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For each process level, the system determines the agents responsible for completing or approving purchasing documents. Depending on your Customizing settings, more than one person can be responsible for the items in one document (see Decision Types).

Agent determination is performed using the Business Add-In (BAdI) Define Agents (/SAPSRM/BD_WF_RESP_RESOLVER), which you can use to make your own process level-specific implementations. SAP Supplier Relationship Management (SAP SRM) delivers implementations for the following typical scenarios:

  • Responsible purchasers for shopping cart completion

  • Line managers (by evaluating the reporting line)

  • Users with a specific role

  • Spending limit approval

  • Parallel approval with overlapping responsibility

For more information, see the BAdI documentation in Customizing for SAP SRM under   SRM Server   Business Add-Ins   Business Workflow   Process-Controlled Workflow   Define Agents  .

For more information about the strategies on which these implementations are based, see SAP Service Marketplace at   http://service.sap.com/instguides   SAP Business Suite Applications   SAP SRM   SAP SRM Server 7.0   Workflow Guide – SAP SRM 7.0  .

You can also use this BAdI to specify fallback agents. Fallback agents receive a specific work item when the system cannot determine a responsible agent for this work item.

Caution Caution

Note that you should use the fallback agents function with caution. Fallback agents are able to forward work items to the appropriate agents, but they can also process work items themselves, that is, they can approve or reject the items in a document.

End of the caution.
Parallel Approval with Overlapping Responsibility

Instead of configuring a process schema with one process level for each responsible agent, you can also allow several agents to approve a specific item of a shopping cart on one process level. If you do so, all approvers receive a work item in parallel instead of one after the other in a fixed sequence. The approvers can then process their work items independently of each other. However, while a work item is being processed, the document is locked for other users.

The document can only receive the status Approved or enter the next process level after each agent has approved it. As soon as one agent rejects an item, all open work items are called back and the document status is set to Rejected.

Parallel approval with overlapping responsibility is possible for decision type 4 only.

For more information about configuring parallel approval, see SAP Solution Manager under   <project name>   Configuration   SAP SRM <release>   Basic Settings for SAP SRM   Cross-Application Settings   Business Workflow   Process-Controlled Workflow   Define Business Process Configuration   Configuring Parallel Approval with Overlapping Responsibility  .

To use this function, you must activate the business function SRM, Approval Process (SRM_APF_IMPR_1).

The following Customizing activity is relevant:   SAP Supplier Relationship Management   SRM Server   Cross-Application Basic Settings   Business Workflow   Activate Parallel Approval with Overlapping Responsibility (EHP1)  .

Example Example

Parallel approval is possible for items with multiple account assignment. You can distribute costs across accounts by percentage, by quantity, or by value. If the responsibility for approving items with multiple account assignment is divided among several approvers, the system can create one work item for each approver.

End of the example.