Which element is generally NOT a part of an approval process?

An approval process in Salesforce is designed to automate the workflow required to get approvals on records like opportunities or documents. This process consists of various elements such as steps, actions, and submissions that guide a record through the approval workflow.

Steps are the actual stages in the approval process, where the record either moves forward for approval or may get rejected based on decisions made by approvers. Actions refer to what happens at each step in the process, such as sending email notifications or updating fields on the record. Submissions refer to the initiation of the process, where a user submits a record for approval.

While criteria are important in defining conditions to fulfill certain aspects of the process, they are not a formal element of the approval process itself. Instead, criteria can be part of the decision-making within steps, where an approver assesses if the record meets certain conditions. Therefore, criteria do not constitute a standalone part of the approval process like the other elements do, making it the element that is generally not included as a formal part of the approval process structure.