What if there is more than one holder in a job or position?
Multiple holders in the same job or position can only occur if Oracle Human Resources is installed. If only Oracle Purchasing is installed, you can assign only one employee to each job or position. If multiple holders exist when using position approval hierarchies, Oracle Workflow will route the document to the holder based on alphabetical order. You can see who the system will route the document to by clicking the Forward radio button, overriding the defaulted name if needed.
What if there are changes to the position approval hierarchy?
Personnel changes are updated in the position approval hierarchy by running the Fill Employee Hierarchy process which reviews the employee record to determine the current position assignment. You will probably want to schedule this process to run on a frequent basis to ensure smooth processing of all approval requests. Structural changes to the position approval hierarchy require the hierarchy to be rebuilt from the point where the change occurs to the bottom of that branch. Documents are routed according to the hierarchy in effect at the time they are submitted for approval.
What if Human Resources were already implemented with jobs set up, but no positions?
Unless the decision to set up jobs only and no positions can be revisited, you will have to route all documents by the employee/supervisor relationship and maintain this data on the employee records.
What if the approver is unavailable for an extended period?
Oracle Purchasing has the ability to automatically forward documents when users do not respond to notifications. This tool should be used when possible to prevent documents from holding up business productivity. Oracle Workflow manages this functionality, typically set up to send a first and second reminder after pre-determined time periods before forwarding the notification to the next approver.
What if the document has a status of Pre-Approved?
The status of Pre-Approved is the outcome of a person forwarding a document for approval even though the forwarding person has the necessary authority to approve it. The document may have been forwarded by mistake or for business reasons. Once the person it was forwarded to approves the document, the status will be changed to Approved and subsequent actions such as receiving and invoicing can be completed.
What if there is no account range on an approval group assigned to a job or position?
By default, all accounts are excluded from an approval group and therefore documents governed by this approval group cannot be approved. You avoid this situation by ensuring that there is at least one Account Range Include rule on every Approval Group.
What if Workflow can’t find a supervisor to approve the document?
If this occurs, the person submitting the request for approval must forward the document to a different person in the list of values for Forward To. If this isn’t done, the document will be returned to an Incomplete status and a notification will be sent stating No Approver Found – Please Select a Forward To Employee. If using employee/supervisor relationship to determine approval paths, the list of values will include all active employees. If using position approval hierarchies to determine approval paths, the list of values will include all employees in the hierarchy selected.
What if a job or position has different authority levels for different document types?
You may have jobs or positions that can approve one document up to a specified dollar amount, while they can approve another document at a lower dollar amount. If this occurs, simply set up multiple approval groups with the rules properly defined for the differences and ensure that the right approval group is assigned to the correct document type.
What if documents flow employee/supervisor, but approval rules are needed?
Approval Groups can be used whether approval paths are determined by employee/supervisor relationships or by position approval hierarchies.
