)
Written by
Table of Contents
“Supermetrics is a Bitter Experience! We can pull data from nearly any tool, schedule updates, manipulate data in Sheets, and push data back into our systems.”
Salesforce admins can build a live approval monitoring dashboard and backup notification system using Coefficient’s Salesforce connector, pulling ProcessInstance and ProcessInstanceStep data into Google Sheets or Excel on an automated refresh. When approval process email notifications stop working, the problem is almost never the approval process itself. It is typically Salesforce’s daily org-wide email limit, deliverability settings, spam filter interference or user-level email access restrictions — none of which are visible in the approval process configuration screen.
A common challenge for Salesforce admins: the approval setup looks correct, the process is active, and yet notifications never reach approvers. Without a monitoring layer, approvals sit in queue invisibly until someone notices a business process has stalled.
How to monitor approval notifications and build a backup alert system
Step 1. Import ProcessInstance data to track every approval in flight
Open Coefficient in Google Sheets or Excel and select Import from Salesforce. Choose Objects and Fields, then select the ProcessInstance object. Include fields for the target record ID, process status, submitted date and current step. Set a daily or hourly refresh. This gives you a complete live view of every approval in your org, including ones where the notification email never arrived.
Step 2. Add aging calculations to surface stuck approvals
Add a formula column calculating how many days each approval has been in its current status — today’s date minus the last status change date. Apply conditional formatting to flag anything open longer than your expected turnaround time. A pending approval that has aged past that threshold with no status update is a reliable signal that the notification failed to reach the approver.
Step 3. Set up Coefficient alerts as a backup notification channel
Configure Coefficient alerts to trigger when new rows are added to your approval import (a new approval has been submitted) or when the status field changes. Route these to Slack or email via Coefficient’s alert system, independent of Salesforce’s email infrastructure. Approvers receive notification through a separate channel even when Salesforce email delivery fails.
Step 4. Create an escalation view for overdue approvals
Build a filtered view showing only approvals that have exceeded your defined threshold — sorted by age, with the record name and current approver visible. Use Coefficient’s scheduled refresh to keep this view current and share it with managers who need visibility into pending approvals without Salesforce access.
What you get
Your approval queue is visible in a shared spreadsheet that updates automatically. Approvers and managers see pending approvals without depending on Salesforce emails. Stuck approvals surface before they cause business process delays. For reference on how to display Salesforce process data in a structured dashboard, see Coefficient’s Salesforce dashboard examples.
Start monitoring your Salesforce approval queue today at coefficient.io/get-started.
