Managing the Approval Process

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to create an Approval Process and associate the process with an Item

Approval Process Overview

An approval process is a set of authorization steps that a user must go through before they can self-register into a class, withdraw from a class, launch an online item, or self-add a history record. If an item or class has a required approval process, each prospective user must go through all the approval process steps before they are allowed to participate in that learning event.

When a learner attempts to register for a class for which approval is required, they will have to complete the registration request which goes into a pending status until the approver approves or denies the request. The learner can view the approval details and withdraw. If permitted, learners can withdraw from classes that their manager registered them for. If the last date and time to withdraw has passed, the administrator can still cancel the registration.

The approver will receive an email notification and a card in the Approvals section of the HCM Homepage. From this card the approver can either approve or decline the approval and enter comments. If the registration close date and time for a class is in the past, the approver will no longer see the approval request. If the approver changes (for example, if the user now reports to a different manager), the pending approval can be rerouted to the new manager.

Approval card is displayed and approve or decline request options are highlighted.

Approval Process Creation

Creating approvals is a four-step process:

  1. Create approval roles.
  2. Associate roles with approvers.
  3. Create the approval process.
  4. Associate the approval process with an item (learning activity).

Note

Approval processes only prevents self-registration only. Managers or Human Resources Business Partners (HRBP) who register learners will bypass the approval process.

Step 1: Approval Roles Creation

Before you create an approval process, create approval roles that you may use in your approval process.

An approval role is a role that can be assigned to a user for participation in the approval process as an approver. SAP SuccessFactors Learning comes with six default approval roles out of the box:

  • Employee: You might have an approval process for the employees to acknowledge enrollment requests before they are forwarded to managers.
  • Manager Level 1: The person in this role is always the employee’s immediate manager.
  • Manager Level 2: The person in this role is the second-level manager (the employee’s manager’s manager).
  • Instructor: This is for the E-signature Process only. This role should not be added to approval processes for registration or withdrawal.
  • HR and HRBP: A Human Resources Business Partner (HRBP) to share some of the managerial responsibilities with a manager.

If additional approval roles are necessary, such as a Financial Approver, or Regional Approver, they can be created from Learning Administration → References → System Administration → Approval Roles → Add New. Entering descriptions is strongly recommended.

Step 2: Association of Roles with Approvers

Once created, an approval role should be applied to a user or users. A user can have multiple approval roles assigned to them, and each assigned approval role must have either control organizations or control security domains applied to it to indicate where the approver has authority of approval for the role.

To add an approval role to a user, navigate to the User entity → Approval Roles tab, and then search for and add an approval role and select a control domain.

There is a global setting (in System Administration → Configuration → Global Application Settings) that determines whether a company is using security domains or organizations as the control entity for approvals. The user only acts as the approver in the selected security domain(s)/organization(s).

For example:

  • Joe is a Budget Approver – SALES Security domain
  • Susan is a Budget Approver – IT Security domain
  • Keith is a Budget Approver – HR Security domain

All three people have the same approval role (Budget Approver), but they each have approver rights for a different set of users because of the security domains selected when the role was added to their user record.

Note

If more than one user is assigned an approval role and given access to the same security domain, any of those individuals can act as the approver of a user’s pending approval.

Step 3: Approval Process Creation

The administrator can create an approval process by defining the steps and the approver(s) for each step. The approvers can be specific users or people in specific approval roles. The approval process can have a maximum of six steps.

To create a new approval process, follow these steps:

  1. Go to Learning Administration → References → System Administration → Approval Process, and select Add New.
  2. Enter the Process ID, Name, Security Domain and select Next.
  3. Use the add one or more from list to search for and add approval roles and/or users.
  4. Select Next Step (If you want to add another step).
  5. Select Finish to complete the process.

Step 4: Association of the Approval Process with an Item

To apply an approval process to an item, navigate to the Item Entity → Item Details → Approval Process and apply the relevant settings.

  • For Approval Processes: Select Yes to activate Approval Required and pick the Approval Process to be applied from the dropdown.
  • For Withdraw Approval Process: Select Yes to activate Approval required to withdraw and pick the Withdraw Approval Process to be applied from the dropdown.
The Approval Process section is highlighted in the center of the screen.

For classes, administrators can add an approval process, if one wasn’t added at the item level or if a different class-level approval is desired. The administrator may also decide that this class does not require approval by setting the Approval Required field to No.

Note

Even though an approval process may be visible under the approval section of the item, that approval process will not be active unless the Approval Required button is set to Yes.

Create an Approval Role

Business Example

In this exercise, you will add a new approval role in SAP SuccessFactors Learning.

Steps

  1. Navigate to References → System Administration → Approval Roles.

  2. Select Add New.

  3. Enter an approval role ID (for example: use your initials and a number).

  4. Enter a description for the approval role.

  5. Select Add.

  6. Close the Approval Roles window.

Associate the Role with Approvers

Business Example

In this exercise, you will assign a pre-defined approval role to a user.

Steps

  1. Navigate to People → Users.

  2. Enter criteria to search for the appropriate user record (for example: your own user) and select Search.

  3. Select the user ID to access the user record.

  4. Select the Approval Roles tab.

  5. Enter an approval role ID and select the Add button.

    Note

    You can also select Add one or more from list to search for the approval role to add. The Add plus sign may be used to enter new approval role references into the system as necessary.

  6. Review the assignment in the Assign Approval Roles to the User section.

  7. For each approval role added, you must select the appropriate control security domain and security subdomain.

    1. Select the Control Security Domains link.

    2. Select the add one or more from list link to search for the control security domains to the approval role (for example: CORP).

    3. Select the Include Security Subdomain checkbox if you would like the user to be able to approve requests for users in security subdomains as well.

    4. Select Add.

    5. Select Submit and choose Return to Approval Role.

  8. Select Apply Changes.

    Note

    While it usually is not necessary to Apply Changes when you have already added entities to a list, it is necessary here because we are applying the control domains to the approval role before the role can be applied to the user.

Create the Approval Process

Business Example

In this exercise, you will add a new approval process and add an approval role to this new process.

Steps

  1. Navigate to References → System Administration → Approval Process.

  2. Select Add New.

  3. Enter a process ID (for example: your initials and a number).

  4. Enter a process name.

  5. Select a security domain.

  6. Enter a process owner email.

    Note

    The process owner is the individual responsible for maintaining this process.

  7. Select Next.

  8. Enter a step name (for example: Step 1).

  9. To add an approval role to this process, select the Add one or more from list link in the left gray box.

  10. Enter search criteria to search for and select an approval role ID (for example: Supervisor 1).

    Make sure to check the Add checkbox before selecting the Add button. Notice that a specific user may also be selected to be the approver for a particular approval step instead of selecting an approval role. It is not necessary to select Apply Changes unless you have added a role/user by mistake and want to remove it.

  11. Select Next Step or if no more approval steps are desired, skip to step 15.

  12. Enter a step name.

  13. To add an approval role to this process, select add one or more from list from the left gray box.

  14. Enter search criteria to search for and select an approval role ID.

  15. Select Finish.

  16. Review the process steps as necessary.

  17. Select Create Process.

  18. Select OK and close the window.

Associate an Approval Process with an Item

Business Example

In this exercise, you will navigate to an item record and assign an approval process to that item.

Steps

  1. Navigate to Learning Activities → Items.

  2. Enter criteria to search for an item.

  3. Select Search.

  4. Select the item ID link to access the item record in edit mode.

  5. On the Item Details tab, select an approval process from the Approval Process dropdown.

  6. Select Yes for Approval Required.

  7. Select Save.

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