Set Up Serial Group Approval

You can create an approval workflow that requires approval from a group of people, in sequential order.

This is called serial group approval. In serial approval, a list of approvers must approve a process in order (the second person on the list can't approve until the first person has done so). You manage this using Oracle Business Process Manager (BPM) and object workflows.

This topic describes the following:

• Creating the group of approvers.

• Creating the approval flow.

• Deploying the project.

• Including the approval flow in an object workflow.

• Allowing the approval flow to complete early.

For more information about human tasks, refer to the Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle SOA Suite.

Create the Group of Approvers

To set up serial group approval, you must first create the group for your approvers.

1. Sign in to the BPM worklist application.

2. Navigate to Administration, Approval groups.

3. Create a group named CrmCommonApprovalGroup. Note that you must give the group this name.

4. Add the members of the group (the people you want to designate as approvers).

   The group can be static or dynamic.

5. Save the group.

Create the Approval Flow

Next, you create the approval flow, which is based on the standard approval flow template ExtnBusinessProcessComposite.

Note: Modifying templates in BPM Composer might be disabled for your implementation in this release. If so, contact Oracle Support for assistance.

1. Click New on the Business Processes page.

2. Select ExtnBusinessProcessComposite as the base template.

3. From the component palette on the right side of BPM Composer, drag an interactive task step into the approval flow in the same place where you removed the existing SerialApproval step.

4. Rename the new task step (for example, GroupApproval).

5. Select the task, click the four lines icon against it and click Open Properties.

6. At the bottom of the screen, search for all patterns and select the SerialApprovalGroupApproval task.

7. Click Apply changes.

8. Select the task again, click the four lines icon against it and click Open Data Association.

9. Map the inputs and outputs as shown in the table below.

   Inputs	GroupApproval	Outputs
   taskTitle	title	Not applicable
   taskOwner	taskOwner	Not applicable
   taskOwner	errorAssignee	Not applicable
   heldEntityIdStringVar	ObjectId	Not applicable
   Not applicable	outcome	taskOutcome

10. Click Apply.

11. Save the process.

Deploy the Project

1. From the main menu, select Deployment, Deploy Project.

2. In the Deploy Project dialog box, enter the following:

   Field	Value
   Revision ID	Provide an identifiable ID.
   Deployer User Name	Your sign-in name.
   Password	Your password.
   Mark composite revision as default	Select this option.

3. Click Deploy.

   A confirmation message appears after the project has been deployed successfully.

Include the Approval Flow in an Object Workflow

Now you can create an approval workflow that includes a serial list of approvers. To do this, create an object workflow that uses the GroupApproval flow that you created above.

1. Make sure you're in an active sandbox.

2. In Application Composer, click Object Workflows.

3. Enter a name for the object workflow, and select an object (for example, Opportunity).

4. Click Create.

5. Click the Create icon next to Business Process Flow.

6. Enter a name for the flow.

7. Click Search next to Project Name.

8. Select GroupApproval from the list and click OK.

9. Click Save.

When the object workflow is invoked, the first member of the group receives the approval notification. After the first person approves the flow, it's routed to the second person in the group and so on.

The flow is considered complete when all the members of the approval group approve the request.

Allow the Approval Flow to Complete Early

In most cases, if the first approver rejects the request, then you will want the flow to immediately complete and not move on to the next approver. You can set up your approval flow to do this by configuring the Early completion settings in BPM Worklist.

1. Click the Notifications icon on the global header.

2. Click More Details.

3. In BPM Worklist, click your user name and select Administration.

4. Click Task Configuration at the top of the page.

5. In the Search box, search for task you're using for the object workflow, such as SerialApprovalGroupApproval.

6. Click the Edit task pencil icon, then click the Configuration tab.

7. Select the Complete task immediately when participant chooses check box, and select Reject.

8. Click the Save icon and optionally enter comments.

9. Click the Commit task icon and optionally enter comments.