To view the properties of the Find Approver subprocess, select its process activity in the navigator tree, then choose Properties from the Edit menu. The Find Approver subprocess has a result type of Yes/No, indicating that when the subprocess completes, it has a result of Yes or No. These results correspond to the lookup codes in the Yes/No lookup type, in the Standard item type.
This subprocess activity is not runnable, indicating that it cannot be initiated as a top-level process to run, but rather can be run only as a subprocess when called by a higher-level process.
This process looks for the next approver in the approval hierarchy if any of the following is true:
Verify Approval Authority determines that the document owner does not have the authority to approve the document as defined in the Approval Groups and Assign Approval Groups windows. (See: Defining Approval Groups. See: Assigning Approval Groups.)
Can Owner Approve? finds that Owner Can Approve is not checked for the specific document type in the Document Types window. See: Defining Document Types.
The approver forwarded the document to another approver during the Notify Approver process, or didn't respond after a certain time, if the Timeout feature is set up.
The subprocess begins at node 1.
If node 2 finds no forward-to approver, node 4 gets the default approval hierarchy-either a specific approval hierarchy that the buyer provides in the Approve Document window, or the default approval hierarchy in Purchasing.
Node 5 checks the forwarding method. If the forwarding method is Direct, the workflow sends the purchase order to the first person with enough approval authority, starting at node 13. If the forwarding method is Hierarchy, each person in the hierarchy must take action until a person with enough approval authority is reached, starting at node 6.
Nodes 6 and 13 check whether you use position hierarchies. If you do, nodes 7 and 14 use your position hierarchy to find the next approver. If you do not, nodes 10 and 19 use your employee/supervisor hierarchy to find the next approver.
If the Document Approval Manager fails at node 16 or 21, the notification activity at node 17 or 22 sends a notification of the failure to the approver. Once the Document Approval Manager is restarted successfully, the workflow continues if the approver or system administrator responds to the notification with Retry.