Establish Approval Routing

Explanation

Use this activity to create an approval process and connect it to a document or a business object. Approval steps for a business object or a document can be established by entering them manually or by copying them from a predefined approval profile. Multiple approval profiles can be copied to an object. If required, you can enable a security checkpoint to authenticate the user before he approves the step.

Prerequisites

• The Approval Routing service must be enabled for a document or business object in the Object Connections window.
• When creating a new step in the approval routing, the approver must first be registered in the Persons window.
• If an approval group is used, that group must first be registered in the Document Basic/Person Group tab.
• An approval profile must exist to enable the Copy Approval Template command. 
• A user must be connected to the person who should approve the step.
• For approval process e-mails to be sent, an event has to be created in the New Event Action window. This function uses the email address defined in the Create New User window.

System Effects

• If Copy Approval Template is used, the approval steps in the profiles are appended to the existing steps.

Window

Document Revision
Approvals
Risk Analysis Navigator

Related Window Descriptions

Document Revision
Document Revision/Approval
Document Revision/Development
Select Approval Template to Copy
Risk Analysis Navigator/Analysis Controls/Approval Routing

Procedure

Use one of the following procedures to create or append your approval steps.

Copying approval steps from a profile to a document (Alternative 1):

1. Query for a document in the Document Revision window.
2. Click the Approval tab. 
3. Right-click anywhere in the table and click Copy Approval Template to open the Select Approval Template to Copy dialog box.
4. In the Template field, enter an approval template or use the List button to select a template.
5. Click OK to copy in the selected approval template.
6. Optionally, select/deselect the Security Checkpoint Required check box.
7. Click Save.

Note: To perform this activity on the web interface you should click on Actions, select Templates and click Copy Approval Template.

Copying approval steps from a profile to a document (Alternative 2):

1. Query for a document in the Document Revision window.
2. Click the Development tab.
3. In the Approval Template field, enter a template ID or use the List Of Values to select and enter a template ID.
4. Click Save. The steps from the selected approval profile are copied to the Approval tab of the document.

Entering approval steps for a business object:

1. Open the business object in its main window.
2. Click the Attachments tab in the context pane.
3. Click the Approval Process link.
4. Right-click anywhere in the lower window and click New to open the New Approval Routing dialog box.
Note: In some cases there is an Approval Routing tab which can achieve the same purpose.
5. Enter a step number. If the approval routing has started (one or more steps have been approved), the step number cannot be lower than the latest approved step.
6. Enter a step description.
7. Enter the person or group who will approve this step. Use the List of Values, if required. Note: Entering values for both fields on the same record is not allowed.
8. Enter a note about the approval step, if required.
9. Optionally, select the Security Checkpoint Required check box to indicate that the user will need to authenticate himself before approving this step.
10. Click OK.

Copying approval steps from an approval template to an object:

1. Open the object in its main window.
2. Click the Attachments tab in the context pane (the Attachment Panel).
3. Click the Approval Process link.
4. Right-click anywhere in the Approval Process window and click Select Approval Template to open the Select Approval Template to Copy dialog box.
5. In the Template field, enter an approval template or use the List button to select a template.
6. Click OK to copy in the selected approval template. You can detach any unwanted steps that are copied, when you right click on the step and click Detach.