Use Case: Managing Approver Absences with Backup and Delegate Approvers
Business Context
Approval requests stall when the assigned approver is
unavailable due to leave, travel, or other commitments. Conga Approvals
provides two mechanisms to address this:
- A Backup Approver, who takes full ownership of approval requests during an absence.
- Delegate Approvers, who can act on behalf of the original approver without replacing them.
Overview
This use case provides an example of how to configure a backup approver for a full absence and delegate approvers for partial availability. Your implementation may vary.
Scenarios
- Scenario A: Backup Approver (Full Ownership Transfer) The Regional Director, Michael Chen, is on a two-week leave. All pending and incoming approval requests must be fully transferred to his backup, VP of Sales Rachel Torres, for the duration of his absence. When Michael returns, requests revert to him automatically.
- Scenario B: Delegate Approver (Shared Visibility)The Regional Director, Michael Chen, is attending an industry conference for five days and has limited availability. Tara configures delegate approvers so that two team members, Nina Patel and Tom Bradley, can act on Michael's behalf while he is away, while Michael remains visible as the assigned approver.
Prerequisites
- An active approval process that routes requests to Michael Chen (Regional Director) already exists in your org. The backup and delegate approver configuration only takes effect when approval requests are actively being routed. It has no function without an underlying approval process. For an example of configuring an approval process, see Use Case: Route Approvals to Regional Managers Using Dimension-Based Rules.
- The following four flow setup tasks are completed in Salesforce Flow Builder. Tasks 1–3 configure the Set in Effect on Effective Date flow, which automatically activates a backup or delegate approver record when its effective date is reached, while Task 4 configures the Cancel Backup/Delegate User on Expiration Date flow, which automatically deactivates the record when its expiration date is reached.
Key Distinctions
| Aspect | Backup Approver | Delegate Approver |
| Assigned user on request | Backup user (replaces original) | Original approver (unchanged) |
| Who acts on request | Backup user only | Original approver or any delegate |
| Transfer In-Flight | Available | Not applicable |
| Best use for | Full absence (leave, offsite) | Partial availability (conference, busy period) |
Scenario A: Steps to Configure a Backup Approver
Scenario B: Steps to Configure a Delegate Approver
When the record is activated: All pending approval requests assigned to Michael are automatically reassigned to Rachel, and all new approval requests are routed directly to Rachel.
When the record expires or is deactivated: All reassigned approval requests are automatically returned to Michael, and new approval requests are routed back to Michael. No manual action is required.