Oracle Purchasing Hierarchies used for Approval routing.

There are two types of Hierarchies used for approval routing.

a. Position Hierarchies

b. Supervisor Hierarchies

Position Hierarchies

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Position Hierarchies are hierarchies that have a JOB/POSITION relationship.

For example, you could have a JOB called BUYER and within BUYER you could have various grades or POSITIONS of BUYER – Junior, Senior and Chief

Each POSITION has an approval limit, so when a purchase order exceeds the limits of the POSITION, the purchase order is forwarded onto the next POSITION in the Hierarchy.

The hierarchy for this JOB/POSITION type of hierarchy is defined on the Position Hierarchy form. When this is complete or is changed, the Fill Employee Hierarchy concurrent process must be run for the new hierarchy to come into effect.

The Position Hierarchy form can be found at PO Navigator – Setup – Personnel – Position Hierarchy

Supervisor Hierarchies

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Supervisor Hierarchies are hierarchies that have an Employee/Supervisor relationship

The supervisor of an employee is defined on the Assignment zone of the Employee form

This type of hierarchy does not use the Position Hierarchy form, but is defined by the employee / supervisor relationship

If the purchase order raised by the employee exceeds the approval limits, the purchase order is forwarded onto the employees’ supervisor, as defined on the Employee form.

Reference

Oracle Metalink and Oracle White Papers