Approvals and troubleshooting automation

Approval processes route a record to the right people and lock it while it's being reviewed. When any automation misbehaves, the fix starts with seeing what actually ran: flow debug, error emails, versions, and the order in which Salesforce runs automation on save.

Approval process setup

• Entry criteria: Which records can enter the process, such as opportunities with a discount above 20%.
• Initial submitters: Who can submit records, such as the record owner.
• Approvers: A specific user, a queue, a user in a related user field, or the submitter's manager from the Manager field on the user record.
• Steps: One or more steps in order. A step can require approval from everyone or from the first person who responds.
• Actions: Initial submission, final approval, final rejection, and recall actions such as field updates, email alerts, and tasks.
• Record locking: Records are locked when submitted so they can't be changed during review. Admins and, if allowed, approvers can still edit.

Flow versions and debugging

• Versions: Saving changes to an active flow creates a new version. Only one version of a flow can be active at a time.
• Debug: Runs the flow in Flow Builder with test values and shows each element's path and results. You can roll back the changes it makes.
• Error emails: When a flow fails, Salesforce emails details of the failing element to the admin who last changed the flow or to the address set in Process Automation Settings.
• Flow Trigger Explorer: Shows every record-triggered flow on an object and lets you set the order they run in.

The order of automation on save

• Before-save flows run first, before custom validation rules, so the values they set are validated.
• Then duplicate rules, the save itself, after-save logic, assignment rules, auto-response rules, and escalation rules run in a set order.
• After-save flows run late in the sequence, after the record is saved, and then roll-up summaries recalculate on parents.
• Two flows updating the same field on the same object can overwrite each other: use Flow Trigger Explorer to check the order, or combine them.