Approve Records from a Chatter Feed

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Enable approval requests in Chatter.
• Create a template for approval posts.
• Create a simple approval process using the Jump Start Wizard.

An approval process maps the route that a record takes through the people who are aligned to provide approval. The approval process can send an approval request as a Chatter post. You can create a template for that post to ensure that the same type of data is posted with every request.

1. Enable approval requests in Chatter.
2. Create an approval post template.
3. Create an approval process.
4. Enable feed tracking.  Enable feed tracking for any object that an approval process is based on. For example, when you want the creation of an account to kick off an approval process, you enable feed tracking for the Account object.
5. Take steps 2–4 for each object that you want to send through an approval process.

• In the assigned approver's Chatter feed
• On the submitter's profile, but not in their Chatter feed unless they're following the approval record
• In the Chatter feed of the approval record
• In the Chatter feed of anyone following the approval record

1. From Setup, enter Chatter Settings in the Quick Find box, and then click Chatter Settings.
2. Click Edit.
3. In the Approval Posts section, select Allow Approvals.

4. Click Save.

You’d like the approval posts that appear in Chatter to be standardized. There’s a little advance work you can do to make it so. First, you can set up a post template. In the template, you can identify the record data that you want to appear in the post. Later, when you define the approval process, you can associate your template with it.

1. From Setup, enter Post Templates in the Quick Find box, and then click Post Templates.
2. Click New Template.
3. These approvals are for accounts, so select Account and click Next.
4. Enter the name Account Approval Post Template, and describe it as A template for account approval request posts.
5. To make this template the default for all account approval request posts, select Default.
6. For Post Template Fields, move Account Number, Account Owner, and Description to the right column. If Account Name isn’t already in the Selected Fields column on the right, move it there, too.  Tip: Put text-heavy fields, like Comments or Description, at the bottom.
7. Click Save.

Let’s create a simple approval process for accounts.

1. From Setup, enter Approval Processes in the Quick Find box, and then click Approval Processes.
2. For Manage Approval Processes For, choose Account.
3. Click Create New Approval Process, and choose Use Jump Start Wizard.
4. In the Approval Process Information section
   1. For Name, enter: Account Approval Process.
   2. To get a unique name for this process to use in the API, click the Unique Name field.
   3. Leave Approval Assignment Email Template blank to use the default email template.
   4. For Approval Post Template, click the search icon and select Account Approval Post Template. We created this template in the last section.  For information about the Use Approval Field of Account Owner setting, see Choose an Automated Approver Throughout an Approval Process.
   5. To update all the page layouts for this object, select Add the Submit for Approval button and Approval History related list to all Account page layouts. Selecting this option gives users a way to submit approval requests and to track them through the approval process.
5. In the Specify Entry Criteria section, set up the criteria to kick off this approval process. Let's use a user that already exists in the org. If we want Integration User (not the best name, we know) to approve any accounts that they don't own, we enter these criteria on the first line:
   • Field: Account: Account Owner
   • Operator: not equal to
   • Value: Integration User
6. In the Select Approver section, assign all approval requests to Integration User.
   • Select Automatically assign to approver(s).
   • Select User, and, in the second field, enter Integration User.
   • Under When multiple approvers are selected, select Approve or reject based on the FIRST response. If you want all selected approvers to approve, select Require UNANIMOUS approval from all selected approvers.
7. Click Save.
8. Click View Approval Process Detail Page.
9. On the Account: Account Approval Process page, click Activate to activate the approval process.