19.6.1 About Approvals

The approvals component allows Oracle APEX to create tasks for user approval.

The Approvals Component deals with all aspects of human approval in Oracle APEX, allowing developers to put approval functionality into apps. The Approvals Component creates one or more tasks for items that require approval. You can set up task approvers and administrators at design time, or determine them dynamically at runtime based on data related to the task.

APEX provides the following building blocks for the approvals functionality:

• Task Definition - A shared component for configuring task parameters, participants, and actions.
• Unified Task List - A page type in the Create Page Wizard, used to create a summary of a user's tasks that functions like an inbox.
• Task Details Page - A page that shows task details, which can include metadata, history, comments, and actions.
• APEX_APPROVAL - A package API for creating, retrieving, and managing tasks programmatically.

Once the task definition, unified task list, and task details page are created, you add the task definition to a page as a Human Task - Create page process. When the process activates, the approvals engine creates the task from the task definition. Users can view and take action on their tasks in the unified task list. Based on the user action, the Task State changes. For more on task states, see About Task States and Transitions.