Recall & Resubmit with Smart Approvals

real world approvals are never one shot reps change quotes after approval compliance wants a second look after sign off deals get restructured mid review this use case shows how to make those flows graceful — without forcing every approver to re review a decision they already made the key building block is smart approvals ( remember approval decision ) paired with recall and resubmit , it lets records move back through the approval process while preserving decisions on the parts that didn't change business scenarios covered scenario approach rep changes a quote's amount after approval — some steps need re review, others don't recall → edit → resubmit with smart approvals enabled deal desk wants to pull back a submission to fix a pricing mistake grant recallanyapprovalrequest to deal desk record needs to be recalled after full approval (e g , compliance escalation) enable allowrecallofapprovedrecord custom setting high level approvers shouldn't re review if only low impact fields changed per condition validate field changes checkbox prerequisites before building this flow, make sure you're on approvals pro 10 31 or later allow resubmit is enabled on the approval process remember approval decision is enabled on every step where you want remembered approvals step 1 enable smart approvals on each step open the approval process click into each step that should "remember" its decision check remember approval decision save note it's fine to leave remember approval decision off on steps where you always want fresh review (e g , legal / compliance gates) smart approvals is opt in per step step 2 decide which field changes re trigger approval for each step with smart approvals on, review its entry criteria conditions and decide which ones, if they change in a "worse" direction, should force re approval on each such condition, check validate field changes how validate field changes behaves non numeric fields (picklist, text, boolean) any change re triggers approval the engine compares the current value to the value at the time of the last approval numeric fields with greater than / less than operators the engine is smart about direction if the new value is in the same "approval required" region and no worse than the previously approved value, the step is skipped if the new value is worse (higher discount, larger amount, etc ), the step re triggers example an opportunity amount of $12,000 was approved on resubmit new amount behavior $18,000 step re triggers — value is higher $11,000 step is skipped — still above the $10k threshold, but lower than the previously approved $12k $9,000 step doesn't trigger — now below the entry criteria threshold step 3 enable recall of approved records (optional) out of the box, recall only works on pending approval requests to recall requests that are already fully approved setup → custom settings → approvals pro settings → manage edit the allowrecallofapprovedrecord setting set value to true save this is required for the "change after approval" workflow where a rep edits a deal after initial approval and the system rebuilds the remaining approval chain step 4 grant recall permissions to the right people by default, only the submitter and admins can recall typically you also want deal desk coordinators ops teams doing data cleanup approvers who want to "take it back" and ask for more detail grant them the recallanyapprovalrequest custom permission setup → permission sets → new (e g , approvalsprorecalluser ) open the permission set → custom permissions → edit enable recallanyapprovalrequest → save assign the permission set to the relevant users full context permissions docid\ ystatgnrufhelmt mgduc and permission reference docid\ uhruw6nrcy hprsr4uyiu step 5 walk through an end to end example let's trace a quote through the flow 1\ initial submission rep submits a quote with billing period = monthly the approval process has two paths path a runs always path b (billing period path) only runs when billing period ≠ monthly preview shows only path a will run rep submits path a approves quote status flips to approved 2\ rep edits the quote after approval, the rep changes billing period to quarterly to close the deal differently they click recall (visible because allowrecallofapprovedrecord is set to true ) 3\ resubmission rep clicks resubmit approvals pro re evaluates path a's steps remember approval decision is on, and validate field changes shows no relevant field changed steps remain in previously approved status — no approver is notified path b's steps now trigger (billing period = quarterly satisfies entry criteria) new approvals go out to path b's approvers only 4\ path b completes path b's approvers act quote flips back to approved the audit trail shows path a's approvals previously approved (original date/approver preserved) path b's approvals approved (new date/approver) full timeline reconstructible from the appro approval c records pitfalls and how to avoid them activating a new process version while records are recalled note preview evaluates the current record state if the record changes (e g , discount is edited), re open the preview to get fresh data earlier package versions required a preview before submit; recent versions decouple the two — verify on your installed version ( setup → installed packages ) before relying on either behavior before activating, run a report "approval requests where status = 'recalled' " wait for it to drain resubmitting a record that no longer matches any path if a record's changes make it no longer match any active path's entry criteria, the resubmission fails either add a catch all path, or handle with a flow that auto approves when no path matches validate field changes checkbox not visible on older versions, the validate field changes checkbox must be added to the condition page layout before it appears in the condition editor setup → object manager → condition → page layouts approvers acting on dependent paths before prerequisites complete when a dependent path has approvers attached, those approvers may receive notifications before the prerequisite path fully completes advise them to wait for the "your turn" notification — or gate notifications with a flow related best practices → smart approvals docid\ h8xc9gykfudb7auncqlpu — the full rulebook best practices → recall and resubmit docid\ h8xc9gykfudb7auncqlpu — edge case catalog automation patterns → auto recall docid\ tq b8u71vneelfvoomtix — trigger recall from a flow configuring approval processes docid\ kcmpddjgungd5jvuo8ngj — where allow resubmit and remember approval decision live