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Workflow for ECO Approvals

Most organizations have some form of approval process before engineering change orders (ECOs) are implemented. By using Oracle Workflow, the approval process can be customized to meet each organization's needs.

Business rules for the approval of ECOs are defined in a workflow process. For each ECO, Workflow manages adherence to these business rules, including:

Once the ECO is created, Workflow takes over processing.

When Workflow is in control of the approval process, the ECO approval status is set to Approval Requested. Before the approval status is changed, the workflow approval process can be aborted.

Workflow manages the approval process until the entire approval flow is complete. Only then is the ECO approval status updated to either Approved or Rejected. If an error occurs during the Workflow approval process, the approval status is set to Processing Error.

Standard Workflow Process

One workflow process, named "Standard Approval Process," is predefined when Engineering is installed, regardless whether the entire Oracle Workflow product is installed. If the entire Workflow product is installed, you can modify this process or create new processes.

If you use the Standard Workflow Process, you must assign a role to the "Standard Approval Notification" activity. Otherwise, the process will fail.

If the Workflow product is not fully installed, you can alter only the Standard Approval Process.

ECO Approval List Setup

Workflow can use roles whenever an activity involves several users. Approval lists defined in Engineering can be used to create roles. Roles are made up of either one approval list or one employee previously defined with the Enter Person window.

The ECO workflow approval process will notify all persons in the role, regardless if the role is defined using an approval list or an individual employee.

To approve (or reject) the ECO, approvers must respond to the notification. If the approver has an Oracle Applications Object Library account, they can respond to ECO approval requests using either a web browser or the Notification Viewer. If not, the approver can respond via electronic mail, provided they have a valid address defined using the Enter Person window.

ECO Types and Priorities Setup

ECO types can be associated with a workflow process. If you do not associate an ECO type with a workflow process, there can be no workflow approval process for ECOs using that ECO type. If there is an approval list, the ECO cannot be associated with a process.

ECO types that are associated with a workflow process can optionally be associated with an ECO priority. If so, ECOs that use the type/priority combination are approved via Workflow. Doing so enables workflow approval processes to be ranked according to priority.

ECO Approval

The only user intervention required for a workflow approval process is for individual approvers to respond to an ECO approval notification. Once the process is complete, Workflow automatically updates the ECO approval status.

See Also

Oracle Workflow

Introduction to Oracle Workflow

Engineering Workflow Activity Functions

Defining ECO Types

Defining ECO Approval Lists

Creating an ECO

Viewing ECO Approval Status

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