The approval process for Purchasing and Inventory applications is based on an approval workflow that you set up and configure specifically for each application.
For the Purchasing applications, you choose whether or not purchase requisitions, request for price quotes, and purchase orders (including change orders and release orders) must go through an approval process that uses approval workflows.
For the Inventory item requests, you must use an approval workflow for processing item requests.
Approval workflows identify the steps in the approval process, the approvers assigned to each step, and the notification alerts to send for each step to keep the approval process on schedule.
Configuration
You create and configure approval workflows for each application in
. You can create simple or complex, multitiered, conditional steps for approval workflows.
If you use organizations in Vision, you can specify approver roles at the organization level in
.
In
, you turn on approvals for each Purchasing application and specify the approval workflow it will use. You also specify an approval workflow for inventory item requests.
Approving a Record
In the Purchasing and Inventory applications, when you click the
Submit option on the toolbar of a Purchasing or Inventory entry form, the approval process is started using step 1 of the assigned approval workflow. The toolbar on the Purchasing and Inventory forms have an
Approvals option with a drop-down list with options for approving, rejecting, reviewing, and so on. The toolbar displays if you are an approver for a record, for the current step of the approval workflow.
Assigning a Delegate to Perform Your Approval Assignments in Your Absence
If you normally approve purchase requisitions, request for price quotes, purchase orders, change orders, request orders, or inventory item requests, you can temporarily assign another person as a delegate to perform approval duties in your absence. You assign delegates on the General tab of User Options.
Viewing the Progress of Records Being Approved
You can see the progress of a record going through the approval process in several places on the Purchasing and Inventory entry forms — on the record lookup (in the
Search field), in the
State and
Step fields on the General tab, and on the Progress tab. These places show you whether the approval process has started, the record is in approval or in review, and the approval is completed. You can see the current approval step that the record is in and more details (on the Progress tab).
Troubleshooting Approval Workflows
All the approval workflows that you enter and save in Approvals Configuration are copied automatically to User Initiated Workflows Configuration and Scheduled Workflows Configuration. Here you can see all of the details on how an approval workflow progresses from step to step while it is in the approval process. This is helpful to administrators for troubleshooting any issues with a workflow.
If You Do Not Use an Approval Workflow for a Purchasing Application
If you do not use an approval workflow for a Purchasing application: When you create a record in the application and click the
Submit button on the toolbar of a Purchasing form, the record is automatically approved.