Currently, the ability to mass approve or reject records from the “Items to Approve” list view is not available in Salesforce Lightning Experience. While this functionality exists in Classic, some organizations may already have disabled the option for users to switch back to Salesforce Classic. This limitation can be frustrating for managers and approvers who need to process multiple approval requests efficiently. In this post, we will explore a few alternatives and workarounds in Lightning that can help replicate the mass approval or rejection process, enabling faster decision-making and reducing the manual effort required in Lightning.
1. Switch to Classic for Mass Approval
One option is to switch back to Salesforce Classic, where the approval list view still supports mass actions with checkboxes for selecting multiple pending approval items at once. This allows managers to approve or reject several requests in a single click. However, relying on Classic is far from ideal, especially if your org has already disabled Classic for most users or is trying to maintain a consistent Lightning-only experience. It’s a workaround that technically works, but it’s not elegant, scalable, or user-friendly, and definitely not the best long-term solution if you don’t have development resources.
2. Third-Part Apps
Enhanced Approval Requests on Appexchange
Enhanced Approval Requests Free is a free solution from Appexchange, this app provides Lightning tab and home/app page components to approve, reject, or reassign multiple Flow and/or Classic approval requests. Users can elect up to 50 approval requests, optionally provide any comments.
Items to Approve
A simple component Items to Approve from UnofficalSF, this component can be placed on record pages to provide a list of records that are pending for approval:
There are some limits of this component:
- This component lacks support for Approval Processes that contain steps that allow the user to specify the next approver themselves.
- Reassignment does not provide any support for filtering. Right now you can select any user.
- If the step is the first step, the Recent Approver column inaccurately shows the name of the submitter.
