How to use Flow Approval Process In Salesforce ?

Salesforce is making Flows more and more powerful with every releases. This is again evident with release of spring ’25 and summer ’25 in which Salesforce is replacing Classic Approval process with New Flow Approval Processes. This latest release introduces new Approval Orchestration flow and specific Approvals App to manage approval submissions and approval work items.

In this Blog, we will discover How to use New Salesforce Flow Approval Process instead of Classic Approval Process. We will explore how it works and how to implement this flow approval process for real-world Business case.

What is Flow Approval Process ?

Approval Flow Orchestration is a declarative solution that lets you create custom approval processes using Flow Orchestration. This Flow approval Process is the new way to automate and manage approval workflows using Flows. Previously, we had to rely on classic Approval Processes to create approval steps for our numerous Business Scenario.

With this new Flow Approval Process, We can create Approval workflow which includes approval stages, Approval Logics(accept, reject, re-assign) and routing records of approvals directly into Flow.

Why Use Flow Approval Process instead of Classic Approval Process ?

Using Flow Approval Process is new modern, flexible way for creating Approval workflow for Businesses due to various factors as shown here:

• Improved Flexibility: Using Flows, admins have ability to define custom logic around approval steps, allowing more control over automation compare to classic approval process.
• Unified Automation: It simplifies overall processes allowing you to handle approval actions (like when a record gets approved or rejected) within a single Flow, which can also take other actions like sending emails, updating records, or triggering other processes.
• Special App to manager Approvals: Salesforce Summer’25 release provides you separate App called ‘Approvals’ to manage all Approval related items at single place.
• Multi-Step and Dynamic Approval Paths: You can create more complex multi-step approval processes where the path taken depends on dynamic conditions, such as the record’s data or user input.

Key Elements of Flow Approval Process

Approval Flow Orchestrations & Templates

With Summer ’25, Flow provides 2 types of Approval Flow Orchestrations to creates custom Flow Approval Process in Salesforce.

These 2 Flow Orchestrations will give you flexibility to choose how you want to start approvals in your org via

1. Autolaunched action ( e.g. button clicks) Using Autolaunched Flow Approval Process
2. Record-trigger action (create/update records) Using Record-Triggered Flow Approval Process

Besides this, You will also have Flow templates that are specifically available to use in Approval Processes. We will understand this in our Business Case Scenario.

Essential Elements inside Approval Flow

• Stages: Within approval workflow, each approval is considered at a stage, approval goest to next stage only when preceded stage is approved.
• Steps: Within each Stage, you can have multiple steps which are nothing but actions to be performed to complete the Stage
• Decisions: You can add decision logic bases on fields or other condition to decide next approval steps.
• Approval Request : Your main approval flow will initiate Approval Request flow to be displayed on record page to give user choice to approve or reject. e.g. use of template Approvals Workflow: Evaluate Approval Requests.

Understand with Business Case

Business Requirement

The SalesforceFox company wants to streamline their hiring process by implementing org-wide approval workflow for Job Applications. Currently, The hiring process at SalesforceFox is manually task. All stakeholders (Tech Recruiters, Interviewers, Hiring Managers) communicate via email while new Job Applications goest through different stage of Approvals.

As a Salesforce Expert, SalesforceFox approached you to automate this hiring process. The Simple requirement is that when Job Application status is New, there should be button called ‘Submit For Approval’. On clicking the button, Application should go through several stages of approvals as shown below:

Job Application Approval Flowchart:

Roadmap for Approval Flow implementation

First actions to take:

1. Decide how you want to initiate Approval Process either via Record Trigger action or Autolaunched Actions like button. then, decide which flow orchestrations (shown above) to use to create your flow approval process
2. Inside your flow Orchestration, you will need screen flow where approver can select either to accept or reject choice and can also add comments additionally. So create new approval screen flow using template Approvals Workflow: Evaluate Approval Requests and modify as per requirements.

As we have seen from above requirement, Here we we want to launch our approval process from button click. therefore, we will choose Autolaunched Flow Approval Process (No-trigger) because this flow orchestration can be invoked on demand basis. So here, we will launch this flow via button called ‘Submit for approvals’.

What is Approvals Workflow: Evaluate Approval Requests ?

Before we start working on this Autolaunched Flow Approval Process, we need to understand a flow approval template called Approvals Workflow: Evaluate Approval Requests, we use this approval screen flow template to handle approval decisions inside an approval process.

This template is designed to collect input from an approver( from record page) during approval steps. When a record is submitted for approval from Autolaunched Flow Approval Process (No-trigger), this flow will be executed to let approver Select Approve or Reject on record page itself.

Firstly, we will create our approval screen flow from Approvals Workflow: Evaluate Approval Request template to provide approver a screen to select choice either approve or reject and to update status accordingly.

After this, We will create our approval flow from Autolaunched Flow Approval Process Orchestration in which we will add stages of Approvals as per our requirement

End-to-End Approval Flow Invocation Order :

1. Submit Approval : A record is submitted for approval via autolaunched action or trigger
2. Autolaunched Flow: Kicks off and passes data (like the record ID, approver info, status) to the Evaluate Approval Requests flow.
3. Evaluate Approval Requests Flow: Runs through its logic and acts accordingly.

Step-by-Step Guide to Implement Flow Approval Process

Step 1: Decide Approvers, Approval Stages & record processing to do

Before we create approval flow, it is essential to understand our requirement in terms of how entire approval process will look like from starting to end.

By looking at Approval Process Flowchart above, We can say this Job Application approval process is going through 4 approval stages and each stage has its approver Tech Recruiters, Interviewer 1, Interview 2 and Hiring Manager respectively. This approvers can be single user, Group or Queue in salesforce.

After receiving approval from each stage, record should have new status and upon rejection status should be ‘Declined’. This record processing we need to do in background once approver select to approver or reject it.

Step 2: Pre-setup for approval Process

Object Set up

We are dealing with Job Application Approval Process. therefore, Let’s create Custom Object ‘Job_Application__c’ along with all needed fields and lightning record page as well.

As seen in Flowchart above, On this Job_Application__c, create a picklist field called Status__c and its values are New, Under Review, Interview 1 cleared, Interview 2 cleared, Hired and Declined.

Approval Email Set up

After Submission of Approval, Each approver will receive email related to its approvals, so we need to set up approval sender email. By default Approval Sender email is the email of submitter who submitted approval. However, we can change it to Org-wide email address as well.

• Go to Set up > Type ‘Process Automation Setting’
• Set Org-wide email address as shown below
• Set Email Approval Sender as a Approval Submitter or Org-wide email

Upon your selection, Approval Sender email will be either org-wide email or email of submitter of approvals.

Step 3 : Create Screen Flow – For Approver to approve/reject with comments

As we have seen in Roadmap above, Firstly, Let’s create a flow called Evaluate Job Application Approval using approval flow template Approvals Workflow: Evaluate Approval Request.

Let’s Understand this flow :

• This flow provides screen to approvers where they can select to approve or reject along with optional comments as shown below, We can modify it as per our needs.

• As per our requirement, after each approval or rejection, we need to update Job Application Status accordingly, so we need to check via decision if approver has approved or reject & based on that we need to update status of Job Application
• Well, how do we do know which record & what status to update ? we are calling this flow from Autolaunched Approval Flow Orchestration so status & recordId will be passed from flow orchestration itself
• To pass status and recordId into this flow, create two text variable 1. applicationRecordId & 2. StatusToUpdate, make sure to mark it as Available for Input
• Create another variable newStatus to assign value from StatusToUpdate on Decision for Approval and update it to Decline for Rejection.
• Now using applicationRecordId, We will update Job Application Status that is passed from Autolaunched Approval Flow Orchestration as shown below.

Save this flow and make sure to activate it so we can use it in our Autolaunched Approval Flow Orchestration.

Step 4 : Create Autolaunched Approval Flow Orchestration

Here, We need to launch Job Application Approval from button on record page, so Let’s create new Flow using Autolaunched Flow Approval Process (No-Trigger).

• In Set up, go to Flows > click on ‘New Flow’ > on search box, type ‘Flow Approval’.
• Click on ‘Autolaunched Flow Approval Process (No Trigger)’
• Save this new flow as ‘Job Application Approval Process Flow’ before editing it.

In Approval Flow Orchestration, Each Approval is represented as a Stage. here, In our requirement, we have 4 approvals (Tech Recruiter, Interviewer 1, Interview 2 & Hiring Manager) so we will add 4 stages in order of its Approval.

Each Stage is combination of steps. you can add your own custom logic on when to consider stage as completed based on actions of steps. So Once first stages is completed then and then approval will go to next stage

How Our 4 stage will look like in this Approval Flow Orchestration

• Stage 1 : Approval from Tech Recruiters
  • Complete Step : If Approved -> Status = Under Review, Otherwise Declined
• Stage 2 : Approval from First Interviewers
  • Complete Step : If Approved -> Status = Interview 1 Cleared, Otherwise Declined
• Stage 3 : Approval from Second Interviewers
  • Complete Step : If Approved -> Status = Interview 2 Cleared, Otherwise Declined
• Stage 4 : Approval from Hiring Manager
  • Complete Step : If Approved -> Status = Hired, Otherwise Declined

Let’s Add First Stage and its steps in our Flow Orchestration

• After adding First Stage, provide, Label & Description, for our first stage we get approval from tech recruiters so add Label like ‘ Approval From Tech Recruiter ‘
• After Stage, you need to add steps, you can add 2 types of Steps either Approval Step or Background Step.
• Here Approval Step is task to be completed by Approver whereas in Background Step system completes it without need of approvers.
• In our case, we need approver to complete approval so select Approval Step

Completing Step inside First Stage

Part-1:

• As seen above, provide appropriate Name and Description for step of our First approval stage.
• This step, will call our flow we created earlier, which provides Approval Screen for Approvers
• We also need provide input values required for that flow to update Job Application Status.

Part-2:

• We also need to provide who is approver of this record and which record to approve.
• In Our Case, we have created Public Group called TechRecruites_PG which has several Tech recruiters, it means this approval will be sent to all the user who are part of this public group.

Now Similar to what we have in Stage 1 for Tech Recruiters, Add Stage 2, 3 and 4 along with its Steps inside with respective Approvers and status to update.

After adding all stages, Make sure to activate it.

This is how our Complete Job Application Approval Process Flow will look like

Step-5 : Create Submit Approval Button

As per our requirement, we want to send approval from button called ‘Submit for Approval’ on Job Application Record page. This button will call our Job Application Approval flow we just created above

Create URL Button on Job Application Object

Get Flow URL from flow details page and add into button URL as shown below

• This autolaunched Approval Flow have two input variable 1. recordId – for which Approval will be initiated 2. Submitter – who submitted this approval. both are compulsory for flow to start
• In Our Case, this Submit for Approval button is on Job Application Record page so recordId will be Id of Job Application Record & submitter will be Id of Current user.

Set up Job Application Record Page

On Job Application Record Page add Submit for Approval button on Dynamic Highlight Panel and add conditional visibility that this button should be visible only when Job Application Status is New

On Job Application Record page you can add component called ‘Flow Orchestration Work Guide’. this component will render approval screen if current user has any pending approval.

Save and Activate this Job Application Record Page.

• Now, go to Job Application Record, Click on Submit For Approval Button, Approval will be sent to Tech Recruiters (Public Group in our case).
• Login as Tech Recruiter, go to same record, you should see Approval Work Guide Screen where you can provide approval.
• When Approval is sent, Approvers should also receive email regarding same. make sure to also check spam folder, if you can’t find in primary.

See Flow Approval Process In Action