2. An Introduction to Workflow Approval Processes in Financials Cloud
Deep Dive:
An Introduction to Workflow Approval Processes in Financials Cloud
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Cristian Ramirez Principal Instructor Oracle University October 22, 2018

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5. Program Agenda 1
Approval Management Overview Approval Concepts General Ledger Approvals Payables Approvals Receivables Approvals Expense Approvals New Features and Additional Resources 2 3 4 5 6 7

6. Program Agenda 1
Approval Management Overview Approval Concepts General Ledger Approvals Payables Approvals Receivables Approvals Expense Approvals Additional Resources 2 3 4 5 6 7

7. Approval Workflow: Overview
Workflow is an automated process that:
Passes tasks from a user, a group of users, or an application to another user or group for consideration or action.
Routes tasks in a logical sequence to achieve an end result.
A workflow human task is anything that requires attention or action from users. Examples of tasks include approving an expense report or journals.
For workflows, Oracle Cloud Applications use the approval management extensions of the human workflow services from Oracle SOA Suite, as well as the Oracle BPM Worklist application.
Oracle SOA Suite:
Is a comprehensive software suite used to build, deploy, and manage service-oriented architectures (SOA).
Provides a human workflow service that handles all interactions with users or groups in business processes.
Oracle BPM Worklist provides the user interface for:
Users to access tasks assigned to them and perform actions based on their roles in the workflow.
Implementers to perform approval management setup, to define who should act on which types of transactions under what conditions.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

8. Approval Management: Overview
Controls approval workflows for business objects such as journal entries, expense reports, supplier invoices, etc.
Enables you to define complex, multistage task routing rules.
Integrates with the setup in Human Capital Management (HCM) to derive approvers based on the supervisory hierarchy.
To set up approval management, use the following setup tasks from the Setup and Maintenance work area, which take you to Oracle BPM Worklist.
Manage Approval Groups: Optionally create and maintain sets of users who can act on workflow tasks, for example a chain of approvers for journal approvals.
Manage Task Configurations: Define approval rules that determine how and when journals are routed for approval. For example, you can specify the amount that a journal batch must meet to be automatically approved and not sent to any approver.
To access these setup tasks for journal approvals, use the Manage Journal Approval Rules task. For other approvals use the BPM Worklist Administration Duty role, which is predefined for the Application Implementation Consultant job role.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

9. Program Agenda 1
Approval Management Overview Approval Concepts General Ledger Approvals Payables Approvals Receivables Approvals Expense Approvals New Features and Additional Resources 2 3 4 5 6 7

10. Key Concepts: Stages
Stages organize approval flows in logical categories within a task. For example, within a contract approval task, there can be one stage for contract header approval and another for line-level approval.
Each task has at least one stage.
Stages and their flow (serial or parallel, and specific order) are predefined.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Administration

11. Key Concepts: Participants
A participant represents a specific set of policies and routing.
For example, you can route a journal to the supervisor of the person who entered the journal or to an another manager based on the dollar amount of the journal.
Participants are predefined, and can be enabled or disabled.
Participant types:
FYI
Parallel
Serial
Single
Each participant has at least one predefined rule set.
Some assignees are disabled by default, but you can enable them to use them for the task. You cannot add or edit assignees, for example change the Assignee type.
Assignee Types
FYI: Task requires no action from assignees, other than to take note of the task.
Parallel: Task can be routed to multiple people at the same time.
Serial: Task can be routed to one person at a time, according to a defined routing.
Single: Task is routed to multiple people at the same time, but only requires approval from the first responder.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

12. Key Concepts: Rule Sets and Rules
Rule sets are collections of rules, and they are predefined for each participant with these characteristics:
Flow: Serial or parallel, and specific order, for assignees with multiple rule sets.
Business object level: Header or line.
Voting regime: Consensus approval, majority approval, and so on, for rule sets that route to a group of users
In each rule, you define a condition and specify the routing using a list builder.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

13. Key Concepts: List Builders
A list builder is a mechanism to determine the workflow task participants, usually approvers, for example, based on going up the supervisory hierarchy.
List builders include:
Supervisory: Hierarchy of employees and managers.
Resource: A specific user or application role.
Approval Group: A set of specific users.
Job Level: Supervisory hierarchy with job levels in consideration.
Position: Starts with a given approver's position and continues up the chain until a certain position is found.
The following list builders are based on structures in HCM, which must be set up appropriately.
Supervisory: The hierarchy of employees, with defined job roles, and their managers. For example:
Joe Smith, Accounting Assistant
Alex Park, Accounting Manager
Anna Lee, Senior Accounting Manager
Jane Brown, Director of Accounting
Mike Green, Vice President of Finance
If two levels of approvals are required, and Joe Smith submits a journal for approval, then approvals from Alex Park and Anna Lee are required.
Job Level: The supervisory hierarchy with job levels in consideration. The approval list is generated based on the starting assignee specified in a rule and continuing until an approver with a sufficient job level is found.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

14. Approval Hierarchies Approval List Type Functionality
Human Resources (HR) Supervisory
This method uses the HR Supervisory hierarchy levels and specifies the number of levels available for approval.
Job Level
A relative dollar amount can be attached to a job. The approval list moves up the HR Supervisory hierarchy to the point it finds a job with the necessary approval amount.
Position
A relative dollar amount can be attached to a position.
Approval Group
Approver groups represent functional or subject matter
experts outside the transaction's managerial chain of authority, such as Legal or HR personnel.
Dual Chain
Dual chains can be processed at the same time.
Use the following Oracle Cloud Approvals Management (AMX) List Builder to build your approval hierarchy list.
For the job and position level approvals, the approval list continues up the hierarchy until it finds the approver with the correct approval authority.
A journal can be escalated to a new approver by the administrator.
Note: Best practices are to select Job Level, HR Supervisory, or Position list builders for your journal approval rules.
A Resource list builder is also available.
The rules in a rule set need to cover all scenarios. Otherwise the rule evaluation can fail. For example:
If one rule checks for the Condition Journal Category is equal to Adjustment
Another rule should check for the Condition Journal Category is not equal to Adjustment.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

15. Manage Task Configurations
Reset
Save
Use the Manage Task Configurations task in the Setup and Maintenance work area.
In the Tasks to be configured pane, review the predefined tasks in the server domain, which generally maps to a product family, and edit tasks as needed.
Edit task
Commit task
Setup and Maintenance > Enter Manage Task Configurations in search field > Search > Click appropriate task in Name column.
In the Tasks to be configured pane, review the predefined tasks in the server domain, which generally maps to a product family, and edit tasks as needed.
To edit a task:
Select a task in the Tasks to be configured pane.
Click the Edit task icon in the pane toolbar. You are in edit mode and can select other tasks to edit without clicking Edit task again.
Make changes in the tabs for the task.
Click the Save icon in the toolbar. Your changes are retained even if you sign out, but are not yet in effect. To discard all changes, saved or not, click the Reset icon.
Click the Commit task icon to deploy your saved changes so that they are in effect.
Note: If the task is not predefined as rule-based, then the behavior does not need to be changed, and you cannot edit the task. When you select such a task, you get a message stating that no rules metadata is associated with the task.
Tabs for each task
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

16. Manage Task Configurations
Setup and Maintenance > Enter Manage Task Configurations in search field > Search > Click appropriate task in Name column > Select task in Tasks to be configured pane
The tabs for each task are:
General: View general information about the task as a whole. Usually you don’t need to use this tab.
Assignees: View and edit approval policies and routing.
Data: View information about data that’s available for use in the rules in the task. Usually you don’t need to use this tab.
Deadlines: Define deadlines for the task, and policies for task expiration and escalation.
Notifications: Set up notifications to be sent to people with respect to the task.
Access: Determine access to perform specific actions on the task.
Configuration: Define settings for the task.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

17. Assignees Tree Participant Stage Business Rule
Setup and Maintenance > Enter Manage Task Configurations in search field > Search > Click appropriate task in Name column > Select task in Tasks to be configured pane > Edit task > Assignees tab > Switch to Vertical Layout
Use the Assignees tab to define policies and routing.
The assignees tree shows the stages and assignees within each stage.
The main boxes are stages, and the boxes within are assignees.
Click the name of the stage or assignee to select it.
Make sure that all unused stages and assignees are disabled:
Select the stage or assignee.
In the pane below the tree, click Advanced.
Select the Ignore Stage or Ignore Assignee check box.
Stage
Business Rule
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

18. Assignees Use the Assignees tab to define policies and routing.
The assignees tree shows the stages and participants within each stage.
The main boxes are stages, and the boxes within are participants.
Click the name of the stage or participant to select it.
Make sure that all unused stages and participants are disabled:
Select the stage or participant.
In the pane below the tree, click Advanced.
Select the Ignore Stage or Ignore Participant check box.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Administration

19. Rule Sets
Click the Go to rule icon in the Assignees tree to open rule sets for a given participant.
Rule Set
Setup and Maintenance > Enter Manage Task Configurations in search field > Search > Click appropriate task in Name column > Select task in Tasks to be configured pane > Edit task > Assignees tab > Switch to Vertical Layout > Go to rule
For example, you select the Supervisory_JournaApprovalRuleSet assignee, to open the Supervisory_JournalApprovalRuleSet rule set that is predefined for that assignee. This rule set contains three predefined rules that you can edit by clicking the Expand button.
Note: For ease of maintenance, consider editing existing rule sets instead of creating new ones. You should not have to create or delete rule sets.
Expand
Rule
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

20. Defining Rule Settings
Make sure each valid rule being used is active.
Expand the rule.
Click Show Advanced Settings.
Select the Active check box.
Use Priority field in advanced settings to set priority for rules.
Setup and Maintenance > Enter Manage Task Configurations in search field > Search > Click appropriate task in Name column > Select task in Tasks to be configured pane > Edit task > Assignees tab > Switch to Vertical Layout > Go to rule > Expand > Show Advanced Settings
Set priorities for rules if you want some rules to take precedence over other rules in the same rule set. The priority value for each rule is relative to other rules. In other words, there is no predefined meaning for Medium, other than that it takes precedence over rules that are set at Low, Lower, or Lowest.
Expand
Show Advanced Settings
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

21. Defining Rules
Click the Validate button as you define rules to test whether your definitions work.
Check the Business Rule Validation - Log sub tab for any issues that need to be addressed.
IF component
THEN component
Rule set
Rule
Validate
Setup and Maintenance > Enter Manage Task Configurations in search field > Search > Click appropriate task in Name column > Select task in Tasks to be configured pane > Edit task > Assignees tab > Switch to Vertical Layout > Go to rule > Expand rule
At least one rule in a rule set must evaluate to true.
The Business Rule Validation – Log sub tab appears below the rules, at the bottom of the Assignees tab, after you click the Validate button.
Each rule consists of IF and THEN components.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

22. IF Component
The IF component contains at least one condition to determine when the rule is applied.
Each condition contains a subject, operator, and criterion.
You can have multiple conditions for one rule.
Setup and Maintenance > Enter Manage Task Configurations in search field > Search > Click appropriate task in Name column > Select task in Tasks to be configured pane > Edit task > Assignees tab > Switch to Vertical Layout > Go to rule > Expand rule
To select values for the subject or criterion, click the Left Value or Right value icon to open the Condition Browser dialog box. What’s available in the condition browser depends on what you are editing.
To add another condition, click the down arrow at the end of the last defined condition.
In this example, the conditions for the rule are:
The journal must be more than 1000, and
The employee is not inactive
Note: You can have multiple conditions for one rule.
Operator
Subject
Criterion
Add condition
Left Value icon
Right Value icon
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

23. THEN Component
The THEN component contains actions that define what happens if the conditions in the IF component are met.
Setup and Maintenance > Enter Manage Task Configurations in search field > Search > Click appropriate task in Name column > Select task in Tasks to be configured pane > Edit task > Assignees tab > Switch to Vertical Layout > Go to rule > Expand rule
The THEN component consists of the list builder and related attributes, response type, automatic action setting, and rule name.
The list builder and related attributes define how task assignees are derived. In this example:
List Builder: The selected list builder is Supervisory, so approvals go up the employment reporting chain.
Number of levels: Two levels up the supervisory hierarchy are required - the manager of person who submitted the journal, and that manager’s manager.
Starting Participant: The first approver is defined as the manager of the person who submitted the journal.
The Response type indicates if the assignees are required to address the task or if they are just to receive an FYI notification. In this example, the participant must take action to approve or reject the journal.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

24. Rule Example
Setup and Maintenance > Enter Manage Task Configurations in search field > Search > Click appropriate task in Name column > Select task in Tasks to be configured pane > Edit task > Assignees tab > Switch to Vertical Layout > Go to rule > Expand rule.
For the same rule set, you have another rule with these conditions in the IF component:
The journal total must be the same or less than 1000, and
The employee is not inactive
If the condition is met, then based on the values in THEN component, the task receives automatic approval.
Number of levels: Is set to 1, which must be the case if you enable automatic action.
Starting Participant: Is set to the task creator.
Top Participant: Is set to the last possible approver, which in this example is the CFO of the company, Casey Brown. Depending on the approval settings:
The starting participant shows as the approver if the task is automatically approved.
If the starting participant submits the journal, there will be one or more levels of approval.
If the manger submitted the journal, then there is only one level of approval, the CFO.
Auto Action Enabled: Is set to True, so that the specified action automatically occurs if the conditions are met.
Auto Action: Is set to “APPROVE” so that the journal is automatically approved if the conditions are met. The other possible action is null.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

25. Deadlines
Use the Deadlines tab to configure when tasks expire, escalate, or renew.
Setup and Maintenance > Enter Manage Task Configurations in search field > Search > Click appropriate task in Name column > Select task in Tasks to be configured pane > Edit task > Deadlines tab
You can define the policy so that if the assignee doesn’t act on the task within a certain period of time after it was assigned, then:
Escalate: The task is reassigned up the approval chain, for example to a manager or director. Escalation policies use the LDAP directory, while the list builder uses the HCM hierarchy, so make sure that both are in sync.
Expire: The task expires and the requester needs to resubmit it. Expired tasks are automatically rejected.
Renew: The task is still assigned to the same assignee. You determine the number of times the task can be renewed. After all renewal periods have passed, then the task expires.
For example, you enter 14 days for the Duration fields, with the Static check box selected. If the assignee doesn’t act on the task within two weeks, then:
Escalate: The task is reassigned to the assignee’s manager.
Expire: The task expires and the requester needs to resubmit it.
Renew: The task is still assigned to the same assignee. If another two weeks pass, then the task is renewed again, because the Maximum Renewals field has a value of 2. After four weeks have passed, the task expires if the assignee still takes no action.
Expire
Escalate
Renew
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

26. Notifications
When workflow tasks are assigned to users, they get notifications through and the Notifications icon in the global header.
Notifications can be sent through other channels such as instant messaging.
Workflow tasks are managed in the Worklist: Notifications and Approvals work area and configured in the Setup and Maintenance work area.
If you have the BPM Workflow System Admin Role (BPMWorkflowAdmin), you can disable or enable these notifications for all users.
For example, you can disable notifications during testing, to avoid sending test notifications to users, and then enable notifications when ready.
When you disable workflow notifications:
The setting applies only to notifications that are sent as part of workflow tasks, not to all s in general.
Users can still find their workflow tasks in the Worklist: Notifications and Approvals work area.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Administration

27. Notifications
When enabled, as they are by default, notifications are sent to appropriate users as part of a workflow process.
Each workflow task has default setup, for example, to send s to assignees whenever they're assigned a task
Navigate to: Setup and Maintenance > Enter Manage Task Configurations in search field > Search > Click appropriate task in Name column > Select task in Tasks to be configured pane > Edit task > Notifications tab.
Setup Options
Define when notifications are sent, and to whom
Add content to headers
Define what appears in the From field for the s
Set an address to send all notifications to during testing
Setting Up Notification Scenarios
To Define the scenarios for sending notifications:
Navigate to the Notifications subtab in BPM Worklist for the task you want to edit.
Click the Add Notification icon to enable additional notification scenarios, or edit existing rows directly.
In the Task Status column, select when to send the , for example when the task has expired.
In the Recipient column, select whom to send the to.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Administration

28. Configuration Use the Configurations tab to:
Manage Assignment and Routing Policy
Manage Early Completion Settings
Manage Approval Pre-Conditions
Manage Miscellaneous Configurations
Setup and Maintenance > Enter Manage Task Configurations in search field > Search > Click appropriate task in Name column > Select task in Tasks to be configured pane > Edit task > Configuration tab
For example, if you have a task requiring approval on individual journals, and you change the Task Aggregation setting to None, then assignees would get 15 notifications for approval if there are 15 journals for approval.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

29. Access
On the Access tab, you can take away access to perform certain actions on the task.
Open the Actions section.
For a specific task action, open the Individuals with access choice list.
Deselect check boxes as needed.
Setup and Maintenance > Enter Manage Task Configurations in search field > Search > Click appropriate task in Name column > Select task in Tasks to be configured pane > Edit task > Access tab
Individuals with access:
Approver: Users who have already acted on the task up to this point.
Assignees: User who is assigned to take action on the task.
Initiator: User who submitted or created the task.
Owner: User with administration access to the task. This type is not used for any of your users.
Reviewer: Users who can add comments and attachments to a task.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

30. Manage Approval Groups
Use the Approval Groups tab in Oracle BPM Worklist to define sets of users that can be selected for an Approval Group list builder. Tasks would be routed to the specified group of users.
Approval groups:
Can be nested within other approval groups.
Are stored at the server level and not shared across domains. For example, you cannot use the same group for Financials and HCM.
Can be static or dynamic.
Note: Approval groups are static for Cloud implementations.
Approval Group Examples
You have a special, ongoing project that involves a wide range of employees. You can create an approval group of the managers involved, who must approve journals related to the project.
You have certain categories of requisitions that require pre-approval from a select group of people. You can create an approval group containing the users who all must approve such requisitions in parallel before additional approvals can be made.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

31. Manage Approval Groups: Static
You select specific users to include in the group and specify the flow of tasks from one user to another.
If the group is used in a rule set that has parallel routing, then the task is passed to all users in the group at the same time.
Reorder Member
Add Member
Setup and Maintenance > Enter Manage Approval Groups in search field > Search > Click appropriate task in Name column
To edit or reorder a member of the group, first select the member in the chart and then click the Edit Member, Push Member Up, or Push Member Down icons.
Note
Static Approval Group requires ongoing maintenance because it uses named users. For example, if a user leaves the company or change departments, you must update the Approval Group.
Dynamic approval groups are not available in Oracle Cloud implementations.
Edit Member
Delete Member
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

32. Program Agenda 1
Approval Management Overview Approval Concepts General Ledger Approvals Payables Approvals Receivables Approvals Expense Approvals New Features and Additional Resources 2 3 4 5 6 7

33. Journal Approval Rules
Journal approval in Oracle Cloud applications uses:
Oracle Cloud Approvals Management (AMX)
Oracle Business Process Execution Language (BPEL)
This process:
Determines if approval is required.
Submits the batch to approvers (if required).
Notifies appropriate individuals of the approval results.
The Journal Approval Process obtains the necessary management approvals for manual journal batches.
The process gives one of four results:
Approval Not Required: The journal batch does not need approval.
Approved: The journal batch was approved by all necessary approvers.
Rejected: The journal batch was rejected by an approver.
Validation Failed: The journal batch failed the validation process and was never submitted to the approver.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

34. Journal Approval Rules Setup
Enable Journal Approval 1
Specify Journal Sources 2
Enable approval for the ledger in the Journal Processing section on the Specify Ledger Options page. Navigate to the Specify Ledger Options page through the General Ledger Functional area from Financials Task in Setup and Maintenance.
Enable approval for a specific source on the Manage Journal Sources page. Navigate to the Specify Ledger Options page through the General Ledger Functional area from Financials Task in Setup and Maintenance. Click on Setup, open the General Ledger functional area, select the Specify Ledger Options and click on Select to set scope. After selecting your ledger, click Save and Close.
Create approval rules to reflect your corporate or departmental policies in approving journal entries.
Note: Approval is for the entire journal batch. If a journal requires approval, submitting it for posting automatically sends it for approval before posting. 3
Create Journal Approval Rules
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

35. Journal Approval Rule Considerations
The application comes with one predefined approval rule. If you enable the ledger and the source for approval, then the journal entry is sent one level up in the supervisory hierarchy for approval.
You must configure the approval rules in the Oracle Business Process Management (BPM) Worklist application user interface. For a simple approval scenario, start by defining one of these rules:
Journal approval based on the highest journal line amount per ledger per batch.
Journal approval based on the highest journal amount per ledger per batch.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

36. Journal Approval Rule Considerations
Journal approval behavior is based on where you are in the period close process.
For example, ask yourself, which stage are you in:
Beginning
Middle
End of the month
Pre-close
Close
Post close
Quarter close
For example: Month-end or quarter-end closing entries can be:
Larger amounts than entries that are earlier in the month and can need more levels of approval.
Entered by employees with more authority so need less levels of approval.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

37. Journal Approval Rule Example
Enter the following approval rules to apply to your journal batch when your maximum journal line amount is:
Less than 50,000 United States dollars (USD): No approval required.
Between 50,000 to 100,000 USD: Requires one level of approval.
Greater than 100,000 USD: Requires two levels of approval.
Build your rules for every combination of ledger, entered amount, approval level, or other needed scenarios by using the pattern in the suggested rules.
Define your own rules based on attributes from the different parts of your journal, including the ledger, batch, header, or line level.
For example, use category, source, account, or descriptive flexfield information as selection criteria for the journals to be sent for approval.
The ledger is included in the rules because you typically define approval rules per ledger. Set the options that enable journal approval at the ledger level and by journal source. This allows the approval process to determine which journals to send for approval.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

38. Journal Status Page
The Journals section of the General Accounting dashboard displays the journals requiring your approval.
The Journals page allows you to approve or reject journals if you are the current approver.
Navigate to: General Accounting > Journals
You must have the privilege to approve journals to view your journals that need approval in the Journals region.
Journals requiring approval by others are also shown.
Approval notifications display a table of key journal attributes for each journal and a list of past, current, and future approvers.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

39. Withdraw Approval The Withdraw Approval button on the Journals page:
Is used at anytime in the approval process to withdraw journals from the process.
Allows you to edit the journal.
Sets the completion status of the journal to Incomplete.
Submits the entry for approval again after your changes.
Note: Allocation journals are not routed through the approval process.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

40. Program Agenda 1
Approval Management Overview Approval Concepts General Ledger Approvals Payables Approvals Receivables Approvals Expense Approvals New Features and Additional Resources 2 3 4 5 6 7

41. Invoice Approval
Approval options control the automated invoice approval process.
When enabled, you can choose to:
Require validation before approval.
Specify Accounting Preferences.
Allow force approval.
Payables provides configurable predefined invoice approval rules and the ability to add rules using the Approval Management extensions (AMX) of the Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle Human Workflow. The invoice approval process determines whether an invoice requires approval, and if so, automatically routes the invoice to the applicable approvers who then approve or reject the invoice. Invoices cannot be paid until they are approved.
If enabled, you can choose to:
Require validation before approval: Sends invoices through the approval workflow only after the invoices are checked for completeness and holds by the validation process.
Specify Accounting Preferences: The 3 choices are:
Account regardless of approval status
Require accounting before approval
Require approval before accounting
Allow force approval: Enables approving managers to override the workflow and manually approve invoices.
Note: For more information on managing approvals, see Appendix A.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Payables to Cash Management Implementation

42. Invoice Approval Flow
Invoice approval enables you to enforce company policy and pay invoices only after they are approved. This improves auditability and controls unplanned purchases.
The graphic above illustrates the approval flow:
Enable invoice approval: Enable invoice approval option on the Manage Invoice Options page to enable approval for a business unit. You can use the default approval configuration or you can configure the rules to meet your requirements. Use the Manage Task Configuration for Financials task to navigate to the routing rules and controls.
Enter invoices: Create invoices through import, invoice imaging, spreadsheets, or manual entry.
Submit invoice approval: Initiate approval invoice action or schedule the Initiate Invoice Approval Workflow process to run on a regular basis.
Approve invoice document: Respond to the approval notification for the invoice.
Note: Approvers can respond to the approval request from the notification, the Worklist notifications page, the Invoice work area, or the Edit Invoice page.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Payables to Cash Management Implementation

43. Line Level Approvals Approvers can:
Review, approve, or reject each line individually.
Request additional information.
Receive one notification containing only the lines required to approve for a specific invoice.
The Invoice Line Level Approval feature enables organizations to configure approval workflows and rules for invoice lines.
An invoice can have multiple line items that require approvals from different sets of approvers.
The invoice lines are evaluated according to the configured rules and the list of approvers built for each invoice line.
When the approvers take the appropriate action, notifications are sent to the next set of approvers.
This process continues until all approvals have been completed.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Payables to Cash Management Implementation

44. Predefined Rules
You can configure predefined workflows to manage invoice approvals.
The invoice approval workflow includes the following predefined rules:
Invoices greater than or equal to 1000 require approval by the immediate supervisor of the requester on the invoice.
Invoices less than 1000 are automatically approved.
When the invoice approval process starts, a workflow builds the list of approvers based on the defined rules. Approval notifications are sent to the first set of approvers on the list. When the approvers respond, notifications are sent to the next set of approvers. This process repeats until all approvals are complete.
You can select from the following actions:
Initiate: This action starts the approval workflow and routes the invoice to the applicable approvers. The approval status on the invoice changes from Required to Initiated.
Withdraw: This action cancels all pending workflow processes and open notifications. The approval status on the invoice changes from Initiated to Withdrawn.
Hold: The Hold action delays the invoice approval. The approval status on the invoice changes from Required to Held from Approval. The invoice still requires approval before it can be paid, and you must initiate approval at a later time.
Force Approve: You may have to force approve an invoice, for example, if an invoice must be paid immediately. Before you can select this action, you must have the appropriate privileges and enable the Allow Force Approval option on the Manage Invoice Options page. The approval status on the invoice changes to Manually approved. Note: The Accounts Payable Manager job role can force approve invoices.
Resubmit: You can resubmit an invoice for approval when the status is Rejected, Withdrawn, Held from Approval, or Resubmit for Approval.
Approve: Managers use this action to approve the invoice.
Reject: Managers use this action to reject the invoice.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Payables to Cash Management Implementation

45. Invoice Routing for Account Coding
Invoices from Various Sources
Validation Process
User Assignment
Distribution Entry and Validations
Invoice Approval
What does it do ?
Routes invoices to business users for providing accounting information.
Routes invoices automatically based on invoice data completeness.
Assigns invoices to business users based on routing rules.
Notifies the user through and workflow notification.
The Invoice Routing for Account Coding feature enables you to route invoices to business users for entering accounting information. Invoices requiring accounting information are automatically routed to the designated users based on routing rules.
This feature enables streamlining the process of recording unmatched invoices and improve the overall efficiency of the Payables department.
Generally, all unmatched invoices need the accounting information entered to complete it. The Payables clerk usually has to interact with multiple users to get this information. The information is internal, can differ from invoice to invoice, and depends on the expenditure incurred. In most cases, the business users that have incurred the expenditure can provide the details for the accounting information. This feature provides customers an efficient way to route unmatched invoices to these business users to provide the accounting information.
Workflow Notification
Users are notified about the assignment through and workflow notifications.
A new workflow task has been created to route invoices for account coding. This new workflow enables customer to defined the assignment rules based the business needs. Business users to whom the invoices are assigned for account coding, can directly enter the accounting information in the Workflow notification.
All the standard workflow features such as reminder, escalation are available with this workflow. Assignment rule can be defined based on all invoice attributes.
You can also perform additional actions such as
Request additional information
Reassign to other users
Return back the assignment to the initiator.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Payables to Cash Management Implementation

46. Payment Approval: Overview
Oracle Payments introduces Payment Approval. You enable the Payment Approval feature on the Manage Disbursement System Options pages. Payment Approval enables you to:
Enforce control over funds available by sending payments to approvers for review before final payments are made to suppliers or employees.
Define an approval policy for payments created through a payment process request.
Stop the payment process request at the Review Proposed Payments stage, and enable approvers to optionally remove payments directly from the payment process request to prioritized payments for the best use of funds available.
Approve or reject payments from the payment process request from the payments page or directly from s. You can also perform other approval actions from payment approval worklist notifications.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Payables to Cash Management Implementation

47. Implementation Overview: Setups
Setup for payments approval is performed from Setup and Maintenance using the following tasks:
Manage Disbursement System Options.
Manage Task Configurations for Financials which accesses the Business Process Management (BPM) Worklist application.
The following predefined job roles grant access to the setups:
Financial Application Administrator
Accounts Payable Supervisor
Business Process Human Taskflow Administration Duty
Oracle Financials Cloud: Payables to Cash Management Implementation

48. Enabling Payment Approval
From the Manage Disbursement System Options, click on Enable payment approval to enforce approvals for payment process requests.
Navigate to: Setup and Maintenance > Financials > Payments > Manage Disbursement System Options page.
The Approval process is enabled at the payment process requests level and not at the individual payments level.
When the payment approvals option is enabled, all payment process requests go through the payment approvals process. When the payment approvals process is not enabled, you must define automatic approval rules for payments.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Payables to Cash Management Implementation

49. Configuring Payment Approval Rules
Configure payment approval rules by selecting:
Task: PaymentApproval
Participant: Payment Approval Serial Participant
Rule: Enter rule name and provide IF and THEN details
Navigation: Setup and Maintenance > Tasks Pane > Search: Define Approval Management for Financials > Manage Task Configurations for Financials.
The Payment Approval features enables you to configure payment approval policy in Business Process Management User Interface.
The payment approval policy defines:
When to initiate the payment approval process.
Criteria for triggering the payment approval process, such as payment amount, bank account, or pay group.
A list of approvers who review payments and make final payment decisions.
Approval rules can be configured to route the approval notification in sequential mode, but not in parallel mode
Oracle Financials Cloud: Payables to Cash Management Implementation

50. Payment Approval Rules: Example
Navigate to: Setup and Maintenance > Tasks Pane > Search: Define Approval Management for Financials > Manage Task Configurations for Financials link > Edit icon > PaymentApproval ( ) task > Assignees tab.
Your business wants to route all payments that are more than 5,000 USD to approvers. You can associate the pay group called “Morethan5k” with invoices greater than 5,000 USD.
The rule above routes all payments to the user “finuser2” when a payment process request processes invoices with pay group equal to “Morethan5K”.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Payables to Cash Management Implementation

51. Initiating Approval for Payment Process Requests
When a Payment Process Request reaches the Payment validation stage, the status changes to Payments approval initiated.
Navigate to: Payables > Payments > Tasks pane > Manage Payment Process Requests.
The payment process request is a straight through process and user intervention is not required unless you want to stop and review the payments.
When a payment process request is submitted with the payment approval option enabled, the payment approval process is automatically triggered after the payment process request reaches the Review Proposed Payments stage.
After the payment approval process is triggered, the status of the payment process request is set to Payments approval initiated.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Payables to Cash Management Implementation

52. Payment Approval Worklist Notifications
Workflow:
Generates and routes approval notifications to approvers.
Sends approvers worklist notifications, as well as notifications for review.
Navigate to: BPM Worklist > Select a Payment Process Request link.
Payment approval workflow evaluates all the payment approval rules and generates the worklist and approval notifications. Approval notifications are routed to the approvers so they can review the payment process request details.
Approval notifications contain individual payment details in the form of attachments.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Payables to Cash Management Implementation

53. Payment Approval Worklist Notifications
Enables approvers to approve, reject, withdraw approval, or terminate the payment process request from the Review Proposed Payment page.
Navigate to: BPM Worklist > Select a Payment Process Request link.
Approvers review payment details and make a decision to approve or reject the payment process pequest. Approvers can only approve or reject an entire payment file within a payment process request and not individual payments within a payment file.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Payables to Cash Management Implementation

54. Removing Payments During the Approval Process
Reviewers can remove individual payments.
Reviewers cannot remove invoices.
Navigate to: Payables > Payments > Tasks pane > Manage Payment Process Requests > Review Proposed Payments.
When the payment approval process is in progress, removing payments from a payment process request are allowed only for active approvers.
Approvers can select individual payments from the payment process request and click the Remove button to remove payments if required and approve remaining payments.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Payables to Cash Management Implementation

55. Withdrawing an Approval or Terminating the Payment Process
The Withdraw Approval action is available only to the:
Submitter
Approver
The Terminate Payment Process action is available to any user.
Navigate to: Payables > Payments > Tasks pane > Manage Payment Process Requests > Review Proposed Payments.
The Withdraw Approval action is enabled only when the payment process request status is in Payments approval initiated. This action is performed by the submitter or approver of the payment process request.
If required, any user can select the Terminate Payment Process action.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Payables to Cash Management Implementation

56. Program Agenda 1
Approval Management Overview Approval Concepts General Ledger Approvals Payables Approvals Receivables Approvals Expense Approvals New Features and Additional Resources 2 3 4 5 6 7

57. Credit Memo Request Approval Process
The Credit Memo Request Approval process is managed by the Approval Management extensions (AMX) to the human workflow services of Oracle SOA Suite.
The approval process makes use of approval groups that contain either:
Static list of approvers
Dynamically generated lists of approvers (not available for Cloud implementations)
Oracle Financials Cloud: Receivables to Collections Implementation

58. Credit Memo Workflow
The two predefined rule sets for credit memo workflow are:
Collection agent rule set
Non-collection agent rule set
These two predefined rule sets refer to two approval groups that are not predefined. You must define these two approval groups:
Collection_Manager_Approval_Group
Billing_Manager_Approval_Group
You need to assign users to each of these approval groups.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Receivables to Collections Implementation

59. Additional Configuration Steps
You must complete the following assignments:
User provisioned with Billing Manager role needs to be assigned to the Billing_Manager_Approval_Group.
User provisioned with Collections Manager role needs to be assigned to the Collection_Manager_Approval_Group.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Receivables to Collections Implementation

60. How to Initiate Credit Memo Workflow
Collections Work Area
Billing Work Area
Oracle Financials Cloud: Receivables to Collections Implementation

61. Program Agenda 1
Approval Management Overview Approval Concepts General Ledger Approvals Payables Approvals Receivables Approvals Expense Approvals New Features and Additional Resources 2 3 4 5 6 7

62. Configuring Expense Approval Rules: Overview
Expense Approval Rules are configurable rules used for expense report approval.
Expenses supports configurable approval rules using the Oracle Business Process Management Suite (BPM). BPM provides the interface to administer the approval rules.
A BPM Worklist administrator who is assigned the role of Financial Application Administrator (FUN_FINANCIAL_APPLICATION_ADMINISTRATOR) can access the approval rules in the BPM Worklist.
When you submit an expense report, Expenses:
Uses a set of approval rules to build the list of approvers.
Sends approval notifications to approvers.
Continues sending approval notifications to the next set of approvers in the approval list until all approvals are complete.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Expenses Fundamentals

63. Expense Approval Rules: Overview
Expenses provides the following predefined approval rule sets to support various approval scenarios:
Approval by supervisor based on report amount
Approval by cost center owners in parallel or serial mode
Approval by project managers in parallel or serial mode
Approval by a specialist based on expense types in parallel or serial mode
The following information applies to predefined rule sets:
Each rule set contains one or more approval rules.
Each approval rule has an approval condition and a list of approvers.
The list of approvers derived for each rule set is called a participant.
To generate the list of approvers, each rule requires a list builder to be associated with it. For example, supervisory or job hierarchy.
Approval in:
Parallel mode means that more than one person can approve the expense report at the same time.
Serial mode means that only one person at a time can approve the expense report.
Note: Each expense report can satisfy only one rule within a rule set. If an expense report does not satisfy any rule in a rule set, an error occurs during the approval process.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Expenses Fundamentals

64. Setting Up Expense Approval Rules
Navigate to: Setup and Maintenance > Setup: Financials > Functional Areas: Expenses > Show: All Tasks > Manage Expense Approval Rules.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Expenses Fundamentals

65. Managing Expense Report Approval Rules Tasks
Click the task you want to configure: FinExmWorkflowExpenseApproval
Navigate to: Setup and Maintenance > Setup: Financials > Functional Areas: Expenses > Show: All Tasks > Manage Expense Approval Rules > Oracle BPM Worklist.
The approval rules are managed through the BPM Worklist application. If you are authorized to manage the approval rules, you'll see an Administration link displayed in the upper right corner of the application.
Note: When the workflow patch is applied, the version of the composite changes to a number that is different than You can also identify the active composites from the Enterprise Manager (EM) console.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Expenses Fundamentals

66. Program Agenda 1
Approval Management Overview Approval Concepts General Ledger Approvals Payables Approvals Receivables Approvals Expense Approvals New Features and Additional Resources 2 3 4 5 6 7

67. Configurable Email Notifications
NEW
Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) Publisher reports are used to generate the content and format for General Ledger and Payables workflow notifications. You can enable BI Publisher-based notifications which are ready to use as delivered.
No additional configuration is required unless you want to edit a copy of the predefined reports to tailor the body of the s, based on your specific needs.
Microsoft Word templates can be optimized for mobile devices and are easily configurable.
Comprehensive list of attributes are provided to modify the notifications according to your requirements.
Both layout and content can be changed. For example, add images, change colors, styling, add or remove attributes, and modify text.
You can:
Revert to the classic approval notifications at any time by disabling the feature using the Feature Opt In page in Functional Setup Manager.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

68. Configurable Email Notifications Process
The notifications process:
Is same as generating other types of report output.
Involves various types of objects in the BI catalog working together to generate the output used for notifications.
Business Intelligence Catalog Objects
Data Sources: Store the attributes and attribute values for business objects and transactions in the application. An example of data sources is transaction tables.
Data Model: Determines which attributes from data sources are available to be included in the and how that data is retrieved.
Subtemplate: Provides common components, for example a branding logo and buttons, that can be reused in multiple reports.
Style Template: Provides styles such as the type of lines and fonts to use in tables, or the font type, size, and color to use for headings.
Report: Contains a layout template that determines:
Which attributes appear in the , from the data model used for the report.
What the looks like, leveraging components from the subtemplate and styles from the style template used for the report.
HTML: Output generated from the report.
Sent to users as part of a business flow, with the HTML output embedded in the body.
Note: Each workflow task with configurable notifications has a corresponding predefined report in the BI catalog.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

69. Link to Transaction Details
Components
Notification Header
Workflow notifications are based on report layout templates.
When editing a copy, follow a predefined layout for consistency.
The callouts in the figure identify the components.
Buttons
Components Description
Notification header: Lists key attributes of the workflow task and the associated transaction.
Buttons: Such as Approve and Reject are used on the task.
Notification body: Includes transaction and line level details, displayed in tables, or sets of attributes with corresponding values. The data model for the report restricts the total number of rows displayed in some of the tables. If the limit is exceeded, the table footer provides a link to the transaction details page, where users can view all the rows. To change this limit, you can edit a copy of the data model.
Approval history: Includes any attachments that users in the history uploaded for the task. You can't edit this component.
Link to transaction details links to both of the following:
Corresponding transaction page.
Task details in the worklist.
Modify Notifications Recommendations:
Maintain the general structure.
Don’t remove essential elements such as the action buttons.
Don’t change the styles in your layout template.
Don't edit a copy of the style template and apply that to your ; the predefined style template should still apply to your notification.
Notification Body
Approval History
Buttons
Link to Transaction Details
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

70. Adding a Branding Logo and Modifying Shared Components
In a copy of the predefined subtemplate you can:
Add a branding logo to appear at the beginning of your s.
Change the button text.
Change the text of the links that open the worklist in the application.
A predefined subtemplate contains action buttons and links for workflow notifications based on predefined report layouts.
Note: You must edit a copy of the subtemplate in the Custom folder of the BI Catalog. Do not directly update the predefined subtemplate. The exact steps can vary depending on your version of Microsoft Word.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

71. Configurable Email Notifications Implementation Best Practices
Never edit predefined notifications.
Do not rename standard BI catalog components, such as reports or subtemplates.
Preview your changes before publishing.
Do not modify any hyperlinks in the subtemplate file.
Use the Copy feature for reports and subtemplate rather than editing predefined notifications.
Copy data models, paste into the My Folder , and edit the copies.
Before saving a local copy of the subtemplate file, disable the Update links on the save option in Microsoft Word.
Subtemplates are used across product areas and any modifications to the subtemplate affect all notifications using it.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

72. Enabling Email Notifications
Use the Feature Opt In page in the Functional Setup Manager (FSM) to enable or disable notifications.
notifications are not enabled by default.
To enable this feature:
Navigate to: Setup and Maintenance > Setup: Financials > Change Feature Opt In link > Select General Ledger Features icon > Configurable Journal Notifications.
Check Journal Approval Notifications.
Click Done to return to the Setup: Financials page.
The feature can be accessed through existing shipped duty roles.
Business Intelligence Consumer: To receive predefined notifications. Commonly shipped through Financials job roles as well as some abstract roles.
Business Intelligence Authoring and BI Data Model Developer. To configure the predefined notifications. Shipped through the Application Implementation Consultant job role.
The business processes associated with this feature are:
Manage Invoices and Manage Payments for Payables
Financial Control and Reporting for General Ledger
Workforce Deployment for Expenses.
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

73. Using Quick Parts for Workflow Email Notifications
Use the Quick Parts feature in Microsoft Word to easily insert reusable pieces of formatted content.
Complete prerequisite steps to add the predefined Quick Parts content into your Quick Parts gallery.
Add Quick Parts content to Workflow Notification.
Preview your layout template changes before uploading the .rtf file.
The predefined Quick Parts content is available in a style template .dotx file on My Oracle Support.
Prerequisites
To get the predefined Quick Parts content into your Quick Parts gallery:
Open Configurable Notifications: Implementation Considerations ( ) on My Oracle Support at
Download the .dotx file and save it to your Microsoft Word template folder, for example C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates.
To preview your layout template changes before uploading the .rtf file back to the Business Intelligence (BI) catalog.
Generate sample report data from the data model for the report that you're editing.
Download a local copy of the subtemplate that applies to the layout template.
For more information see: Using Quick Parts for Workflow Notifications: Explained in the Oracle Help Center at: 64fv/define-approval-management.html#OAIMP
Oracle Financials Cloud: Enterprise Structures with General Ledger Implementation

74. Additional Resources
Oracle ERP Cloud: Implementing Common Features for ERP
Oracle Cloud Applications Help
My Oracle Support (MOS)
Oracle Help Center
Cloud Learning Subscriptions
Oracle Financials Cloud: Payables to Cash Management Implementation

75. Summary We have discussed the following topics in this session:
Approval Management Overview
Approval Concepts
General Ledger Approvals
Payables Approvals
Receivables Approvals
Expense Approvals
New Features and Additional Resources