Approval Processes

About

The new Approval Processes feature can be found under CRM System Settings > Automation and is accessible exclusively on the Enterprise CRM plan. This feature is restricted to administrators and requires advanced permissions for setup and use. It supports Leads, Opportunities, Projects and all Custom Objects but can only have one active approval process per Object. Approval Process can be viewed, edited and deleted via actions menu.

In this Article

• How to Create Approval Process
  • Approval Page 
  • Approval Criteria and Actions
• Approval Requests 
• Approval Requests Report

How to Create Approval Process

1. Navigate to CRM System Settings > Automation > Approval Processes. 

2. Click Add New Approval Process button to create the approval process. Enter the Process name, Description and choose your record type object. Click Save button.
   Approval process will be active by default but only one Approval process can be active for each record type. 

3. On the next modal, you can add Approval Criteria and Approvers. Enter the Criteria Name and determine if submission type will be automated or manual. 'Approval Criteria Based Submission’ is the default selection and it is related to automatic submission. For an object, only one Manual Submission is allowed, and it does not permit approval criteria filters. 

4. Select Approval Criteria Filters.
5. Choose Approvers to select who can approve the record from the following options:
   • Users (default): The dropdown contains a searchable multi-select list of all active users.
   • Record Users: The dropdown shows a multi-select list of all user type fields on the record.

   • Role: The dropdown displays a single select list of all roles.

6. Choose the Approval Order from the 2 options:
   • Anyone (default)

   • Everyone dropdown will show options of:

     • In parallel order (default)

     • In sequential order

7. Once the Criteria and Approvers has been completed, you’ll see a ‘Record Approval’ email notification under Approval Notification Email Template section. This is the email template that will be sent to the approver.  Approval Template

   • has default text

   • can be customized and saved

   • can add merge fields from the process object type

8. Click Save Criteria and Approvers button to save all the information entered for the approval process.

Approval Page 

The Approval Page is where an approver will review and either approve or reject the record. You can configure the fields to be shown on the approval page and the order of those fields. In most circumstances only a subset of the record fields needs to be shown to an approver for them to approve or reject an approval request. Click Save Fields button to apply the changes.

Approval Criteria and Actions

Approval Criteria includes the following fields:

• Approval Process Name (hyperlink)
• Criteria Name
• Record Type
• Approval Process Criteria (all the filters)
• Approvers -shows the name and option selected.

1. When creating a criteria, standard lock/unlock actions will automatically be generated for Submission, Approval, and Rejection. Approval Process can be viewed, edited and deleted via actions menu but once the record is locked, it cannot be edited or deleted. There is a maximum limit of 5 distinct approval criteria and approvers.

2. When a record meets the approval criteria and enters an approval process, you can configure a series of automated actions at each stage. Before the record is submitted for approval, the following actions can be selected for the Initial Submission, Final Approval, and Final Rejection stages:

• Add a Task
• Send an Email
• Add a New Record
• Add a New Webhook
• Run a Lambda Function
• Update the Record
• Trigger an AppConnect Recipe

3. Once a record is submitted for approval, the approver receives a link to the Approval Page. If the automatic submission option was selected, the approver automatically receives the link when the action is triggered. For manual approval submissions, a Submit for Approval option will appear in the action menu for that specific object type. When this option is selected, a modal window will open, allowing the user to add a comment before submitting the record for approval.

4. The record gets locked after the submission and approval request is sent to the approver. 
   Note: When a record is locked or unlocked by an approval process, an entry is added to the Field History. The field is labeled as “Record Locked” or “Record Unlocked,” reflecting the status change. 
5. The approval request link can be accessed through the Approver's profile by clicking the hyperlink in the top-right corner and navigating to the Related tab > Approval Requests or via System Settings > Approval Process > Records included in Approval Process. 
6. Approval page contains the following elements: Approve, Reject, Delegate, Edit buttons, Submitter’s comments (if exists), Approval Details and Approval History. If approver leaves a comment, it will be displayed in Approval History section. Approver can approve or reject or delegate that approval request.  

   
   

Approval Requests 

For the Approver to view Approval Requests in their System User Related tab (which is not included by default), they must first configure it through Page Layouts by navigating to System Settings > Objects > Contacts > Page Layout > Related tab. The Related tab will then show the Approval Requests, including the following default columns:

1. Record Name

2. Status

3. Record Type

4. Date Submitted

5. Submitter

For the Submitter, the Related tab for a record will show the Approval History, including the following default columns:

1. Date Submitted

2. Submitter

3. Approver

4. Approval Status (Pending, Queued, Approved, Rejected, Delegated, Not Required)

5. Approver Notes 

Approval Requests Report

A new Approval Requests report will be generated when an approval is submitted through the Insightly Approval Process. This report can be accessed by navigating to Reports > Standard Reports > Other Reports > Approval Requests. By default, the report is filtered to show requests with a Status of "Pending," but users can select other options from the multi-select dropdown filter. 

The Approval Requests Report displays the following information (by default). In addition to the default information, you can customize the Approval Request report by adding more details through the "Report Fields" section located on the left side of the report interface. 

• Approval Process Name

• Record Type (Object type)

• Record ID 

• Record Name

• Status

• Date Submitted

• Date Completed

• Submitter (Name of user that submitted the record for approval, linked to user record)

• Approver (Name of user to approve or reject the record, linked to user record)

• Submitter Notes

• Approver Notes