Approval

A process schema can contain one or more process levels of the type approval. During the approval level, the responsible agents can approve or reject items of a shopping cart. The number of approval process levels depends on the process schema and on whether the start conditions for a given process level apply for the shopping cart.

For approval levels, the SAP Business Workflow starts template WS40000017 (Approval Subworkflow).

Process

The approval process is triggered if one of the start conditions defined in Customizing applies, for example:
- Total value exceeds defined value
- Line item value exceeds defined value (line item approval)
The system determines the (alternative) responsible agents for the relevant decision set and creates a work item for them. During the approval level, a number of decision types are possible. For more information, see Decision Types.
One of the responsible agents accesses and processes the work item, which is then locked for the other users.

The following table shows the typical actions taken in an approval level and their consequences for the process flow:

Agent	Work Item Type	Action	Consequence
Approver	Decide	Rejects shopping cart	If configured, work item of type adjust sent to requester for acceptance
		Rejects at least one but not all shopping cart items	Work item of type adjust sent to requester
		Approves shopping cart	Approval process not complete: next process level determined
		Approves shopping cart	Approval process complete: if configured, work item of type adjust sent to requester
Requester	Adjust	Accepts rejection	Shopping cart not released
	Adjust	Accepts partial rejection	Next process level determined
	Not applicable	Edits shopping cart using POWL	Open work items called back; work item of type revise created for requester
	Revise	Changes shopping cart	Complete restart

Note Note

By default, document changes are not allowed during the approval process, except for rejecting items, and adding or changing approval notes and attachments. However, the system can be configured in a way to allow single fields of the document to be changed, or actions to be used, even during the approval process.

For more information, see SAP Note 1277921 and SAP Solution Manager under <project name> Configuration SAP SRM <release> Basic Settings for SAP SRM Cross-Application Settings Business Workflow Process-Controlled Workflow Process-Controlled Workflow Settings , in the section Approval Process Definition.

End of the note.

More Information

Approval with Completion