Purchasing lets you approve requisitions, standard and planned purchase orders, blanket and contract purchase agreements, and releases using a common process. When you complete your documents and are ready to initiate the approval process, select the Approve button in the document entry window to open the Approve Document window.
In the Approve Document window, choosing Submit for Approval (and then choosing OK) approves the document if Owner Can Approve is enabled for the specific document type in the Document Types window and you have the authority to approve the document. See: Defining Document Types. If the document requires someone else's approval, choosing Submit for Approval (and then choosing OK) automatically submits the document to that person (or routes it to multiple approvers) for approval, based on your approval hierarchy setup. See: Setting Up Document Approval and Security.
Purchasing offers the following document approval actions in the Approve Document window: Reserve or Unreserve (if using encumbrance / budgetary control), Submit for Approval, and Forward. You can also change the approval hierarchy from within the Approve Document window if Allow Change to Approval Hierarchy is selected for the document type in the Document Types window. You can also specify a Forward To person if you want the document to be approved by someone outside the approval hierarchy.
Purchasing offers several methods for supplier notification. You can select the Print option, and the document will automatically be printed once it is approved. In addition, certain documents can be transmitted electronically by facsimile, e-mail, electronic data interchange (EDI), or extensibile markup language (XML).
When submitting a blanket purchase agreement for approval, the Approve Document window can optionally provide the ability to automatically create or update supplier sourcing business rules. You may also initiate retroactive pricing updates on related documents.
When you select the Approve button in a document entry window, Purchasing performs submission checks to verify that the document is complete and in an appropriate state for the action you chose. Status checks are performed when you take an approval action. See: Document Submission Checks. See: Document Status Checks.
You can also approve documents through the Notification Details Web page, accessible through the Notifications Summary menu in Purchasing. The Notifications Summary page lists all the documents awaiting your approval, so that you can manage your pending approval queue and take approval actions. After opening a notification, you can drill down to the document itself, and review it and its action history. You can also modify the document if Approver Can Modify is enabled for the document type. See: Defining Document Types. (After you modify a document, you need to return to the notification to take an approval action.)
You can also view and respond to notifications through e-mail. Oracle Applications uses Oracle Workflow technology to route notifications through e-mail. This way, an approver who has easier access to e-mail than to the Purchasing application can view notifications and take approval actions.
See: To View Notifications from the Worklist.
See: Reviewing Notifications via Electronic Mail.
Purchasing uses Oracle Workflow technology to handle the entire approval process. When you take an approval action in the Approve Document window or the notification, or through the Web or e-mail, you are "submitting" the approval action to Workflow. Workflow works in the background, using the approval controls and hierarchies you've defined to route documents for approval. Because Workflow handles your approval process in the background, you can use Oracle Workflow Builder's easy interface to modify your approval process. For more information about the approval workflows in Purchasing, see: Purchase Order Approval Workflow and Requisition Approval Workflow.