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About Approval Processing

In Siebel order management, administrators can define a number of approval levels without the need for programming, scripting, or configuring. You can define both basic or multiple-step approval processing levels based on the needs of your organization. You can invoke approval processing from a script, a workflow, or a run-time event.

Approval Item

An approval item is an approval process invoked by the Approvals engine. An approval item can be one of two types: parallel or sequential. An approval item with an Approval Flow Type of Parallel is set so that all approvers receive the approval request at the same time. An approval item with an Approval Flow Type of Sequential is set so that each approver receives the approval request only after the prior person approves. If an approver rejects the request, no other approvers further along in the sequence sees the approval request.

Approval Stage

The approval stage is the set of individuals who must approve the approval item. An approval item can have multiple approval stages.

Approval Types

The individual that is set as an approver can be one of the following approval types:

• Employee. A specific employee within the organization.
• Position. A general position within the organization.
• Either of the above. Employee and Position are both multi-value groups. The third option is Either. If there is more than one owner or position specified against an approval item, then either one of them is allowed to approve or deny the Inbox item.

NOTE:  If your organization defines the relationship between Employee and Position as 1:1, the distinction between Approval Types is irrelevant. If your organization chooses to use the approval type Position, only the primary employee for the position is alerted.

Automating an approval process involves the following steps:

• Administrator defines approval items and approval stages. For more information, see Defining Approval Items and Approval Stages.
• Administrator invokes approval processing. For more information, see About Invoking the Approvals Manager Business Service from a Workflow.
• End users approve or decline an approval stage. For more information, see Approving or Declining Approval Stages (End User).

Interaction of the Approvals engine parts is shown in Figure 38.

Figure 38. Components of the Approvals Engine