Use Approval Workflows

When a record, such as a purchase document or a customer card, needs to be approved by someone in your organization, you send an approval request as part of a workflow. Based on how the workflow is set up, the appropriate approver is then notified that the record requires their approval.

You set up approval workflows on the Workflow page. For more information, see Setting Up Workflows.

In addition to approval workflows described in this topic, you can perform various other workflow tasks. For more information, Using Workflows.

Core approval workflows for purchases documents, sales documents, payment journals, customer cards, and item cards are ready to start as guides. For more information, see Getting Ready for Doing Business.

To request approval of a record

The following task is performed by an approval user.

on the page that presents the record, choose the Send Approval Request action.
To see all your approval requests, choose the icon, enter Approval Request Entries, and then choose the related link.

The status of the approval entry is updated from Created to Open. The status of the record, for example a purchase invoice, is updated from Open to Pending Approval and remains locked for processing until all approvers have approved the record.

When the approver has approved the record, the status changes to Released. You can then continue your tasks with the record.

To cancel requests for approval

The following task is performed by an approval user with approver rights.

A customer may want to change an order after it has been submitted for approval. In this case, you can cancel the approval process and make the necessary changes to the order before you request approval again.

on the page that displays the record, choose the Cancel Approval Request action.

When the approval request has been canceled, the status of the related approval entry is changed to Canceled. The status of the record is updated from Pending Approval to Open. The approval process can then start again.

To approve or reject requests for approval

The following task is performed by an approval user with approver rights.

You can process approval requests on the Requests to Approve page, for example to approve multiple requests at a time. Alternatively, you can process each request on the related record, such as the Purchase Invoice page, by choosing the link in the notification that you receive.

Choose the icon, enter Requests to Approve, and then choose the related link.
Select one or more lines for the record or records that you want to approve or reject.
Choose the Approve, Reject, or Delegate actions.

When a record has been approved or rejected, the approval status in the Status field changes to Approved or Rejected.

If an approver hierarchy is set up, the record status will be Pending Approval until all approvers have approved the record. Then the record status will change to Released.

At the same time, the approval status changes from Created to Open as soon as an approval request for the record is created. If the request is rejected, the approval status changes to Rejected. The status remains Open or Rejected until all approvers have approved the request.

To delegate requests for approval

The following task is performed by an approval user with approver rights.

To prevent documents from piling up or otherwise block the workflow, the approver and the approval administrator can delegate an approval request to a substitute approver. The substitute can either be a designated substitute, the direct approver, or the approval administrator, in that order of priority. You typically use this feature if an approver is out of office and is unable to approve requests before the due date.

Choose the icon, enter Requests to Approve, and then choose the related link.
Select one or more lines for the approval requests that you want to delegate to a substitute approver, and then choose the Delegate action.

A notification to approve the request is sent to the substitute approver.

To manage overdue approval requests

The following task is performed by an approval user with approver rights.

At regular intervals, you must remind approval workflow users of overdue approval requests that they must react on. You use the Send Overdue Approval Notifications function for this.

The Send Overdue Approval Notifications function checks for all open approval requests that are currently overdue. Each approver that has at least one overdue approval entry receives a notification with the list of all their overdue approval requests. The notification is also sent to their approver and all the requesters of the overdue approvals. This helps if the overdue approval entry must be delegated to a substitute.

Choose the icon, enter Overdue Approval Requests, and then choose the related link.
On the Overdue Approval Requests page, choose the Send Overdue Approval Notifications action.

Use Approval Workflows

To request approval of a record

To cancel requests for approval

To approve or reject requests for approval

To delegate requests for approval

To manage overdue approval requests

See Also

Note