Get Approvals for Sales Orders

Your order administrator might set up the Order Management work area so someone must approve your sales order before sending it to order fulfillment, according to an approval rule.

Here's an example that includes one Order Entry Specialist and three approvers.

an example flow of an approval that includes one Order Entry Specialist and three approvers

Order Management can route the sales order to each approver and track approval status while each approver finishes approval.

How Approval Works

Assume the sales order total exceeds $10,000 and your order administrator set up an rule.

  • If the sales order total exceeds $10,000, then get approval.

  • Send the approval request to your manager.

Here's the flow that this example uses.

the flow that this example uses

Note

  1. You create a sales order in the Order Management work area, then click Submit.

  2. If your order administrator set up approvals, and if the sales order meets the approval rule, then Order Management sets the status to Approval Pending, locks the sales order so you can't edit it, adds a lock icon immediately to the right of the order status, then sends a notification to the approver.

    To get details about the current state of the approval process, in the order header, click View Approval Information.

  3. Order Management adds a notification to the banner in the approver's work area. The approver can click the request to get details about it, add a comment, then approve or reject the request.

  4. If the approver.

    • Approves. Order Management sets the order status to Processing and sends the sales order to order fulfillment.

    • Rejects. Order Management unlocks the sales order, sets the order status to Draft, allows the approver to add a comment, then sends the sales order back to you for rework.

  5. If the approver rejects the approval request, then Order Management displays a comment that the approver added. It displays the comment as a note in the Approval Notes tab of your sales order. You can now modify the sales order and resubmit it to restart the approval process.

    The approval rule in this topic is only one example. Your order administrator might set up a variety of approval rules and different approvers.

    • A rule might test for the value of other attributes, such as quantity, a price override, and so on.

    • Approvers might include more than one person, or a group of people, such as a Sales Manager and a Sales Director.

    • Approval Notes might display details about each approver.

    If your order administrator also sets up credit check, then the credit check happens first, then approval. For details, see Release Holds for Order Lines That Fail Credit Check.

    Ask your order administrator for details about how approvals work for you.