Understanding Approval Process

Referring back to our guided buying process flow, Sandy’s Supervisor Mary is forwarded Sandy purchase requisition for an approval decision.

Mary uses the guided buying application to review the details of the request and decides to approve the PR. Let's further explore this approval process together.

Continuing on in the Procure-to-Pay with guided buying process flow, Sandy’s supervisor, Mary, receives Sandy’s request for keyboards. Let’s take a look at how Mary can go about approving Sandy’s requisition.

SAP Ariba procurement features highly configurable approval processes that can be modeled to flexibly meet a company's business processes and policies.

Approval rules can be built which dynamically add approvers based on the document's details.

Examples include rules that add approvers when total cost exceeds a set limit, rules that add approvers based on the commodity codes of the line items or rules that add approvers when a requisition contains one or more ad hoc or non-catalog items.

Approval rules can also be built to reference rules created in look up files and companies can leverage automation to update these files on a set schedule.

SAP Ariba guided buying utilizes the same approval rules as the SAP Ariba procurement solution to generate the approval flow for requests.

• Configurable approval rules allow you to build one dynamic structure that will add approvers based on conditions. Examples include:
  • Add approvers based on total cost
  • Add approvers for specific commodities
  • Add approvers if the requester created a non-catalog (ad-hoc) item
• Approval rules can refer to lookup files to add the correct approvers. Loading of lookup files can be automated so they are always up-to-date.
• Guided buying uses the same set of business rules as SAP Ariba Procurement to specify the approvals that are required for specific requests and documents.

1. Watchers are informed about the request, but do not approve or deny the document.
2. Approvers must approve or deny the document. If any approver denies the document, the entire document is denied.
3. Serial routing sends the document to the first approver and waits for their approval before sending to the second.
4. Parallel routing branches approval, sending it to multiple approvers at the same time.
5. Groups can be approvers. Click a group name to see who can approve or deny on behalf of the entire group.
6. Users can be added to the approval flow to approve as an individual.

Let's define a few key terms related to approval processes.

Watchers are users who are added to the approval flow for the purpose of notification and visibility only. These users have no need or ability to approve or deny approvable requests.

Approvers, as the name suggests, are users who have been added to the approval flow as required approvers.

These users are added based on the approval rules configured by administrators and all approvers listed must approve a document in order for it to progress.

If any single approver denies the request, the entire document is rejected and sent back to the preparer to either delete or edit and resubmit.

The approval engine can be configured to add approvers in either serial or parallel routing. Serial routing sends a request to each user listed one at a time. After the first user approves, the document is then routed to the next approver. Parallel routing is when a document is passed to multiple approvers at the same time. All users in parallel get notified of the approval request simultaneously and do not have to wait on each other to make an approval decision.

Approval flows add approvers or watchers in nodes. These nodes can contain users or groups. Groups added to the approval flow represent a user group in the system.

All users in the group are notified of the approval request and the first user to log in and approve the document satisfies the approval node for the entire group. Approval nodes can alternatively contain individual users.

When a user is triggered in an approval flow, they receive notification of the approval request and can log in to take action. Approval flows can contain a combination of both groups and users.

When viewing the approval flow, users can click on the groups or usernames in the nodes to see more information about the group members or individual users.

Going back to our practical example, Mary has received a notification informing her of a request to approve the purchase requisition for the keyboards submitted by Sandy.

Although Mary is not a procurement professional, she is Sandy’s supervisor and is tasked with making approval decisions for her team.

Next, we will walk through the approval process step by step.

When Mary or any other approvers are triggered on a node in the approval flow, they will receive an email notification with a link to the approval request and a notification bell in the user interface will also contain a link to the approvable.

Notifications Bell

• You can also see items which require your attention from the Notification bell.

Approval Tile

• Administrators can also create a tile on the home page or a landing page which takes you to the items to approve.

Viewing Approval Requests

• Within Guided Buying, you can view all requests for approval by accessing the Your Requests menu from the home dashboard.
• This page displays a summary of the current approvables. You can click the See details to review the document prior to approving.

Once Mary or any other approver accesses the approve requests tab, the system provides a summary of the document.

Each approval request has a see details button and an approve button.

The approve button makes it easy to approve from this screen without the need to access the full document. However, in order to deny, Mary would need to click the see details button to access the full approval request.

Opening the full approval request opens a document allowing Approvers to view all of the request details before making an approval decision.

Approve or Watch

You can see items which need your approval, items for which you are a watcher, and items you recently approved from here

Not Feeling Detail-Oriented?

You can approve documents from this page without viewing additional details

See Details to Deny

You cannot deny from this screen and must click See details first

After opening the approval request, the approval flow will display all approvers that have been added to the request. Mary can choose to add additional approvers to the flow if needed. The full approval request also displays more details, including pricing, supplier and accounting information.

Review the Approval Flow

• Approvers can see who else must approve and, if necessary, add additional approvers to the flow

Item Details and Accounting

• Approvers can review pricing, supplier information, as well as the accounts being charged

Before making an approval decision, Mary can choose to add comments to the request, which by default are only visible to internal users.

If Mary wants to make these comments visible to suppliers, she can select the option to make comments visible to suppliers.

After reviewing and optionally adding comments, Mary clicks the approve button to approve the request.

Add Comments

If you want to capture additional information, you can add a comment when approving

Comments for Suppliers

By default, comments are internal only, but you can check a box to include comments on the Purchase Order for suppliers

Click Approve

Click the approve button to confirm your action

There are a number of ways approvers can access approval requests to take action. From the manage menu the My To Do option will provide users access to all pending approval documents.

When a user or group is triggered on a node in an approval request, the approver or approvers will receive an email notification and can approve or deny straight from this email.

Another email will then be sent after the approver takes action, allowing them to add optional comments. Approvers can also access approval requests from the SAP Ariba mobile app or from the approve tile.

SAP Ariba Buying User Interface

• Click Manage and select My To Do
• Search for the document and select it from the list
• Click Approve or Deny
• Add comments and confirm

Email Approval

• Email is sent to approver with information about the requisition
• Approver clicks Approve or Deny
• New email is generated with an area to add comments, if desired
• Approver sends generated email to "capture" approval or denial

SAP Ariba Mobile App

• Click To Approve tile
• From the list, select the purchase requisition to approve
• You may add comments, attachments, or see the history of the document
• You can Pin the document to review when you get back to your desk
• Click Approve or Deny at the bottom of the screen