Approval Hierarchies:

Strengths and Weaknesses of Approvals Using the

Employee/Supervisor Relationship
Strengths
Allows flexibility of establishing approval groups around either jobs or
positions.
Assuming Oracle Human Resources (HR) is installed and the data is
being maintained, Purchasing uses the supervisor name on the
employee record which should be entered and maintained for HR
purposes already.
Weaknesses
Documents may not travel by the employee/supervisor relationship
for approval purposes, but take a different path in part or entirely.
Documents can get hung up more frequently due to the volume of
personnel changes that typically occur in companies.
Higher volumes of documents need to be re-routed using the
Forward-To settings. Recall that the first name alphabetically
appears as the default.
Strengths and Weaknesses of Approvals Using Position Approval
Hierarchies
Strengths
Allows approval paths to be set up that follow the actual flow of
documents for approval
Assuming Human Resources is installed and the data is being
maintained, Purchasing can make an employee representation of
the position approval hierarchy by simply running the Fill Employee
Hierarchy process. This will allow changes occurring in personnel
assignments to be updated in the position approval hierarchy.
Documents can get hung up less frequently due to the lower volume
of structural hierarchy changes compared to the higher volume of
personnel changes that typically occur in companies.

 Lower volumes of documents need to be re-routed using the Forward

To settings, especially when there are multiple holders in a
particular job or position. Recall that the first name alphabetically
appears as the default when there are multiple holders.
Weaknesses
Cannot be used with jobs, but must be used with positions.

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 cant 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 isnt 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.