Creating Approval Steps
Approval steps provide the logic for routing object record approvals to the correct recipients.
At least one approval step is required to activate an approval process; however, a process can contain many steps. When organizing your approval workflow, use both step criteria and step dependencies. Steps that are not dependent on another step are executed in parallel.
Approval Step Fields
Approval steps offer three step types, description fields, and the ability to select which context object fields are displayed when an approval request or preview is sent.
Approval Step Types | Choose from these step types when creating an approval
step:
|
Description Fields |
These fields are available for adding descriptive text information about a step, as well as for step entry criteria conditions. These fields enable you to give approvers useful information about these items. |
Display Fields |
These fields enable you to select the header-level fields of the context object you will show to users when previewing an approval or when an approval request has been sent and the approver is reviewing the request information. Any related fields you create for the context object are available as display fields. |
To create approval steps
There is an approval process.
To modify an approval step, use the navigation chevrons to navigate between pages in the Approval Step setup menus. These chevrons reduce the time to navigate to a specific approval property for editing and eliminate having to traverse all the way through from the beginning to find a page to edit and save.
To create an approval rule to use with a sub-process or with child processes
Approval rules can be linked with subprocesses and child processes. Use subprocesses for rules associated with the header-level context object and child processes for rules associated with the header-level context object's child objects.
Go to Setup>Create>Objects>Approval Rule, scroll to Custom Fields & Relationships and click Rule Type. From Picklist Values section, click New. Enter
Condition
and click Save.Ensure that the rule type matches the approval process's context object or related child object.
You can create additional approval rules as needed.
Using Date Criteria in an Approval Rule Entry
If you use date-based criteria in an approval rule entry, you must use YYYY-MM-DD 00:00:00 format for the date. For example, to trigger an approval rule on a proposal line item with a create date greater than or equal to April 5, 2018, use the following and do not delete anything:2018-04-05 00:00:00
This is useful to set an approval rule or entry to take effect on or after a certain date. If you do not use the right format, the system displays an error when you try to submit for approval, or it ignores the criteria and triggers the rule regardless of the date.