Tell us what you think

We want to create the best possible experience for our learners. Your feedback helps us to improve the experience for everyone.

Managing Approval process

Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

Organize the assignment of roles in an approval process
Create a new approval process

System Permissions for Approval Processes

"I have been tasked with configuring the approval processes for our organization. What do I need to be aware of before starting the actual process configuration?"

"Ok, Michael, let's get you ready to create approval processes. Firstly, we need to make sure you are part of the right system group and have access to the Approval Process area."

Members of certain administrator and manager groups can manage approval processes for business processes owned by the group.

For example, members of the Purchasing Administrator group can manage approval processes for requisitions, and members of the Invoice Administrator group can manage approval processes for invoice-related approvables. Members of the Customer Administrator group can manage approval processes for all types of approvables.

For more information about what permissions each group assignment provides, visit the SAP Ariba Procurement Solutions Group Descriptions Table.

Once the appropriate permissions have been assigned to you, the Approval Processes option will be displayed under the Manage menu on the SAP Ariba dashboard.

Manage Approval Processes Area

The Manage Approval Processes page allows the administrator to search for, view, edit, create, copy, and delete approval processes.

Each approval process applies to one type of approvable, however there can be more than one approval process for each approvable type.

Note

Only one approval process for each approvable type can be active at a time.

Select the icons to discover more about Manage approval processes area.

Approval Process States

An approval process goes through several states during the editing process.

In the following section, you will learn about the states of approval process.

Draft

Indicates that the user listed in the Editor column has a ‘HOLD’ on this approval processes and no other users can make changes to this version.

Approval Processes in Draft Status are created in the following ways:

1. An existing Approval Process has been ‘Edited’, this creates a new version of the Approval Processes.

2. An existing Approval Process was copied, version number is 0.

3. A new Approval Processes was created, version number is 0.

Approval processes in the Draft State must be checked in before they can be made active.

Checked In

Indicates that the approval process has been checked in to the system but is not currently being used to generate the approval flows.

When you check in an approval process, you release your hold on it so others can work on it.

Customer Administrators can force check in an approval processes that is assigned to someone else.

Draft - Checked In

The user listed in the Editor column has either edited and checked in a new version of an active approval process or created this version by copying an archived version from the History tab.

Active

The approval process is currently active and will be used to create approval flows for all approvable documents of the type associated with the approval process. There can be only one active approval process for each approvable type.

Archived

This state is reserved for historical versions of approval processes. Archived versions are not listed on the Manage Approval Processes.

Creating Approval Processes

"Administrators have two options when creating approval processes. They can either copy an existing process and edit it, or create the approval process from scratch."

It is advised to copy an already existing approval flow and work on the newly created document, modifying any of the required parameters. Copying an approval process creates a new approval process with ‘Copy of ‘ prepended to the title and copy number appended to the end of title. The version number is 0.

You will need to search for this ‘copied’ approval process, then click on the Title to open in ‘Edit’ Mode.

Copy Approval Processes

Create a New Approval Process

Creating a brand new approval process is a more advanced task, considering the administrator will have to enter all parameters and create all rules themselves from scratch.

Step 1: Create New Process

From the Approval Process page, select Create New

Step 2: Add New Process Data

On the Add new Process page, choose the type of approvable for which the approval process will apply.

Delegatees acting as themselves can approve their own requests if the approval flow includes them as an individual approver or as part of a group or approver list.

The rule Prevent Self-Approval Under Delegation prevents delegatees from approving their own requests.

You can prevent delegatee self-approval for some types of approvables and allow it for other types. For example, you can configure the Requisition approval process to prevent self-approval under delegation, and you can configure the Invoice approval process to allow it. You can also prevent delegatee self-approval when you create a new approval process.

Step 3: Edit Mode

On the Edit page, enter all relevant parameters for the approval process. Start by creating approval nodes and then fill in the rest of the fields.

"This is very useful information, Marco. What would I have to do next to ensure the approval process is available in the system?"

Editing and Activating an Approval Process

When you're working with an existing approval process you can place it in edit mode, check in a draft approval process, or activate it. When you activate an approval process, the currently active process for that approvable type is deactivated automatically. Editing a process creates a draft copy.

Approval processes are built using a graphical interface called Approval Process Diagram. It represents the structure of the approval flow with nodes for each configured approval rule. Rules are added (in a serial or parallel flow), removed, and moved through the Approval Process Diagram.

Select the icons to discover more about editing and activating an approval process.

Deactivating and Deleting an Approval Process

Approval processes can be deactivated or deleted if they are no longer required for any approvable.

Use the Deactivate option if the approval process is active but has become invalid for your business needs.

You can manually deactivate approval processes for any approvable type except General Approvables. Because there must be an active approval process for each type of approvable at all times, when you deactivate an approval process, the active General Approvables process is used it its place.

Use the Delete option to remove the approval process from the system.

You can delete the following approval processes:

Approval processes in Draft state
Checked-in approval processes that are not active and that do not have any associated draft versions

Note

When you delete a checked-in approval process for which there is a corresponding active approval process, the SAP Ariba application deletes any archived versions created after the active version was created. If there is no corresponding active approval process, all archived versions of the checked-in process are deleted.

Continue to quiz