Manage Approvals like Never Before: More Control and Flexibility in your Approval Processes

Manage Approvals like Never Before: More Control and Flexibility in your Approval Processes

Hello Everyone,

We hope you are doing well!

We are here with exciting enhancements to the approval process of Zoho CRM. The updates provide greater flexibility, transparency, and control over record approvals, empowering you to ensure the right data enters your CRM system.

Here's what's new :
  • Editable Records in Approval : You can now edit records that are pending approval, ensuring their accuracy and up-to-date information before finalizing. Furthermore, you can choose Process Admins to approve records now, adding an extra layer of oversight.

  • Role or Group Approval Flexibility : Selecting roles or groups to approve records now provides the option to grant approval from any user in a group or from all users in the group. When set to Anyone, any user from the group can approve records, and when set to Everyone, approval will be required from every user in the group.

  • Hierarchical Approval Options : When the "Reporting To" hierarchy is selected for your organization, you can now specify whether Anyone or Everyone at higher levels can approve records if the user does not have a reporting manager in your approval processes. This flexible setting lets you align approval flows more precisely with your organization’s hierarchy.
Let's take a look at each of these enhancements in more detail.

Edit records waiting for approval and grant process admins privileges to approve records

Previously, you could not edit any records that's been submitted for approval in the approval process.

Now, you can edit the records that are waiting for approval. This ensures data accuracy can be maintained during the approval process. Updating key details, correcting errors, or adding new information – this enhancement enables you to keep records current before final approval, ensuring the final record reflects the most accurate and up-to-date data. This feature enables teams to work more smoothly, reducing issues caused by locked records. This helps ensure quality and completeness without restarting the approval process.

You can also assign process admins to oversee and approve records in your approval processes, providing a higher level of oversight and control. This capability is especially beneficial for larger teams or complex processes, reducing dependency on specific individuals and enhancing team flexibility, ensuring that approvals are not delayed due to limited access. These process admins can also edit records that are waiting for approval if needed.

If process admin settings are not configured, then any user with the Administrator profile will be able to take over records submitted for approval; however, if process admin settings are configured, only those users selected as process admins can take over a record submitted for approval.

Role or group approval flexibility

You can choose users of different roles or from groups from your organization to approve records in an approval process. Previously, if you select users from Roles or Groups to approve records, then ANYONE can approve the record and it is moved to the next stage.

Now, however, we have introduced an additional option where EVERYONE in the group or with the same role can approve records when the need arises.

For example, in the Zylker Tech organization, there is one CEO, five managers, and 10 executives. Additionally, there is a group of users from various roles. When selecting roles and groups to approve records, and you set the overall approval method as Everyone, you have two options:
  • Choose Anyone from your organization to approve records and move them to the next stage, such as adding new leads from a specific website would require any user's approval.
  • Choose Everyone from a group or with the same role in your organization to approve records, ensuring the entire team's approval is required for the record to move to the next stage, such as a quality check.

Configuring the approval process so that everyone in a group or role must approve a record before it progresses to the next stage helps ensure quality, compliance, and accountability.

Align your records approvals to your organization's hierarchy

You can choose to have either role hierarchy or reporting hierarchy for your organization from Company Settings in your Setup menu. This choice will also have an effect on your approval processes. This means, all existing and new approval processes will adhere to the selected organization's hierarchy.

When your organization follows the 'Reporting' hierarchy, the approval process will also follow the same hierarchy. This means, when you select levels to approve records, the system will choose users from the reporting hierarchy to approve the records.

For example, if your organization has two levels of reporting, and you choose 1st Level, then the user's immediate reporting manager or CEO and Administrators will have to approve the records. However, if you choose the 2nd Level, the user's immediate reporting manager's manager will have to approve the records.

In case you have two or more levels for approvals and you set the overall approval method as Everyone, then for users who do not have a reporting manager, you can choose to select Anyone or Everyone higher up in the hierarchy to approve records or select Anyone or Everyone from the CEO and Administrators to approve records.

Similarly, when your organization follows the 'Role' hierarchy, the approval process will also follow the same hierarchy. This means, when you select levels to approve records, the system will choose users from the role hierarchy to approve the records.

That's it for today, folks! We hope these enhancements provide you with greater control and transparency in managing approvals, simplifying the maintenance of accuracy and accountability across your CRM workflows.

Explore these new features today, and elevate your approval processes to new heights. Read more on how to add approval processes to your workflows from here.

Please feel free to comment below your queries, and we will get back to you at the earliest.

Info
Availability : This enhancement is available for all users in all DCs.






        • Recent Topics

        • Does Zoho Docs have a Line Number function ?

          Hi, when collaborating with coding tasks, I need an online real time share document that shows line numbers. Does Zoho's docs offer this feature ? If yes, how can I show them ? Regards, Frank

        • Setting Default Views for Custom, List and Detail Views

          Hey, Is it possible to set a default custom view, list view and detail view for a module for every user? We are onboarding a lot of non technical people that struggle with these things. Setting the views as default would really help. Btw: also setting

        • Custom function return type

          Hi, How do I create a custom deluge function in Zoho CRM that returns a string? e.g. Setup->Workflow->Custom Functions->Configure->Write own During create or edit of the function I don't see a way to change the default 'void' to anything else. Adding

        • Filter Based API request in Zoho Books using POSTMAN

          How do I GET only specified CONTACTS based on created time or modified time in Zoho Books using POSTMAN. In the api documentation, it is written we can apply filters but I need a sample request.

        • URL validation

          We use an internal intranet site which has a short DNS name which Zoho CRM will not accept.   When attempting to update the field it says "Please enter a valid URL". The URL I am trying to set is http://intranet/pm/ Our intranet is not currently setup with a full DNS name and given the amount of links using the shortname probably isn't a feasible change for us.

        • Has anyone been experiencing slow issues?

          Dear all, I just want to ask if anyone has been experiencing slow issues with Zoho Creator in the past two weeks? I worked with the ISP to improve network quality by changing routes and upgrading bandwidth, but nothing changed. I am in Vietnam.

        • Zoho Projects Roadshows 2025 - USA

          Dear Users, After an amazing response to our roadshows in 2024, we are excited to be back for the second year in a row! Join our team of experts as they walk you through the most-used features in Zoho Projects, explore powerful automation capabilities,

        • Billing Management: #6 Usage Billing in SaaS

          Imagine a customer shuffling across multiple subscriptions, a streaming service, a music app, cloud storage, and a design tool. Each one charges a flat monthly fee, regardless of how much or how little they use. Some months, the customer barely opens

        • Is there anyone who has been experiencing issues regarding the Zoho Creator Certification Website in the past 2 weeks?

          Dear all , I just wanted to ask is there anyone who was planning on taking the Zoho Creator Developer Certification Test in the past 2 weeks and have been facing errors stating that the website is under maintennance and also not allowed to access the

        • Directly Edit, Filter, and Sort Subforms on the Details Page

          Hello everyone, As you know, subforms allow you to associate multiple line items with a single record, greatly enhancing your data organization. For example, a sales order subform neatly lists all products, their quantities, amounts, and other relevant

        • GST Slabs Redefined: Stay Compliant Using Zoho Books!

          Hello Everyone! The Government of India is rolling out new GST rates, a major reform aimed at simplifying the current tax structure starting 22 September 2025. GST will move from four slabs (5%, 12%, 18%, 28%) to two main slabs (5% and 18%), plus a special

        • Allow syncing Activities from other applications

          Marketing Automation could be a much more powerful platform if you were able to sync activities into the platform (e.g. purchase, donation, etc) outside of a user doing something on your website. I'd love it if you could sync Custom CRM Modules as activities,

        • Create static subforms in Zoho CRM: streamline data entry with pre-defined values

          Last modified on (9 July, 2025): This feature was available in early access and is currently being rolled out to customers in phases. Currently available for users in the the AU, CA, and SA DCs. It will be enabled for the remaining DCs in the next couple

        • Global Sets for Multi-Select pick lists

          When is this feature coming to Zoho CRM? It would be very useful now we have got used to having it for the normal pick lists.

        • Introducing Profile Summary: Faster Candidate Insights with Zia

          We’re excited to launch Profile Summary, a powerful new feature in Zoho Recruit that transforms how you review candidate profiles. What used to take minutes of resume scanning can now be assessed in seconds—thanks to Zia. A Quick Example Say you’re hiring

        • Integración Books para cumplir la ley Crea y Crece y Ley Antifraude (VeriFactu)

          Hola: En principio, en julio de 2025, entra en vigor la ley Crea y Crece y Ley Antifraude (VeriFactu). ¿Sabéis si Zoho va a cumplir con la ley para cumplir con la facturación electrónica conectada a Hacienda? Gracias

        • Ask the Experts #1

          Hello everyone! It’s time to transform how you manage projects. Define the processes. Automate the tasks. Streamline the workflows. Let us dive into automation in Zoho Projects — from configuring workflows and custom functions to building triggers, using

        • Option to Customize Career Site URL Without “/jobs/Careers”

          Dear Zoho Recruit Team, I hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the Career Site URL structure in Zoho Recruit. In the old version of the career site, our URL was simply: 👉 https://jobs.domain.com However, after moving to

        • How to overcome Zoho Deluge's time limit?

          I have built a function according to the following scheme: pages = {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10}; for each page in pages { entriesPerPage = zoho.crm.getRecords("Accounts",page,200); for each entry in entriesPerPage { … } } Unfortunately, we have too many entries

        • Zoho Sheet - Printing - Page Breaks and Printing Customization

          I think the title is descriptive enough in that I cannot find help documentation on a simple task of adding in page brakes for separating pages on print. Thanks

        • Checking if Creator has Change History

          Like zForms - whenever an entry was updated there's an option to attached change history to email notif. Trigger -> Successful form submission

        • Zoho sites header

          Good day, Im stuck with this situation. I choose a template for my website creation. I have tweaked every instance of the visual editor, regarding the header, I have created created customize fonts presets... I have followed every single step. and my

        • Your bot just got smarter: AI-Powered routing that reads between the lines

          What if your bot could tell the difference? Between a visitor who just needs a quick answer, someone actively comparing options, and a frustrated customer one click away from leaving? Most bots can't. They deliver the same response to everyone, missing

        • Kaizen #152 - Client Script Support for the new Canvas Record Forms

          Hello everyone! Have you ever wanted to trigger actions on click of a canvas button, icon, or text mandatory forms in Create/Edit and Clone Pages? Have you ever wanted to control how elements behave on the new Canvas Record Forms? This can be achieved

        • Unable to create embed code for resource of workdrive using API

          Hello Team, I am trying to create embed code for a resource using workdrive api in powershell, however facing some issues with injecting data in body. Followed Doc: https://workdrive.zoho.com/apidocs/v1/filefoldersharing/shareeveryone Please help, below

        • how to use validation rules in subform

          Is it possible to use validation rules for subforms? I tried the following code: entityMap = crmAPIRequest.toMap().get("record"); sum = 0; direct_billing = entityMap.get("direct_billing_details"); response = Map(); for each i in direct_billing { if(i.get("type")

        • Adding contact role to a specific deal js sdk malfunctioning

          i was trying to add the contact role to a specific deal contact but repeatedly i am getting this error: { "code": "SUCCESS", "details": { "statusMessage": { "code": "INVALID_DATA", "details": { "expected_data_type": "jsonobject" }, "message": "body",

        • Q3 Updates from Bigin!

          Hey Biginners, Hope you’re doing great! As we approach the end of 2025, we truly hope Bigin has been a part of helping you build your dream business this year! We've been busy working behind the scenes to bring you features that make running your business

        • New Series Announcement - Ecommerce Marketing Tips

          Running an online business is more than just having a website. It’s about getting the right customers to discover you, trust you, and keep coming back. To support your growth journey, we’re launching a weekly Marketing Tips series right here on Zoho Commerce

        • Client Script | Update - Introducing Subform Events and Actions

          Are you making the most of your subforms in Zoho CRM? Do you wish you could automate subform interactions and enhance user experience effortlessly? What if you had Client APIs and events specifically designed for subforms? We are thrilled to introduce

        • {"errors":[{"id":"500","title":"Servlet execution threw an exception"}]}

          Here's the call to move a file to trash. The resource_id is accurate and the file is present. header = Map(); header.put("Accept","application/vnd.api+json"); data = Map(); data_param1 = Map(); att_param1 = Map(); att_param1.put("status",51); data_param1.put("attributes",att_param1);

        • Converting Sales Order to Invoice via API; Problem with decimal places tax

          We are having problems converting a Sales Order to an Invoice via API Call. The cause of the issue is, that the Tax value in a Sales Order is sometimes calculated with up to 16 decimal places (e.g. 0.8730000000000001). The max decimal places allowed in

        • Zoho Canvas - Custom templates for related lists

          Hi, I see that the example pages load always one of our related lists in a custom template, but I dont know how to work with that:  1) How can i make my own custom templates for related lists?  2) Where and how can i check out existing custom templates?

        • Kaizen #147 - Frequently Asked Questions on Zoho CRM Widgets

          Heya! It's Kaizen time again, folks! This week, we aim to address common queries about Zoho CRM Widgets through frequently asked questions from our developer forum. Take a quick glance at these FAQs and learn from your peers' inquiries. 1. Where can I

        • open word file in zoho writer desktop version

          "How can I open a Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) file in Zoho Writer if I only have the file saved on my computer and Zoho Writer doesn't appear as an option when I try 'Open with'? Is there a way to directly open the .doc file in Zoho Writer?"

        • How to invite friends on other social media platforms to one of my group chats in arattai?

          Hello, I have formed chat groups in arattai. I want to invite my friends on other social media platforms like WhatsApp/ FB to one of my groups. Different friends would be invited to different groups. How to share an invite link of one of my groups to

        • Zoho PDF editor has a lot of issues.

          Zoho PDF editor needs a lot of work. It hangs and glitches a lot. Deletes annotations and clearings randomly.

        • Zohom mail

          Plz resolve the problem . I hope u understand .

        • Zoho Sheet for Desktop

          Does Zoho plans to develop a Desktop version of Sheet that installs on the computer like was done with Writer?

        • Workdrive on Android - Gallery Photo Backups

          Hello, Is there any way of backing up the photos on my android phone directly to a specific folder on Workdrive? Assuming i have the workdrive app installed on the phone in question. Emma

        • Next Page