After you complete the configuration for all messages for your application, define approval types to group together the approval notifications that belong to the same business flow so that approvers can easily filter their pending approvals in the app to view these related notifications.

Use the Approval Type Search page to view and manage the approval types defined for your Oracle E-Business Suite installation.

   To search for approval types:

1. Navigate to the Approval Type Search page from the Oracle E-Business Suite Navigator by choosing either Workflow Administrator Web Applications: Approvals Data Services Manager > Approval Types or a custom responsibility and menu path specified by your system administrator.

2. Search for the approval types you want to display. You can enter the following search criteria:

   • Name - Enter the display name of the approval type. You can enter a partial value to search for types whose names contain that value.

   • Code - Enter the unique internal name of the approval type. You can enter a partial value to search for types whose names contain that value.

   • Application Name - Select the application that owns the approval type.

   • Status - Select whether to display enabled or disabled approval types.

   The search criteria fields are all case-insensitive.

3. To define a new approval type, select the Create Approval Type button. See: To define an approval type.

4. To update an approval type, choose the update icon for that approval type. See: To define an approval type.

   Note: Update only custom approval types.

   To define an approval type:

1. In the Approval Type Creation page, enter a display name for the approval type. This name appears in the Pending Approvals by Type screen in the Approvals app.

2. In the Code field, enter a unique internal name for the approval type. The internal name can include only uppercase letters from A through Z and the underscore character (_).

3. Enter a brief description for the approval type.

4. Select the parent application to which the approval type belongs.

5. Select the status for the approval type, either Enabled or Disabled. Only enabled approval types are displayed in the Approvals app.

6. Enter the name of the .png file for the icon that visually identifies the approval type within the Approvals app. The icon must be stored in the physical directory that your Web server's /OA_MEDIA/ virtual directory points to. If you do not specify an icon, or if there is no file matching the specified icon name in the /OA_MEDIA/ directory, then the app displays a default folder icon instead.

7. If required, enter the approvals group value that identifies this approval type. This value must match the value specified in the #APPROVALS_GROUP message attribute for the notifications that belong to this approval type. You should enter an approvals group value if you want to expose only some approval notifications sent by a workflow message in the Approvals app, or if the approval notifications sent by a workflow message should belong to different approval types.

   Note: If you define an approvals group value for an approval type, then you must define the #APPROVALS_GROUP message attribute for all approval notifications that belong to this approval type and set the attribute value to the specified approvals group value. That is, if you use the #APPROVALS_GROUP message attribute for any approval notifications within an approval type, then you must define it for all other messages that belong to that type as well, even if all notifications sent by those messages belong to this same approval type.

   If you do not specify an approvals group value for the approval type, then the approval type will include all notifications sent by the messages associated with the type, regardless of whether those notifications have any value specified in an #APPROVALS_GROUP message attribute. That is, an approval notification can have its #APPROVALS_GROUP message attribute set to a value matching the approvals group value for one approval type, and the same approval notification can also belong to another approval type with no approvals group value specified.

8. In the messages table, add the messages that belong to this approval type. To add a message, perform the following steps:

   • Choose the Add Item Type icon.

   • Select the item type to which the message belongs.

   • Select the message within that item type that you want to include in this approval type within the app.

     Note: Ensure that you select only messages for which you have configured the required metadata to allow the approval notification content to be displayed in the app.

     If you specified an approvals group value for this approval type, then ensure that you have defined the #APPROVALS_GROUP message attribute for each message that you add, to identify the approval notifications that belong to this approval type.

9. To remove a message from the approval type, choose the delete icon for that message.

10. Choose Apply.