Workflow Tab of Approvals Configuration Form
Use this tab to enter approval steps and alerts for an approval workflow.
Contents
Enter a step in the Approval Steps grid. Then enter the action for that step in the Step Actions grid. The Step Actions grid displays the step actions for the approval step that you selected in the upper Approval Steps grid.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Edit Workflow | This button displays only if you are the approval administrator for a workflow (as specified on the General tab in Approval Workflows Configuration) and you open a previously created approval workflow that now has in-progress approvals. Text to the right of the button identifies the number of approvals that are currently in progress.
Click this button to get full access to the Approval Steps grid to edit existing steps or add or delete steps. When you save edits to a workflow, all in-progress approvals will be restarted (set back to step 1). You should consider performing edits to workflows with a large number of in-progress approvals after normal business hours because restarting the in-progress approvals could take more time to process. |
Approval Steps Grid
Use this grid to enter one or more steps for an approval workflow. For each step, you assign the employees who can review and approve a record going through the approval process.
The steps in the grid display automatically in step order.
When there are in-progress approvals for a workflow, only the approval administrator (as specified on the General tab in Approval Workflows Configuration) can get full access to this grid by clicking the Edit Workflow button at the top of the tab.
Approval Steps Grid Toolbar
The options on the toolbar are not enabled when there are in-progress approvals for a workflow. To enable them, you must be the approval administrator for the workflow (as specified on the General tab in Approval Workflows Configuration), and you must click the Edit Workflow button at the top of the tab.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Approval Steps Drop-Down |
Click the drop-down arrow on a grid header to complete any of the following actions:
Not all options are available on all grids. |
Insert
|
Click this option to insert a new row in the grid, and enter a new approval step for the approval workflow.
After you insert one row, the next time that you click Insert, you can click either Insert New Row Above or Insert New Row Below on the shortcut menu to place the new row above or below the row that you selected before you clicked Insert. |
Copy
|
Select a row in the grid that you want to copy to create a new approval step. Then click Copy. The information from the selected row is copied to a new row below it. Edit the new row as needed. When you copy an approval step, all the step actions for the step are also copied in the Step Actions grid. |
Move Up
|
To change the order of an approval step in the workflow process, select a step in the grid, and click this button to move the step up one row. |
Move Down
|
To change the order of an approval step in the workflow process, select a step in the grid, and click this button to move the step down one row. |
Delete
|
Select an approval step to remove from the workflow and then click this option. This deletes the approval action from the grid and deletes the step actions that are entered for it in the Step Actions grid. |
Approval Steps Grid Fields
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Step | When you insert a step into this grid, this field prefills with the next sequential number. It specifies the order in which the step is performed in the workflow. The steps in the grid display automatically in step order. Use the
Move Up and
Move Down options to change the order of steps.
|
| Description | Enter a short name or description for the approval step that helps identify the step. |
| Conditions | Conditions are optional for an approval step. Click in this field, and then click
to open the Conditions dialog box and define conditions under which a step occurs.
For example, you might want to create a condition that says if the total amount of a purchase requisition is greater than $10,000, then the requisition will be routed to the organization administrator for approval. You can create a condition based on fields that are related to the record being approved. For example, for Purchasing records, this would include fields from a purchase requisition record, purchase order record, and so on, fields from the cost distribution project that is associated with a Purchasing record being approved, and the purchasing item categories of the purchasing item. During the approval process, conditions are evaluated at the beginning of the step. If the condition is not met, the next action that occurs is based on the action that you select in the Action if Conditions Not Met field in this grid. The Conditions field displays <Conditions Defined> when a condition is created for an approval step. |
| Action if Conditions Not Met | If you entered a condition for the approval step, select one of the actions from the drop-down list in this field to determine what to do when the condition is not met. Conditions are evaluated at the beginning of the step.
The possible actions are:
|
| Workflow State | Select one of the options from the drop-down list to determine the actions that an approver can take for this step.
For approval workflows for absence requests and AP invoices, this field prefills with In Approval, which you cannot change.
|
| Assigned To (for applications other than AP Invoice Approvals) | The grid contains an
Assigned To column that functions differently based on the approval workflow's application (entered on the General tab). The following
Assigned To description applies if an approval workflow's application is
not AP Invoice Approvals. See also the
Assigned To (for AP Invoice Approvals) field description below.
Click in this field and then click
You can select employee roles in addition to, or instead of, selecting employees by name in the Specific Employees field in this grid. You must select at least one role or one specific employee to take action for a step. You select roles and/or specific employees who can take action for this step in the approval process in the Assigned To and/or Specific Employees field. You specify who must complete the step in the Who Must Complete field in the Approval Step grid. Possible roles that you can select in the
Assigned To field on the Field Selection dialog box are:
Approval Workflows for Purchasing Applications and Project-Related Roles To determine the employee to assign for roles that are related to a project, such as the project manager or project supervisor,
Vantagepoint looks for the project in the following places in the order listed:
Approval workflow failures can occur when an employee has not been entered for a role that is assigned to an approval step. For example, if you select Project Manager in the Assigned To field, and a record going through the approval process has no employee entered in the Project Manager field in the Projects hub, a workflow failure occurs. In this situation, the approval would be sent to the employee who is specified as the approval administrator entered in the Approval Administrator field on the General tab on the Approvals Configuration form. |
| Specific Employees | This column does not display when you are creating an approval workflow for AP Invoice Approvals.
Click in this field, and then click
You select roles and/or specific employees who can take action for this step in the approval process in the Specific Employees and/or Assigned To fields. You also choose who must complete the step in the Who Must Complete field in this grid. |
| Assigned To (for AP Invoice Approvals) | The grid contains an
Assigned To column that functions differently based on the approval workflow's application (entered on the General tab). The following
Assigned To description applies if an approval workflow's application is AP Invoice Approvals. See also the
Assigned To (for applications other than AP Invoice Approvals) description above.
Click the
|
| Who Must Complete | Use the drop-down list in this field to select which roles and/or employees that you selected in the Assigned To and/or
Specific Employees fields are required to complete the action for this approval step. You select roles and/or specific employees who
can take action for this step in the approval process in the
Assigned To and/or
Specific Employees fields. You choose who
must complete the step in the
Who Must Complete field in this grid.
Options in the
Who Must Complete drop-down list are:
|
| Days Allotted | Enter the number of days in which an assigned approver must complete and approve this step. The day count begins when a purchasing or inventory item is submitted. If the approver does not take action on the step within the allotted number of days, any applicable reminder or escalation alerts that you add for a step will be sent. |
| Review Action | This field does
not apply for approval workflows for absence requests. This field applies only if you selected
In Review in the
Workflow State field.
In Review allows approvers to edit the record for approval, as well as approve, reject, or reassign it as applicable.
The option that you select in the Review Action field determines what happens after an approver edits a record that is undergoing approval. Options are:
After an approver edits a record for this approval step, the Approvals option on the toolbar of the application form no longer displays the Approve, Reject, and Reassign options on the submenu. Instead, only a Review option displays. When an approver clicks the Review option, Vantagepoint follows the review action that was specified for the approval workflow step (either approve the step or restart the approval process). |
| Reject Action | This setting determines what happens when a reviewer rejects a record that is going through the approval process.
Options are:
|
| Assignment Type | This field is enabled when the Application option is set to Employee Expenses or Timesheets on the General tab. This field displays which application is used for the approval step. |
Step Actions Grid
Use this grid to enter actions to be taken and alerts to be sent to the appropriate employees for the approval step that you currently have selected in the Approval Steps grid. You can create different types of alerts, including alerts to notify approvers that a record is ready for them to approve, alerts to remind approvers when an approval due date is near, alerts to inform appropriate employees that a record has been approved, and so on. You can create actions for an AP invoice approval step, such as sending warning messages when required information is not entered.
Step Actions Grid Toolbar
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Step Actions Drop-Down |
Click the drop-down arrow on a grid header to complete any of the following actions:
Not all options are available on all grids. |
Insert
|
Click this option and on the shortcut menu select the type of action (such as notification alerts or error messages) to add to the approval step.
For the notification actions, a dialog box opens, and you select the method of sending the alert :email and/or notification :and any other settings that are specific to the alert. All of the alerts except the supervisor escalation alert are sent to the currently assigned approver role by default. You can change or add roles and other employees to the alerts when you configure email and notification alerts by clicking the Email and Notification links in the Edit Content field in the grid. For error message actions, the Validate Error Conditions dialog box opens, and you enter conditions under which the error message will display. The actions are:
|
Copy
|
Select a row in the grid that you want to copy to create a new step action. Then click Copy. The information from the selected row is copied to a new row below it. Edit the new row as needed. |
Move Up
|
To change the order of an action for an approval step, select the action in the grid, and click this button to move the action up one row. The order of the alerts in the grid does not affect their processing. |
Move Down
|
To change the order of an action for an approval step, select the action in the grid, and click this button to move the action down one row. The order of the alerts in the grid does not affect their processing. |
Delete
|
To remove an action from an approval step, select the approval step in the grid and then click this option. This deletes the action from the grid. |
Step Actions Grid Fields
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Step Action | This field displays the type of action that you selected when you clicked
Insert on the grid toolbar:
Notification,
Reminder,
Supervisor Escalation - After Step Due Date,
Supervisor Escalation - After Step Start Date,
Validate Error at Start,
Validate Error at Step End,
Review,
Rejection,
Past Due Approval,
Requester - When Step Starts,
Requester When Step Ends,
Submitter - When Step Starts,
Submitter - When Step Ends, and
Complete.
|
| Description | For notification alert actions, this field displays the
Vantagepoint-assigned description for the alert that is based on the action type that you selected when you clicked
Insert on the grid toolbar.
If the step action type that you selected is Validate Error or Validate Error at Start, enter the text for the error message in the Description field. For example, enter a description such as "You must enter a PO amount greater than $50 before the approval process can start." Or, enter "You must enter an invoice number." |
| Edit Content | This field prefills after you insert a step action in the grid, and you choose the method of notification for the alert on the alert dialog box.
When you enter an alert step action, this field can contain either an Email or Notification hyperlink. Click the hyperlink to open the Email Configuration dialog box or the Notification Configuration dialog box, and enter configuration settings for the notification. You specify who to send the alert to, the subject of the alert, and the specific message to include in the alert. When you enter the Validate Error or the Validate Error at Start step action, this field contains a Conditions hyperlink that opens the Validate Error Conditions dialog box. Enter and modify the conditions in this dialog box. |
| Active | By default, this check box is selected and the alert will be sent for the approval step. Clear the check box if you no longer want the alert to be sent for the approval step. You can do this as an alternative to deleting the step completely from the grid, if you think you might want to use it again. |
| Language | Click in this field and then click
to open the Languages dialog box and select the language for the alert.
|
Insert
Copy
Move Up
Move Down
Delete
to open the Conditions dialog box and define conditions under which a step occurs.
to select the role of the employees who can take action (approve, reject, and so on) for this approval step. This opens the Field Selection dialog box, on which you can select one or more roles. The list of roles may differ based on the application that you selected for the approval workflow in the