Workflow Steps of Transactions

Location: Contracts / Requisitions / Purchase Invoices / Travel Plans / Travel and Expense Claims > Workflow Steps

Workflow steps define necessary workflow actions separately for each transaction type. The workflow steps can be defined generally, for company groups, or for individual companies. The general settings apply if a company group or company does not have settings of its own. The order of the workflow steps can be edited by selecting a row and by clicking on the arrow pictures.

For each workflow step, the following items are defined: The name of the processing step, the type, the processing time (in days), whether inspection of processing limit applies to the step, whether approval by one or more approvers is required, and whether execution of the step automatically locks the transaction and/or posting.

You can enter the name of the processing step in any language that is enabled in the application. Clicking the arrow button next to the name entry field opens multilingual entry fields.
Processing Time, Days setting is used to specify how many days are allocated for the processing of the processing step. The processing time calculation is specified in section Processing Time Calculation Basis. For more information, see Processing Time of Workflow Steps.
Processing Limit setting is used to determine whether the processor's processing limit is reviewed when the processing step is approved. For more information, see Processing Limits of Workflow Steps.
The Approval required setting specifies whether the step must be approved by all of the processors, just one processor, or in a row-based manner.
- One Processor selection means that an approval by one processor is sufficient for approving the entire step
- All Processors selection mean that all the processors of the step must approve the step before it is considered approved. However, approval by one processor is not sufficient if another processor has marked the step as Waiting or Removed.
- Row based selection means that each posting row must be approved separately and it can be used for purchase invoices and travel and expense claims. The posting row specific approval is a license feature. On one settings level, there can be two steps that must be processed by rows. Processing by rows is meant to be used only for the processing steps whose type is internal. For additional information on row-based approval, see Approving transactions by row.
The Allowed Processors setting specifies whether the organization unit of the transaction affects the processing rights of the processing step. For more information, see Limiting the Processing of Transactions Based on the Organization Unit.
- All members means that the organization unit of the transaction does not limit the processing rights of the step. In this case, however, the member of the company must have access rights for the step in question in order to be able to process it.
- Members of the transaction's unit means that only the users who are members of the transaction's organization unit can process the step.
- Members of the transaction's unit and sub-units means that only the users who are members of the transaction's organization unit or its sub-units can process the step.
If you select Yes in the Locks the Transaction column for a processing step, the transaction will be locked when the step is completed. After this the transaction can only be edited by a user whose user profile allows editing locked transactions.
If a processing step is defined with a Yes in the Locks the Posting column, the transaction posting will be locked when the step is completed, if the posting has been completed. After this the posting can only be edited by a user whose user profile allows editing locked postings.

Note: Changing some of the workflow settings does not affect transactions already stored in the workflow, but only transactions that are entered after the change. Such settings are, for example, "Approval Required", "Locks a Transaction" and "Locks a Posting" and the addition of new processing steps or changing the order of the steps. Changing other settings affects also the transactions that are already stored in the application. The processing steps of an individual transaction can be changed in the Processors function on the Process Transaction page.

Transactions are approved without workflow when workflow steps are saved, but no processing steps are defined. In this case, the Workflow Steps screen of the organization level in question displays in red the notification "Transactions are approved automatically (no processing steps)."

The Processing Steps Related to Ordering and Receiving Requisitions

Requisitions have their own processing steps in the application: Order and Receipt. The requisitions' own processing steps cannot be removed, their order cannot be changed, and new processing steps cannot be created. Instead, you can freely define a multi-lingual name for the steps, using any language available in the application.

The transaction will automatically continue to the Order step after the last normal processing step of the transaction has been completed and approved. Respectively, the transaction will continue to the Receipt step once the Order step has been completed and approved. If several processors have been named for a step, it is enough for one processor to perform both the Order and the Receipt step.

Workflow

Due Date Emphasis setting is used to specify whether the due date of a transaction will be highlighted on the task list and in workflow control. If the setting is left blank, the due date will not be highlighted.

Save Date Emphasis setting is used to specify whether the save date of a transaction will be highlighted on the task list and in workflow control. The save date of a transaction will be highlighted if the transaction has been waiting for processing in the active processing step for at least the time specified in the setting. If the setting is left blank the transaction date will not be highlighted.

Basis for Calculating the Processing Time selection is used to specify whether the due date of the transaction or the start date of the processing step is used when calculating transaction processing times. The processing time of a requisition will be calculated on the basis of the starting date of the processing step, regardless of the setting, if no due date has been set in the requisition data. For additional information about processing time calculation, see Processing Time of Workflow Steps.

Processors

The Workflow Step Processors section is used to specify whether one processor can process several processing steps of one transaction.

Default Processors settings are used to direct the automatic attaching of default processors to transactions. For each transaction type the Default Processors section on the Workflow Steps page is used to specify where the default processors will be retrieved for the transaction type in question. Default processors for a transaction are searched in a certain order. This order is the same as the order in which the sections are listed in the Default Processors section in the workflow steps of the transaction type in question, taking into account what sections are selected for each workflow step.

Generally, it is smart to select all sections, because, if required, you can leave real default processors undefined at some level. For example, you do not have to specify default processors for suppliers, even if the Suppliers section is selected in the workflow steps.

For purchase invoices, for example, default processors of each step are retrieved in the following order if every section is selected:

From contract
From supplier
From organization unit
From company
If default processors cannot be found, then the supervisor of the unit becomes the processor of this step.

If a processor is found for a processing step, the search for a processor for the present step does not continue to the next level. Default users of different processing steps can be defined at different levels, for example, a default reviewer can be defined for a supplier, but an approver can be defined for a company. For more information, see Defining Default Transaction Processors.

Informative Flow Step

Each transaction type can automatically use the For Information workflow step, which you do not have to define separately. For requisitions, travel plans and travel claims you can specify that a person's supervisor is always entered in the For Information step in the Informative flow recipients section of the workflow steps.