Replacing an Approval step with an email alert

Question

I have an existing five-step approval process on a Quote object, where the first step is Manager approval for various discounting or exception scenarios. I want to remove this first approval step (and keep the rest), but send an email alert to the user's manager any time a record would have previously entered the Manager Approval step.

Is there any way to have only qualifying records enter the approval step, but always automatically be approved and trigger the step's approval actions?

Or, alternatively, is there a way to set up a separate workflow rule to fire when a qualifying record is submitted for any approval process?

Answer 1

I just found the answer to my own question...

The approval process has an Initial Submission Action that changes the Quote Status to "In Review". I just have to make this action trigger a subsequent workflow rule that looks for that change, as well as checking whether the record should require manager approval under the old version of the process.