Approval processes - Salesforce Tutorial

- [Instructor] Okay, a large and very important piece of Workflow Automation has to do with Approval Processes And so I want to set up the scenario that we're going to through for an Approval Process and I've already created some of this Process in my own Salesforce org so that we can demonstrate it. So if you recall when we're viewing an Opportunity and in previous lectures I created a Custom Object called Executive Reviews. And so I shortened that to be known as an ER Review in the related list on an Opportunity. And so I'm going to show you how to Setup an Approval Process related to this Custom Object for Executive Reviews and this a similar scenario to one that I had to implement in real life, one of my Salesforce contracts that I worked. So I'm going to click Hide Feed to shorten this Page Layout for this Opportunity and this will hide my Chatter Feed and that just brings up the Opportunity Details up at the top and hides the Chatter Feed and I can show the Feed again, but that's just a quick tip to show you how to hide a Chatter Feed. But what we're interested in are these ER Forms, if you noticed this related list for ER Forms. If I click on that, here at the bottom I've got an Executive Review from that previously created. Just has a fake name that I entered in here. This Executive Review Form, the idea behind it is that it's a Custom Object to where Executives can Review an Opportunity and data from the Opportunity that has been saved over into the Executive Review Form and they can make the decision if they want to pursue this Opportunity or not. And so for these Executive Review Forms, in our scenario, we want to Submit this for Approval through a standard Salesforce Approval Process. And so if I click on this, Executive Review Form, it brings me to the Review Form Detail page and so I've added a Custom Field here, it's a checkbox that says, Submit for Approval, and so I've got an Approval Process related to this checkbox and I'll go into the Setup of the Approval Process so that this begins to make sense as far as how to administer an Approval Process on the platform. So if I check to Submit this Executive Review Form for Approval and click, Save. Okay, so you notice here on the Executive Review Form I've got this Submit for Approval button on this related list. And this is an Approval History related list. And this appears because I've already Setup an Approval Process related to this Custom Object. In your own org you won't have any of this built unless you've done it so manually and this is a Custom Object that I've created and then I've already created the Approval Process around this. I want to show from the front end for end Users what this looks like and then we'll get on the backend as far as how this is set. So I want to click, Submit for Approval, and it warns me that once I Submit the Record for approval we may not be able to edit the Record or recall it from the Approval Process depending on our settings. I'll show you those settings here in a moment from the backend. But I'm going to continue by clicking, OK, and so now we see an Approval History related list here. And this related list shows the status as Pending, it's Pending Approval and we have a couple of line items here in step one of this Approval Process that I've Setup. I've got two Approvers in the Approval Process. I've got Jim Doe and myself. Normally in a real-world scenario if I were Submitting something for Approval this would go up to my Manager or another related User who's charged with approving these Records. Because this is just a sample organization with only two Users available I'm Submitting Approval in essence to myself. And so since I'm logged in as myself here I've got this Approve or Reject link to where I could either Approve or Reject this request. But before I do that I want to highlight a few things. First of all this Record is indeed Locked from Editing and as an Admin I have the ability to Unlock a Record and make Edits. Then as well I can Recall the Approval Request. For instance, if I as an end User saw that I made a mistake, or I wanted to add additional information and resubmit it for Approval Process, I could click, Recall Approval Request, and I could add a comment and then Recall the Approval Request. So now you see the status is updated as Recalled. So then once I've made my changes to this Record I could then Submit it for Approval again, click, OK. You see this in the Approval History. You see the Recall and you see the Pending for approval now as well. And a few other things are set to happen here behind the scenes that I will show you here in a moment such as Email Alerts going out. In Approval Processes you usually have Email Templates that you have to create and then there's certain Emails, or Task Assignments, that you can then send out to people so that they know that they have some action they need to take on the platform. And as well if there's additional items in the Approval History that aren't displayed you can click, Go to list, and see the entire Record here. But for the actionable items you got to be on this related list where it shows to Approve or Reject. And so I'm going to click on this just to show what this looks like. In this Approval or Rejection screen they can add Comments and then either click, Approve, or Reject, or Cancel. I'm going to, Cancel, out of here for now. And we're going to go into Setup and view this Approval Process. If I click, Setup, and search for approval. You see here under Workflow & Approvals we have the Approval Processes link. Clicking that shows me the list of any active Approval Processes then as well any Inactive ones as well. And here's steps related to setting up Approval Processes and they recommend that you, Read the help topic related to this. Then there's a helpful checklist that you can go through and this goes through things that you need to determine before you start building this Approval Process. You can also, Create a user hierarchical relationship field, that just has to do with setting up a hierarchy for who should approve this Approval Request and it may be the Users Manager, or it could be someone else that's not necessarily the Manger of the User Submitting the request. You also need to, Create the Email Templates that I mentioned earlier and I've done some of those things already in my own org here to demo. And then you can, Create the actual Approval Process using either the Jump Start or the Standard Wizard. There's two different Wizards available in Creating Approval Process. You can add the Approval History Related List to all Page Layouts, I showed that earlier. And then you, Activate the process to deploy it to your Users. And so to Create a new Approval Process you click here and then you can select either the Jump Start Wizard or the Standard Setup Wizard. The Jump Start Wizard is one that is used for more simple Approval Processes and a lot of it is created for you out of the box. The Standard Setup Wizard is for more complex Approval Processes. And then as well, the highlight, you can manage Approval Processes for different Standard or Custom Objects. And so if we wanted to create an Approval Process for instance for Account Records we could select, Account, and then the page refresher to show that there's no current Active, or Inactive Approval Processes related to Accounts. So I'm going to go back to, Executive Review. Let the screen refresh to show the one Active Approval Process. And I'm going to click on this to show you how this is Setup. And so this is that Wizard that takes you through the steps of creating the Approval Process and here's where I've created the Process Name, and clicking, Next, to the Next step. I have the Entry Criteria for this Approval Process so that Records for the Executive Reviews Custom Object, they have to have this Criteria met in order for the Record to be able to be Submitted for Review. And so there's a checkbox I've created on Executive Reviews. I'm going to open this in a new tab. Here's this Executive Review. And if you notice this checkbox here, Submit for Approval, that is a checkbox Field to Custom Field that I created earlier and so it's looking to make sure that the Users check this box. There may be some reason that you want this box to be checked. In my own real-life scenario we had to have all sorts of Fields populated on this form and so we added a checkbox for Submit for Approval that would then fire off a lot of validation rules to make sure we had, probably about 30 different Fields filled in and if any of those required Fields were not filled in then it would block them from being able to Submit for Approval by throwing validation rules errors saying that in order to Submit this Record for Approval you must have this data filled in. So once they were able to successfully save the Record with all the required details then we enabled a button to appear through a Record Type Change, and a Field Update, so that they could then Submit the Record for Approval. And that's a much more complex and advanced example and, you know, I don't want you to worry about that in relation to the exam on the Administrator Exam. You can see that you can add a lot of functionality and complexity around Approval Processes. And so for this specific scenario though what the Entry Criteria is for the Approval Process is that this checkbox has to be checked. And so for this screen here this is the Formula Editor showing that this Custom Field has to equal TRUE in order for this Approval Process Record to be a valid entry. So now clicking, Next. Here's where you can Select a Field Used for Automated Approval Routing. And so the next Automated Approver Determined By, I've not set this up, but you could use the Approver Field of the Opportunity Owner, you could determine the Standard Manager Field on the Standard User Record. And so if my own User Record, if I had Jim Doe specified as my Manager then my Records that I Submit for Approval would go to him for Approval. And then as well I've set Record Editability Properties for this Approval Process to where ONLY Administrators can edit records during the approval process, or you could set this to be, Administrators OR the currently assigned Approver can edit records during the approval process and that would be that if a Record Submitted to an Approver they could Edit and then approve the Record rather then just having to resort to rejecting it, they could make necessary edits and then approve. So clicking, Next, to step four of this Wizard. You Select a Notification Template, and this is the, Approval Assignment Email Template, and this would be Email that would go out to the Approver saying that they've been Assigned an Approval Process that they need to Review a Record and either Approve or Reject it. And so there's an Email Template that I previously created. So you would select the Email Template to send a notification to the Approvers, clicking, Next, you Select the Fields to Display on the Approval Page Layout. And these are the Fields that actually display on this particular screen like when I showed earlier, the Approve or Reject, these Fields are all of these, the ER Name, Created by, Due Date, Last Modified, the Comments, etc. So these are the Fields that are showing here and that's were you set what Fields show or not. Really the only thing that you can do on an Approval Process as an Approver is enter Comments. It's real limited as far as being able to modify this page layout. Then as well this isn't the greatest experience for a User either. I've had instances where Approvers have accidentally clicked, Reject, and it's kind of difficult to recall that, or change that. And so really it's a training issue then that you want to encourage your Approvers to really pay attention to what button their clicking when they're Approving or Rejecting a Record in Approval Process. And then as well, here's where we Display the Approval History information in addition to the fields selected above. And so this would be the Approval History related lists here. If I uncheck this checkbox then the related lists for the Approval History would not display on that Approval screen. And then for Security Settings you can, Allow Approvers to access the Approval page only from within the Salesforce application which is Recommended, or, you can, Allow them to access it through a wirelessly-enabled mobile device which is not Recommended. So clicking, Next. So then the Initial Submitters. Here is where you really need to note things related to the Admin Exam in my own experience, and what I've heard from others that have successfully passed the exam. There's usually something related to the Initial Submitters for an Approval Process and so there's different things you can do as far as the people that can Initially Submit a Record for an Approval Process. And so there's different types of Submitters. You could have it be the Creator of the Record such as the Creator of the Executive Review Form, you could as well have it be the Owner of the Opportunity, and in this example the Opportunity is the parent to the Executive Review which is the child or a master detail relationship. And so you can also have it be a, Customer Portal User and you can specify Specific Users, Partner Users, Portal Role, Portal Role and Subordinates, Public Groups, Role, Roles and Internal Subordinates, or Roles and all Subordinates or specific Users. And so there's a lot of granularity here as far as who can be an Initial Submitter into an Approval Process. So I'm going to leave this as the, Opportunity Owner, or the, Record Creator, can Submit through this Approval Process. And then as well, the Submission Settings, you can, Allow submitters to recall the approval requests. I showed earlier how, I'm going to, Cancel, out of this and go back to this button here, Recall Approval Request. That appears because, I've Allowed Submitters to recall approval requests. So I'm going to, Save, my changes here, and the only thing I changed was adding an additional Allowed Submitter. A few things to highlight on this Approval Process Detail Page is there's a lot of information here around the, Process Definition Details. You can, Edit, specific things related to this for the, Name and Description, or the, Entry Criteria, all these different steps in the Wizard. You can go right to one of those six steps and Edit. For instance if I wanted to change the, Approval Page Layout, I could just click on that and go right there. I'm going to, Cancel, that. And so then you have these other sections here. And you've got your, Initial Submission Actions. And these are Initial Actions that take place when a Record is initially Submitted for approval. The things that I've Setup already are that the Record is Locked, so it Locks the Record from being Edited once it's Submitted for Approval. And then I have an Email Alert that goes out, and this goes out to the Executive, Send Executive Review Approval Request to Approvers. And so this is an Email Alert that I've Setup. You see that the Recipients are myself and Jim Doe using this Email Template and this is the Object that it's related to. And you can see that right now that this one Approval Process is Using This Email Alert so I'm going to click on that to go back to my previous screen. You can Add additional, Initial Submissions Actions by clicking, Add New, and you can do the same, four types of Actions that you can do for Workflow Actions as well. It's the same in an Approval Process and this may as well be a question on the exam, is, what type of actions can you associate, or add, to an Approval Process and those would be, Tasks, Email Alerts, Field Updates, or Outbound Messages. And you can as well select, Existing Actions, or Create new ones from here. So if you wanted to assign a Task to an Approver you could do that. If wanted to perform a Field Update, you could do that as well or Outbound Message to another system and that could be where you could send out a Message to an Approver into some other system even and not be a Salesforce User necessarily. An example from real-world that I've dealt with with the Approval Processes is upon Initial Submission we had a Field Update to Update the stage of the Opportunity and then we also had Field Updates on the Approval Steps and that's the next section down here. So if I show the Actions here, here's the Actions based on if Jim Doe, or Mike Wheeler Approve or Reject the Executive Review Form. And so one of the Actions here is that an Email Alert goes out and here's the Executive Review Form Approved Alert, Email Template, and Email Alert and here's the Executive Review Form Rejected Email Alert and associated Template. What I was saying earlier is that the Field Updates that we had around these where that when an Executive Review Form was approved we would Update the stage of the Opportunity. We actually would do a change on the Opportunity Record Type as well to then change Page Layouts and hide a few buttons once it had gone through Executive Review so they wouldn't Submit an additional Executive Review Form. And then likewise if it failed the Review, and they Rejected it, it would Update the Opportunity associated with the Executive Review Form via a New Field Update and it would Update the stage to close Lost and flip the Record Type to Lost Opportunity Record Type which would then display additional Fields for the reason the Opportunity was Lost and would automate a Field Update to say the reason that is was Lost was because it was Rejected by Executive Review and then as well it'd send out an Email Alert to the Submitter of the form alerting them that it's been Rejected with further instructions if they wanted to make changes and resubmit for reconsideration. So then as well you can do Final Approval Actions, Final Rejection Actions, and then as well, Recall Actions. So for instance there's the, Unlocking of the Record for Editing if the Record has been recalled and we showed that earlier when I recalled it. I was able then to make further Edits and the resubmit for Approval. And so Approval Processes can be very complex and it's a very deep subject as well and so it's a good idea to be come familiar with the intricacies of Approval Processes as best you can inside of your particular Salesforce Organization and if you've got the free Developer Account with just two Users it my be helpful to create an Approval Process where there's just one particular Approver and then one particular Submitter and then work it through from there. And I also want to highlight as well this View Diagram button as we finish out this particular lecture. If you click on, View Diagram, this brings up the Process Visualizer and you will likely see the Process Visualizer on the Salesforce Administrator Exam. And I wanted to speak about the Process Visualizer for a moment. And some of the high-level things to remember is that it displays a Flow Chart of each saved Approval Process in this Process Visualizer as well improves communication about the Approval Process and you can gain Buy-In from Step Owners. You've got your scale here where you can zoom in or out to see more screen real estate. In this shaded area here shows the current area that's in view and you can click and drag this to show different area. You can click on these and then see the particulars on those different pieces of the Process. And here's the Entry Criteria and it shows the Submit for Approval equals TRUE. And if does meet that Criteria then the Process starts. You can expand these different areas by clicking, the plus sign, and this shows that the Records Locked. It sends the Email Alert for sending...