Switching From the Approval Routing Feature to SuiteFlow for Purchases
If you already use the Approval Routing feature for purchase approvals, consider the following before you enable the preference to use SuiteFlow.
When the Purchase Order preference for Approval Routing is set, basic functions of the Approval Routing feature are disabled for purchase requests and purchase orders.
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Email notifications are no longer automatically sent when purchase requests are awaiting an approval, are approved, or are rejected. To send such email, you must incorporate these steps into the approval workflow that you create.
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Purchase transactions do not automatically show Approve and Reject buttons to process forms for approval in Employee Center. To show buttons on forms, you must incorporate them into the approval workflow that you create.
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There is no longer Supervisor or Approver hierarchy-based approval routing.
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The Supervisor Approval box no longer shows in non-Employee Center roles.
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Purchase requests that are unapproved or partially approved revert to a status of Pending Approval. You must use the Initiate Workflow Mass Update to start over in approval workflow
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You can later disable the preference and go back to using the Approval Routing feature.
To replace these former functions, you must incorporate them into an approval routing workflow you create. Now, you use SuiteFlow to process approvals for purchases instead of the previous method associated with the Approval Routing feature.
Before you enable the preference, first set up your approval routing workflow. Then, set the workflow to Released when you enable the preference
For details about setting up approval workflows, see Creating Your First Workflow.
After you enable the preference, the following changes take place in your account with regard to purchase approvals.
Initiate Workflow Mass Update
When you use SuiteFlow for existing purchase approvals, purchase orders, and requests that are unapproved or partially approved have the Pending Approval status. Approval steps you previously entered may need to be re-entered using SuiteFlow. You must run an Initiate Workflow mass update after you have set up your workflow.
When you run the mass update, the existing transactions that require additional approval steps are incorporated into the workflow at the appropriate stages. Then, they are ready for remaining processing within the workflow.
For details about running the Initiate Workflow mass update, see Mass Initiating Workflow Instances.
Approval Status field
When you use SuiteFlow for purchase approvals, purchase orders and requests now include an Approval Status field. The Approval Status field reflects the state of the transaction in the approval process.
Purchase orders and requests may have one of the following statuses:
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Pending Approval – The purchase is in the approval queue.
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Approved – The purchase has been given approval for processing.
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Rejected – The purchase has not been approved and will not be processed.
Existing purchase orders and requests show the following in the new Approval Status field based on the transaction status:
|
Previous Status |
New Status |
|---|---|
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Pending Supervisor Approval |
Pending Approval |
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Pending Receipt |
Approved |
|
Partially Received |
Approved |
|
Pending Bill |
Approved |
|
Pending Billing/Partially Received |
Approved |
|
Fully Billed |
Approved |
|
Closed |
Approved |
|
Rejected by Supervisor |
Rejected |
Next Approver Field
When you use SuiteFlow for purchase approvals, purchase orders and requests include a Next Approver field. This field is populated based on the associated workflow.
For example, in your workflow you may create a state of Pending Approval. In that state you create a formula to set the Next Approver as the employee's supervisor.