| Available in: Enterprise, Performance, 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.
- 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.
