Approvals

Approval matrix

An approval matrix determines assignees based on given criteria. For example, the approver authority may change based on the discount being offered on a sales contract. So different levels of approvers can be assigned based on a given item's approval authority.

Approval process

The process definition that describes approval processes within your organizations. You can define approval processes for opportunity, agreement or term exception objects. You must define entry criteria, initial submission actions, step groups (steps, step filters) and final actions within an approval process.

Approval rule (rule)

An approval rule uniquely identifies an approver based on combinations of logical business process and policy conditions. For example, an agreement must be sent to the CFO for approval if contract value is above $1M OR (geography is emerging markets AND contract value is above $250K).

Approval summary page

Clicking through an approval notification email brings an approver to an approval summary page to approve or reject that item. This page contains business information for the person to make the approval decision. This page may be configured per your business requirements.

Assignee type

The system supports the following: Approval Matrix, Auto Approval, Custom Queue, Custom Role, Custom Rule, Related User, Custom User, Queue, Role, Rule, and User.

Assignment email template

Email template used when an item is reassigned to another user. When an item is assigned to a user for approval, that user can reassign the item to another user.

Auto approval

Select this assignee type for approval rule entry criteria to progress an approval process item automatically.

In an approval process step that references an approval rule using auto approval, the Assigned Approver > Assignee Type must be Subprocess.

Auto complete

Selecting the Step Auto Complete checkbox indicates that a step may be auto-completed without manual approval. This functionality is most commonly used when a submitter is also an approver and does not need to manually approve this agreement, because it has already been reviewed before submission for further approvals. For auto complete to work as expected, make sure that the step you set Set Auto Complete for is independent from other steps.

Backup approvers

When a user is out of the office, approvals can be automatically assigned to backup approvers. The user can reassign in-process approval requests to backup approvers as well. 

Cancellation email template

Email template used to notify that an approval process has been canceled.

If an approval process results in one user being required to approve the same object record/line items, these multiple approvals can be consolidated in one approval. In other words, the approver can approve or reject it only once to approve or reject all approval requests in a single approval process.

Consider the following approval process with three steps:

When the object record is submitted for approval and the approvers are selected based on the criteria in the approval process, the approver John is included in two steps, including one dependent step.

After Mary and Dave have approved their requests for the Sales Level 1 step, John's approval request in the Sales Level 2 step is assigned to him, while his Sales Level 1 approval request is on hold. This enables him to approve both approval requests in one action.

Consolidate notifications

If an approval process would result in a user being notified multiply for the same item, these multiple notifications can be consolidated into one notification. In other words, the approver can approve or reject all consolidated approvals in one action.

The custom assignee option enables you to configure custom code to be called to evaluate an assignee. If no other options meet assignment requirements, custom code can be developed to evaluate the approver based on given criteria.

Custom queue

This assignee type points to a field that contains a queue name in any custom object with a filter to narrow it down to a single row. There are two ways to specify a filter:

• Example 1: Select the row where the Region__c field has a value of "Asia".
• Example 2: Select the row where the Region__c field has a value that equals the value of the MyRegion__c field in the associated business  object.

Custom role

This points to the field that contains a role name in any custom object, with a filter to describe a single row. For example: Custom_Object__c.Approver_RoleName__c 

Custom user

This points to a user lookup reference field in any custom object with a filter to describe a single row. The custom object may have filter criteria enclosed in parenthesis like the Region filter in this example:

Custom_Object__c(Region__c = 'Asia').Approver_UserId__c

Depends on

This field indicates the dependency of a step on other steps. For example, if a level 3 step depends on levels 1 and 2, the level 3 approver receives the item only after it has received level 1 and level 2 approvals. Dependencies automatically define an approval process as sequential. An absence of dependencies may indicate that approval processes are parallel.

Dimension

Dimension allows you to map fields such as Opportunity, Agreement, Term, Exception, etc. from a business object. You can also use it in dimension-based selection.

Email approval response

The email approval response feature lets users approve or reject emailed approval requests by replying to the email. The first line of the email body may contain one of the following words:

• Approve
• Approved
• Yes
• Reject
• Rejected
• No

Entry criteria

You can define certain logical conditions as part of entry criteria for an approval process. The approval process is evaluated when these conditions are met.

Field update (constant)

If you select Field Update (Constant) as the initial submission action type or the final approval action in an approval process, the system updates the field with a constant, for example, setting the field to "fixed status" type or changing the Agreement Status field to "Pending Approval".

Field update (value)

If you select Field Update (Value) as initial submission action type or final approval action in an approval process, the system updates the field with the value given by the field, for example, by setting the approval submitter to the current user ID (CurrUserId).

Final approval action

An action to be performed on a record when it is approved in the final stage.

Initial submission action

An action to be performed on a record when it is submitted for approval.

Notify only

Selecting the Step Notify Only checkbox designates this step as a notification-only process step. Notifications are sent for information only and no approvals will be sought as part of this step.

Notify only email template

Email template used when the process requires user notification. No approval is requested as part of this email template.

Parallel approval process

An approval process with multiple approval steps and no step dependencies is parallel.

Queue

You can assign an agreement to a queue (a collection of users) instead of to a particular user. For example, you can create a "CXO" queue to include CEO, CFO, and COO. Assign the final approval to this queue, allowing any one of these members to approve the agreement.

Reassignment email template

Email template used when an item is reassigned to another user; either specifically delegating to another user or automatically reassigning to a backup approver if the originally assigned user is out of the office.

Reassign

When an item is assigned to a user for approval, that user can always reassign the item to another user.

Related user

This points to a user lookup reference field in the associated business object (an agreement or an opportunity). For example: Approver_UserId__c

Role

You can assign an agreement to a group of users with a particular role. Any user from that group can approve the agreement at that level. For example, an agreement can be approved by any user with the "Finance Approvers" role.

Sequential approval process

An approval process with multiple approval steps processed in a defined sequence is sequential. Sequential approval processes are based on the step names mentioned in the Depends On field. If the Depends On field is blank, the approval process is parallel.

Sequence number

Indicates the order in which approval actions are run.

Step

A step is a business action a user performs to approve or reject a record.

Step assignee type

The type of assignee to which a record is assigned for approval.

Step Notify Only

The user can click this checkbox to notify the step assignee about the approval process.

Step filter

After a step is created and saved, step filters are created to define the filter criteria for the approval process.

Related user

A user lookup field in the context object (i.e., Agreement) or in its relationship path. This is useful when the approver data is available on the record.

Transfer in flight

If the "Transfer in flight" checkbox is checked, all in-process approval requests are automatically transferred to backup approvers on the effective date. If unchecked, in-process approvals are not transferred to backup approvers and the primary approver is expected to respond after returning.

User

This assignee type refers to a named user of the system. Use this assignee type to dynamically assign an approval request to a user.