You are, optionally, able to set up Approval rules. Approval rules can be created based on a contract type (e.g. Legal, Procurement) and value (e.g. more than £10,000 annually) so that when a contract is submitted for approval, users are offered the correct approval rule based upon the contract's data.
Tip: Although Rules can be set up, you can also allow users to build their own approval route at the time they submit a contract for approval. This is controlled by the Approval Configuration setting of 'Allow user to build approval chain at submission?'
Creating a Rule
Navigate to Configuration -> Approval -> Rules
Click on [New] to create a new rule
Click on an existing rule record to view and edit if required
The Approval Rule form will be displayed, complete the relevant details and [Save]
Fig 1 - Approval Rule form
- Name - Give your new rule a name
- Contract Types - Choose one or more Contract Type(s) that this rule applies to. You can leave this field blank if the rule applies to all contracts
- Contract Value Criteria - Use the Drop down lists and fields to determine the Contract Value parameters, the default is 'Not specified'
- Approval Route - Choose the approval route for the contracts that meet the criteria specified.
- Use Supervisor - This will route contracts for approval to the submitter's supervisor
- Use Approval Chain - This will allow you to specify the users/approval groups that contracts for this rule will be routed to.
- Type - Specify whether the approval chain will be “sequential” (i.e. each user/approval group in turn) or “parallel” (all users/approval groups are notified at once)
- Click [Save]
- Repeat for each Rule that is required
When a user now submits a contract the rules will be checked and the user will be able to select a rule that is appropriate for routing.
TIP: If selecting an Approval Route of 'Use Supervisor' then the Users Supervisor must be defined within the Users profile, please refer to User setup for details how to assign a Supervisor to a User
TIP: If using the criteria of 'Has no Value' that this will apply to contracts where the Contract Value option has been set to 'No value', Contract values with a numeric '0' will not be applied to the rule
Fig 2 - Contract value form options