Email Approval System Properties Settings
To enable approval requests to be decided via email, an email service and Approval System Properties settings for emails must be configured.
Typically an approval request will be sent to the designated assignee, from where they can access Salesforce to see more details and approve the request; however, by ensuring these settings are configured correctly, an assignee can indicate their decision and progress the approval by simply replying to the request email.
To configure the email service
- Go to New Email Service. and click
-
For Email Service Name, enter
ApprovalReplyService
, and for Apex Class, select ApprovalEmailHandler. - Select Active and enter an admin-level user's email address in Route Error Emails to This Email Address. The remaining settings are not required.
-
Click Save and New Email Address and then enter
ApprovalReplyService
for the email address. - Select Active, select a context user, and click Save. The email address is automatically generated for your Salesforce org, apart from the text that you entered in Step 4. For more details, see Salesforce Help.
This email service can now be used to ensure approval request emails are handled as expected.
To set the email system properties
When someone replies to an approval request via email, their email address is set in the Email Approval Service Address field. Selecting Enable Email Approval Response means they can approve (by responding with Approve
, Approved
, or Yes
) or reject (by responding with Reject
, Rejected
, or No
) without logging into Salesforce.
Bounce-Back Emails
If you make a spelling mistake when replying to an approval request email, the system can send you a "bounce-back" email to inform you of the error. As long as the previous tasks have been completed for the email service and email system properties, this occurs automatically.
Replying to an approval request email with one of the supported words (Approve, Approved, or Yes; or Reject, Rejected, or No) in the body updates the approval request status (approved or rejected) in the system. If you make a typo when you do this, no update is made. This feature informs you of the mistake so that you can make the necessary correction to ensure the approval process progresses as intended. The email is sent only to the approver who made the mistake. If you do not want to use the default text for the email, you can use Salesforce Translation Workbench to customize the text. A custom label provides the content for the body of the email, which you can override using translation text.
To customize the bounce-back email text
Prerequisite
You must have enabled the Translation Workbench for your org.
The next time a bounce back email is sent, the body of the email will use the content in the Translation Text field for the corresponding language.
You can edit the text as required and also add different versions for multiple languages.