Approving a Purchasing Record

Designated approvers must approve a Purchasing record if you use an approval workflow for approving Purchasing records.

You set up approvers for each step of an approval workflow in the Approval Steps grid on the Workflow tab in Configuration > Workflow > Approval Workflows.

In the Purchasing applications—Purchase Requisitions, Request for Price Quote, and Purchase Orders—after you create and save a record, you click Submit on the toolbar of a Purchasing form. Any user with access to a Purchasing application can create and submit a Purchasing record. Submitting the record starts the approval process using the assigned approval workflow. After a Purchasing record is submitted, it can be edited only by approvers of a step who have also been given the rights review and edit the record (in Approval Workflows Configuration).

After you click Submit, the toolbar on the Purchasing entry form displays an Approvals option if you are a designated approver for the current step of the approval process for a record.

The Approvals option contains a drop-down menu with the following possible actions that approvers can take:
  • Approve — Select this option to approve a Purchasing record. After you take this action, the approval process continues on to the next step based on the configured approval workflow.
  • Reject — Select this option to reject a Purchasing record. Based on the configured approval workflow for the Purchasing application, the record could be sent back to the employee who submitted the record, or the record could be canceled.
  • Review — This option applies if an approval workflow step has been configured to allow you to edit a Purchasing record during the approval process. After you edit a Purchasing record, the Review option replaces the Approve and Reject options in the Approvals drop-down menu. Select Review after you make edits. Based on the configured approval workflow for the Purchasing application, the Purchasing record is sent to the next approval step or is sent back to the first approval step to restart the approval process.
  • Reassign — This option is available if the approval workflow for a Purchasing application allows approvers to reassign the approval step (the Allow Approvers to Reassign check box is selected on the General tab in Configuration > Workflow > Approval Workflows for the approval workflow). The option is also available if you are the approval administrator for the approval workflow. Select this option to assign an additional employee to the current approval step for the purchase requisition or move the approval assignment from one employee to another.
  • Do Required Action — This option is available only in the List View. Select this option to send one or more records to the next step based on the configured approval workflow.