Approvals - Common Approval Issues Encountered by Customers

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Copyright © 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Safe Harbor Statement
The following is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended for
information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a
commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon
in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or
functionality described for Oracle’s products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.

Cloud Customer Connect
Oracle Fusion Procurement
Setting up Approval –Use Cases & Common Issues
Sumana Sarkar, Khalil Ikhlaq & David Chan

March 20th, 2019
Agenda
• Job level Routing
• Position Hierarchy
• Cost Center Manage based approvals
• Vacation Rule (Delegate/Reassign)
• Escalation Policies
• Approval use cases
• Best Practices
• Q&A
Job Level Routing: Set up Manage Jobs: Create Job & enter job level
• Routes up the employee supervisory hierarchy

in HCM
• Create Job ( Manage Jobs )

– Associate the job with a job level
• Job levels are numeric values in ascending order
What Does it Do?
• Set up employees with appropriate jobs and
manager details
• Create a rule based on job level routing

Job Level Routing: A Worked Example
• Say, Requisition Amount > 200K, Users Approval Rule
requires a min job level 10 to

approve
• Use case:
– SSPUser01 creates a requisition for
himself
What Does it Do?
• Rule is set up to traverse Requester’s
hierarchy (Min job level = 10)
How routing will happen?

Approvals will be routed up the
supervisory hierarchy of SSPUser01 until
it finds a manager who has a job level
greater than or equal to 10 (i.e.
SSPUser05)

Job Level Routing: Common Issues
• Issue#1 : Requisition based on job level routing is
getting automatically rejected
Things to verify:
1. Check the Min Job Level criteria in the rule and verify if
none of the approvers in the supervisory hierarchy has
What
the Does it level
min job Do? required to approve e.g.
– Lets say, a rule is set up with Min Job level = 12.

– SSPUser01 creates the requisition
– Since none of the users in supervisory hierarchy of SSPUser01
has the minimum job level required to approve (12), an
exception will be thrown

Job Level Routing: Issue# 1 continued
2. Verify if manager is missing for any of the users in the chain
– Lets say, a rule is set up with Min Job level = 4.

– SSPUser01 creates the requisition.
– Say, manager is not set for SSPUser03 (job level=3)
– When
What Does it Do? submits the requisition, system will be unable
SSPUser01
to compute the hierarchy from SSPUser03 (since no manager is
specified)
– Since SSPUser03 does not satisfy the min job level criteria form
the rule, an exception will be thrown
• However, if SSPUser03 has the min job level required to
approve, routing will stop at SSPUser03 and he can approve

Job Level Routing: Common Issues
• Issue#2 : Routing is walking past the
rule constraint e.g. rule specifies
min job level = 6, however, approval
is routed to SSPUser05 who has job
level 10
• Things to verify:
What Does it Do?
– Verify if any user in the supervisory
chain of the Requester has job level 6
– If not, routing will continue up the
supervisory hierarchy and stop at the
next job level which is greater than 6
• For our use case, the next job level > 6 is
10. So routing continues up to SSPUser05
who has job level 10
,

Job Level Routing: Issue# 2 continued
• For the example in the previous
slide, instead of walking past the
rule constraint, if you want to
stop the routing at a lower job
level say at 4:
– Use BPM Worklist app and specify:
What Does
• At most =6 it Do?
• At least = 4
• Note: Above rule is not supported

from FSM Rules UI

Position Hierarchy Routing: Set up
• Routes up the position hierarchy
defined in HCM, until a specific job
level is reached
• Create Position (Manage Positions)

– Assign a job to the Position Position Tree
• Note: Job should be set up with
What Does itjobDo?
appropriate level
• Define Position Tree (Manage

Position Tree) – see screen shot
• Assign appropriate position to
employee
• Addition Reference:
– Minimum HCM Setup Required For Non-HCM
Implementation And Procurement (Doc ID 1947052.1)

Position Hierarchy: Worked Example
• Say, Requisition Amount > = 300K and requires Users Approval Rule
approval from Requester’s position chain. Job
level 10 is required to approve
• Use case:
•SSPUser01 creates a requisition.
•Rule is set up to traverse the requester’s
position
What Does it Do? hierarchy (Min job level =10)
How will happen?

Requisition will be routed up the position hierarchy
of SSPUser01 until it finds a manager who has a job
level greater than or equal to 10 (i.e. SSPUser05)

Position Hierarchy Routing: Common Issues
• Requisition based on Position Hierarchy routing is
getting automatically rejected
Things to verify:
– If Preparer/Requester is not part of position tree
SSPUser00 reports to SSPUser01
• Lets say, SSPUser00 creates a requisition
• SSPUser00 reports to SSPUser01 but is not assigned a position
What
• RuleDoes
is set toittraverse
Do? Requester’s hierarchy
• Exception will be thrown when SSPUser00 submits the
requisition
– If the job associated with the position has a job level

specified
• Check all the positions in the position tree and find the associated
job and verify if the job has a job level value.
- Is position tree is not active e.g. is in draft status

Enable Auto Claim
• Claim button is enabled for task assigned to a
position or application role
• Recommended setting:
– Enable Auto Claim= Y
• User does not need to claim the task before approving,
What
• MustDoes
be set it
toDo?
Y for email notification for position
hierarchy actionable
• Navigation:
– BPM Worklist app > ReqApproval> Task Configuration > Configuration
tab

Cost Center Manager based approvals: Set up
• Cost Center maps with the “Cost Center
Segment” of the GL chart of accounts (COA)
– e.g. second segment of COA represents the cost

center segment
What Does it Do?
• Define Cost Center Manager (Manage
Departments)
– e.g. A CCM is set up for cost center 530 Manage Department

Cost Center Manager based approvals
• Set up approval rule to route to cost center 530’s
manager
– Example Rule:
Requisition: Charge account has cost center = 530
• If Cost Center Manager is not blank
Then route to single approver = Cost Center Manager
What Does it Do?
• Create requisition
– Populate the cost center segment as 530
– Submit the requisition
– See that requisition is routed to the cost center manager

defined for the Cost Center = 530 (Penelope Antilla)

Common Issues for Cost Center Manager approval
Issue Things to Verify
Requisition is routed to Verify if the same cost center is defined in more than one
incorrect/different Cost Center department. Below shows that the cost center 530 is
Manager defined in two departments- SSP Dept01 and SSP Dept03.
This is incorrect.
Recommended set up to have the cost center value unique
across all departments.
What Does it Do?
Corrective Action : Remove the cost center mgr. from the

non-functioning (inactive) department
Cost center is associated with Not Supported.
multiple managers. But As of today, we do note have the capability to route all the
requisitions are not routed to all CCM for approval. A workaround could be to use approval
cost center managers for groups.
approvals
Vacation Rule
• Define VA rule to manage notifications when
you are away
• Delegate
– Allows a user to assign a task to another person
to act on his or her behalf
– After approval by the new user, the original
approver’s hierarchy is used for approval e.g.
What Does it Do?
• a manager might delegate all his approvals to an
assistant while he/she is away Original approval list After Delegate After Reassign
• Reassign
– Allows a user to transfer a task to another user
– From that point on, the new user's hierarchy is
used for approval e.g.
• a manager might transfer a notification about a certain
project to another manager who now owns that project

Defining Vacation Rule for other users
• An Administrator can
define vacation rules for
other users
– Steps:
• Login to BPM Worklist
Application as Administrator
• Navigate to (your Username >
Preferences >) Other Rules
What
tab Does it Do?
• Search for the user for whom
you want to set up VA rule
• Create a rule by specifying
action -Reasssign/Delegate
• Do not to check the option
"Use as vacation rule"
• Select the period during
which the rule should be
active
• Save the rule

Escalation Policies
hierarchy.
• Define escalation policy under Deadlines setting in BPM
section in human task
definition.
• Escalation By default escalation is
duration
–based
specifieson
thethe management
amount of time a user chain
receives to act on a task before
hierarchy and taskthegets
task gets escalated to user’sescalated
mgr.
– Note: Escalation looks at user’s manager in LDAP/Security Console
up innot
(and the hierarchy from user to
HCM)
–his/her manager
Define Task and so
level or Assignee on.escalation
level You
can control the level to which task
can be escalated
• Maximum Escalationand can also use
Levels
–aControls
title tothewhich
numbertask getsthe task can be escalated
of times
–escalated to. Level and title
Required field
assignment can be configured
while
configuring
Note: Escalation is only applicable for task assigned to users (not
supported
o? for task assigned to a Position/Application Role)

Escalation Policies: Task Level vs Assignee level
Approval Chain: Penelope > Allan > Clare > Maricela
Duration = 15 min
Task level Escalation Assignee level Escalation

Escalation Policies: Common Issues
• Issue:
– Requisition is rejected when escalation duration is reached
– Escalation notifications are or going to older manager
– Things to verify
What Does it Do?
• Verify if the supervisory hierarchy is set up for the approver
• Verify if user’s correct manager is reflected in LDAP/Security console
– Note: Escalation feature looks up the manager details from LDAP (and not HCM)
– If mgr. data in LDAP is not synchronized with HCM, run the ESS jobs:
• “Send Personal Data for Multiple Users to LDAP”
• “ Send Pending LDAP Requests"

Use case: Match a specific segment of Chart of Accounts
• What
Use case:
Does it Do?
Chart of Accounts (COA) comprises of 5
segments (COA delimiter is -) . How to
write a rule to match with the fourth
segment of the COA such all requisitions
with value of 4th segment ranging
between 2000 and 2999 goes to Allan
for approval?
Solution:
Use the 'matches' operator to compare
a range of values for the fourth segment
e.g.
Charge Account “Matches”
(.*)-(.*)-(.*)-2[0-9][0-9][0-9]-(.*)

Use case: Parallel Approval Between Multiple Groups
Use Case:
Use Case
Futuristic Corp. needs parallel approval between two
groups. Both Group A (Finance Department) and Group B
(Purchasing department) approvals are required. When any
one member from Group A and any one member from
Group B approves, the approval flow should end.
Solution:
1. Use BPM UI to create rule based on Application Role
(instead of Approval Group)
– if are using FSM Rules UI, use the Edit Rules in BPM feature Rule Action (from BPM) based on application role
before moving to BPM
2. Create the rule in a Consensus type of participant.

Use Case: Skip CXO level approval
• Use Case:
Whenever transactions for a specific
category are routed to the CEO,
substitute the CEO and send
notification to different user for
approval.
Substitution rule
• Solution:
– Use “Substitution Rules”
Navigation: BPM > ReqApproval task > Edit >

Assignees tab > Go to Rule

Use case: Summation and Currency Conversion
• Use case
– Requisition is created in a foreign
currency e.g. EUR. The requirement is
that the foreign currency amount (EUR)
be converted to equivalent USD Amount
before evaluating the approval rules.
– Additionally, if the total spend for IT
category exceeds 100 USD, then
purchasing approval group needs to
approve
User submits a requisition with three
lines.
Line 1 & 2 rolls up to IT category.
Based on the sum of two lines in USD
(142 USD), requisition should be routed
to purchasing approval group

Use case: Summation and Currency Conversion (continued)
• To implement this requirement:
• From FSM > Manage Requisition
Approvals
– Create currency based and
summation user-defined attributes
• Refer approvals white paper
(Document 2264952.1 )
• From BPM
– Equivalent rule can be authored
from BPM.
• Summation based rule needs to be
authored in Advanced Mode

How to Extract Approval Rules in a Spreadsheet
• Use SOA Composer
– How to Extract Approval Rules
into a Spreadsheet (Doc ID
2240016.1)
• Create BIP Report (supported

for rules created from FSM
Rules UI)
Extract of Requisition Approval Rules using BIP Report

Change Order Approval
• Approval Policy for change orders with monetary change vs a non-
monetary
– Based on your business practice, you could route only change orders with a monetary
change to approvers.
– Sample rule:
If:
Document Type = "STANDARD" and
Backing Requisitions Exists = "Y" and
Is Change Order = "Y" and
Change in Document Total Amount > 0.01 and
Change Order Initiating Party = "REQUESTER"
Then : <Route for Approval>

Best Practices
• If you are authoring rules from BPM, include a NULL check in the condition for optional attribute.
Also include a null check when you are adding a new condition based on a new attribute. For
example, for Cost Center Manager based approval e.g:
– If ReqDistributionDimension.costCenterManagerId isn’t null
• Automatic null check is added for optional attributes when rules are deployed from FSM > Rules UI
• If you are migrating rules from one instance to another (example, TEST to PRODUCTION), ensure
that both the environments are at same patch level, and DFF configuration is same on both
– You need to keep in mind that conditions written using IDs (e.g. CategoryId) may not work after migration since IDs
may be different across environments. You may see this especially if you are using thhe SOA composer to
export/import rules
– If you are using the rule data that is from T2P or P2T clone, the IDs will match
• If you make any changes in DFF/KFF artifacts, make sure you go to BPM Worklist Task
Configuration, and sync up DFF and rules schema.
– If you are using PRC Rules UI, you don't need to run the DFF sync because PRC UI directly uses the ATTRIBUTES
column in the table instead of using the BPM DFF facts

Additional References
• Document 2264952.1 - Setting Up Document Approvals in Oracle Fusion

Procurement Release 13

Safe Harbor Statement
The following is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended for
information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a
commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon
in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or
functionality described for Oracle’s products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.

Approvals - Common Approval Issues Encountered by Customers

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Copyright © 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Sumana Sarkar, Khalil Ikhlaq & David Chan

• Cost Center Manage based approvals

• Vacation Rule (Delegate/Reassign)

• Approval use cases

• Routes up the employee supervisory hierarchy

• Create Job ( Manage Jobs )

• Create a rule based on job level routing

Copyright © 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

requires a min job level 10 to

How routing will happen?

Copyright © 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

– Lets say, a rule is set up with Min Job level = 12.

Copyright © 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

2. Verify if manager is missing for any of the users in the chain

– Lets say, a rule is set up with Min Job level = 4.

Copyright © 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

• Note: Above rule is not supported

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• Create Position (Manage Positions)

• Define Position Tree (Manage

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How will happen?

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– If the job associated with the position has a job level

- Is position tree is not active e.g. is in draft status

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– e.g. second segment of COA represents the cost

– e.g. A CCM is set up for cost center 530 Manage Department

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– Submit the requisition

– See that requisition is routed to the cost center manager

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Corrective Action : Remove the cost center mgr. from the

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– Requisition is rejected when escalation duration is reached

– Escalation notifications are or going to older manager

• Verify if user’s correct manager is reflected in LDAP/Security console

• “Send Personal Data for Multiple Users to LDAP”

• “ Send Pending LDAP Requests"

Copyright © 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Navigation: BPM > ReqApproval task > Edit >

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• Create BIP Report (supported

Extract of Requisition Approval Rules using BIP Report

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Then : <Route for Approval>

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Copyright © 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

• Document 2264952.1 - Setting Up Document Approvals in Oracle Fusion