Understanding Approvals

Many daily tasks are part of a larger process that involves several steps and people working together, such as the approval of a promotion. To facilitate this type of multiuser process, PeopleSoft provides approvals functionality, which enables you to automatically trigger workflow notifications to inform the next approver in the process of pending transactions.

While many PeopleSoft applications are delivered with predefined approval processes, PeopleSoft Recruiting and Admissions delivers proofs-of-concept transactions. Because each admissions office business practice may differ in terms of how an admissions approval request is handled (for example), the proofs of concepts are examples of basic transactions that utilize one level and path. You can use the delivered transactions if they meet your business needs, or modify them to meet your business requirements. You can also create new transactions and reuse the approval objects to support an admissions transaction.

Before implementing, you should read all relevant sources of information to gain a complete understanding of how the pieces fit together.

The topics in this section provide PeopleSoft Recruiting and Admissions product specifics of the Approval Framework functionality as well as Fluid Approvals. The documentation lists the navigation and additional topics specific to setting up approvals for admissions.
Application-specific Campus Solutions documentation such as PeopleSoft Self Service and PeopleSoft Recruiting and Admissions explain related setup topics for self service admissions using PeopleSoft Fluid User Interface.
PeopleSoft Approval Framework describes the common Approval Framework functionality that applies to all product families.

Approval Framework

The Approval Framework is the engine that provides the framework and capabilities for creating, running, and managing approval processes. The engine uses a series of database objects combined with application component configuration settings to determine how to process approvals using workflow.

Approval workflows are triggered when requesters submit a transaction, such as a promotion. The application hands the transaction over to the Approval Framework, which finds the appropriate approval process definition and launches the approval workflow. A set of approvers then carry out tasks related to the transaction.

The Approval Framework enables three levels of users to develop, configure, and use transaction approvals that meet their organizational requirements. For example, the process of submitting a deferral request, and getting it approved requires defining who will approve the promotion, the order in which they will approve it, and how it will be routed to approvers.

In contrast to the standard PeopleSoft workflow, which requires advanced technical skills in PeopleSoft PeopleTools to create and maintain, approval workflow provides an alternative workflow that is much easier to create, configure, and maintain. For example, all of the steps in approval workflow are defined using PeopleSoft pages rather than underlying PeopleSoft PeopleCode, so functional users can design and maintain workflow using these online PeopleSoft pages instead of requiring technical developers to create workflow rules.

For more information about the Approval Framework features and process flow, see “Understanding the Approval Framework” in PeopleSoft Approval Framework.

Approvals Terminology

The following terms are important in understanding the approvals functionality and are used throughout this section.

Field or Control	Definition
Approval Process	A generic term referencing the business process of how a particular transaction is routed for approval within an organization.
Approval Framework	Engine that provides capabilities for the creation, execution, and management of approval processes.
Approval Process Definition	The definition of an approval process within the Approval Framework. The definition may contain stages, paths, steps, varying hierarchies, and criteria, among other configurable parameters.
Approval Process Definition ID (Process ID)	The ID associated with a particular approval process definition in the Approval Framework. Each transaction registered with the Approval Framework must have at least one process ID defined.
Request	A transaction that uses the Approval Framework for approval processing. For example, a promotion, transfer time off request, job requisition, and so on.
Approval Step or Step	A step has one or more approvers, whose actions are tracked. A step can be configured to require a set number of approvers to act, and has criteria which govern whether or not the step is to be active for the request under consideration. Steps are sequential.
Approval Path or Path	A path is a sequence of steps. For example, step two routes to its approvers only after step one is approved. A given approval could actually go through multiple approval paths based on some decisions. Paths can be mutually exclusive or parallel. They all converge at the final approval.
Approval Stage or Stage	A stage is a collection of approval paths. Approval stages come in a single sequence (stage 1, stage 2, and so on). An approval stage runs when it's immediately preceding stage finishes. When an approval stage runs, all the approval paths within it run simultaneously. The approval stage is considered complete when all approval paths within it have finished.
Approver	The person who has been determined to have the authority to approve (deny, pushback, and so on) a request.
Requester and Originator	The requester is the person for whom you want the Approval Framework to treat as the initiator of a request. In most cases the requester and originator are the same person. However, when using the Delegation feature the requester and originator of a request can vary. For example, if a manger delegates a transaction to a direct report and that direct report submits the transaction, the direct report is the originator and the manager is the requester.
Subject	The person for whom a transaction is being processed.
Supervisor or Manager	The person who has management responsibilities for the requester or for an approver, as defined in your direct report settings during implementation.
Approvals Administrator or Approval Framework Administrator	The system administrator who is responsible for configuring, managing, troubleshooting, and maintaining approvals.
Event or Approval Event	The Approval Framework engine is event driven. Events are typically actions that can be taken by a user in the system, actions such as submit, approve, deny, push back, and so on.
Status or Approval Status	Statuses typically represent the overall state a transaction is in, such as pending, on hold, approved, denied, terminated, and so on.
Approval Criteria	Rules used to decide whether or not approval is required. Approval criteria fields and dimensions are data elements and attributes that are used to define the approval criteria.
Approval Hierarchy	The organizational hierarchy that models the actual approvals required by a transaction type (for example, approval hierarchy by supervisor or department).
User List	Collection of users (PeopleSoft Operator IDs) expressed as the result of an SQL statement, PeopleSoft role, or PeopleSoft Application Class.
Alternate Approver or Alternate User ID	A user can have another user in the system as his or her alternate approver for a specified period of time. This is set on the Workflow page of the User Profile component within PeopleTools security.
Delegation	Delegation is when a person authorizes another to serve as a his or her representative for a particular task of responsibility. With the Delegation feature, users can authorize other users to perform managerial tasks on their behalf by delegating authority to initiate or approve managerial transactions.