oracle po Guide Delegate Approval Worklist (2)

Guide to Delegating Your Oracle Approval WorklistMost transactions generated in the Oracle Financial System must be approved by a person(s) with appropriate financial authority before they are considered complete. Oracle uses workflow to manage the transaction approval process. To facilitate this, Oracle Financials allows both vacation delegation (selecting someone to act on your behalf for a specified period of time) and the ability to give someone access to your Worklist (typically, to allow colleagues with similar authority to act for each other at any time, or for emergency back up). Approval workflows may be delegated to different people by Oracle module (e.g., iBudgets, iJournals, iOU, Labor Distribution Adjustment, PCard and Requisition) or you may delegate workflows for all Oracle modules to the same person. FYI’s, end routes and Core journal approval authority cannot be delegated.

An audit trail is maintained showing who actually approved each transaction. In addition, a Vacation Query provides a history of vacation delegation and Worklist sharing assignments. The Vacation Query also shows active delegations and assignments so that originators can identify who is available to act on a transaction. The Vacation Query can also provide a list of transactions that were handled by others on the person’s behalf.

It is your responsibility to select the right person to whom to delegate or share your Worklist. The person who established your authority in Authority Manager does not do this for you. You must pick appropriate people, communicate your expectations to them, and ensure they will be able and available to take actions in a timely manner. If they are planning a vacation and delegate to someone else, YOUR transactions will also delegate to that person!

Follow these rules when delegating or sharing your approval Worklist:

The individual you select must have some signature authority within Oracle Financials. This ensures they are a current, active employee known to the system as having taken the required Cost Policy training. If you want to delegate to someone who is not currently an Oracle approver they must first be granted some approval authority through Authority Manager (and they must have taken Cost Policy). This data is typically updated in Oracle by the next day.

If you have been granted a “Special” approval authority by a central office (DPA Screening or Tax-Exempt Alcohol) you may only delegate approval authority (or share your Worklist) to someone who also has this special variety of approval authority. If you have both of these authorities (DPA Screening and Tax-Exempt Alcohol) the person to whom you delegate must also have both authorities. If selecting another DPA and/or Tax-Exempt Alcohol approver to handle ALL of your workflows would not be appropriate during the time you will be away, you must contact the central office that granted this authority and ask them to remove it. The Property Management Office grants DPA Screening approval and Purchasing & Contract Services (formerly Procurement) grants Tax-Exempt Alcohol approval. After temporarily removing these special approvals you may then delegate (or share your Worklist) to any approver. Once your delegations have expired, you can contact the appropriate central office to request that your special approval authority be reinstated.

This job aid provides instruction for making the Vacation Delegation or Worklist sharing actions, receiving the notices, the audit trail generated, and the related query tool.

See the following pages for step-by-step instructions (including screen shots) to help you:

View and Maintain Vacation Rules (temporary delegation)

Create or Update a Vacation Rule

Share Access to Your Worklist (“permanent” sharing of approvals)

Act on Delegated Transactions

Access a Shared Worklist

Access Your Delegated Transactions

Audit Trail – what delegated or shared transactions look like

Use the Vacation Query – how to tell if someone has delegated or shared their Worklist

View and Maintain Vacation Rules1. Navigate to the Vacation Rules page by navigating to your Worklist (SU Workflow Notifications) and

selecting the Vacation Rules link.

The list of your vacation rules includes the rules that you defined. A rule's status will be either active or inactive, depending on whether the current date falls within the rule's effective dates. From this page you can choose to create a new rule, update an existing rule or delete a rule.

2. To create a new rule, select the Create Rule button. 3. To update a rule, select the Update icon for that rule. This feature allows you to change the dates on

an existing active rule to end it early, or to re-use an inactive rule to delegate to the same person for a future vacation period.

4. To delete a rule, select the Delete icon for that rule.

Create or Update a Vacation Rule1. Navigate to the Vacation Rules page and choose to create or update a rule.

If you choose to create a new rule, the Vacation Rule: Type page appears first. Continue with step 2.

If you choose to update an existing rule, the Vacation Rule: Response page appears (step 6 below).

2. In the Vacation Rule: Type page, select the type to which this rule applies using the pull-down menu. The list of values for the “Type” field displays those types for which you have previously received at least one notification. Types are the type of workflow. These do not match one-for-one to the way approval authority is granted in Authority Manager:

Oracle Workflow Type

Approval Granted through Authority Manager

Notes

All All as noted below To streamline the delegation process you can grant “All” Oracle Workflows to an individual, then pull specific types out to be handled by you (but not by others)

iBudgets Budget Control iJournals Expense Journal

GL JournalBoth iJournal varieties use the same workflow. You cannot delegate Expense Journal approval authority to one person and GL Journal (revenue journals) to another person.

iOU PCard Requisition

Requisitions Requisition authority is split into more specific workflows by Oracle Module and CAN be delegated differently. For example, you can delegate iOU to one person and Pcards and Requisitions to another person.

Oracle Workflow Type

Approval Granted through Authority Manager

Notes

Labor Distribution Adjustment

Labor Distribution

Approval authority is defined in terms of the types of transactions you can approve, within what organizations, for what specific Projects, Tasks, and Awards, and within what dollar limits. The Approval granted through Authority Manager dictates whether you will be selected as an approver by the Oracle Financials system. Once selected you are added to “workflow” for the transaction type. Vacation Delegation allows you to delegate the ability to act on the workflow.

3. Choose the Next button to proceed.

If you selected "All" as the type for the rule, the Vacation Rule: Response page appears. Skip to step 6.

If you selected a specific type, the Vacation Rule: Notification page appears. Continue with step 4.

4. In the Vacation Rule: Notification page, leave the notification set to All (this includes all approvals and other notifications – Stanford will not support different rules within a type).

5. Choose the Next button. 6. If you chose to update a rule from the Vacation Rules page, chose All in the Vacation Rule: Type page,

or chose a notification in the Vacation Rule: Notification page, the Vacation Rule: Response page appears.

7. Enter values in the Start Date and End Date fields to specify the period that this rule should be active. If you do not override the Start Date, the rule is effective immediately. If you leave the End Date blank, the rule is effective indefinitely. You may use the calendar icon to select a specific date in the future. Note that the Start and End Date format is shown on the screen and requires an effective time as well as date. Time is entered based on a 24-hour clock as HH:MM:SS. Enter 00:00:00 for a rule to start or end at midnight. If you select a future date from the calendar icon the “time” that comes with it is the current time; it may need to be adjusted.

Attention: Since you can define different rules for the same workflow to be effective at different times, Oracle Workflow allows you to define multiple rules for the same workflow(s). This allows you to set up a delegation to one person for a period, and at the same time to set up another delegation to someone else for a different period, which might be necessary with overlapping vacations. You should be careful to ensure that rules for the same workflow(s) do not overlap in their effective dates. If multiple rules are effective for the same notification, Oracle Workflow picks one rule at random to apply (you will not be able to predict who will receive the workflow).

Note: Once a workflow is delegated it “belongs” to the delegate. If your delegation rule expires before the delegate acts, the transaction will NOT revert to your Worklist – it will remain on the delegate’s Worklist. However, you can access your delegated transactions as explained below.

8. In the Message field, enter any text that you want to append to the notification when the rule is applied. The comments appear in a special comments field when the notification is reassigned.

9. Choose the action that you want this rule to perform:

"Delegate" - Forward the notification to a designated user. This person will then act on your behalf. (This is the only action available when you are delegating “All” workflows.)

"Deliver notifications to me regardless of any general rules" – This leaves the notification in your Worklist so that only you can act on it. You can define a rule with this action to exclude a certain subset of notifications when you have previously set a vacation rule for “All”. For example, suppose you have a rule that reassigns all your notification messages to another user, but you want to exclude iOU notifications from that rule. To accomplish this, you can define a new rule that applies only to the iOU notifications, whose action is "Deliver notifications to me...".

This rule is only applicable to individual workflow types; it exists so you can exclude them when selecting “All” and act on them yourself. If you want to delegate different Workflow Types to different

people you must set each one up individually. You cannot give “All” to one person, then exclude one as noted above and assign it individually to someone else.

10. Select the person to whom you want to grant from the pick list. Select “All Employees and Users:” then click the flashlight. A search window will open, allowing you to search based on name, user name (SUNet ID) or Email.

Enter an appropriate search and click “Go”.

The search will return all applicable results. Click the Quick Select icon or select the person you want with the “select” radio button next to the name and click the select button to return to the Vacation Rule: Response screen.

Remember the rules related to whom you can pick (see page 1):

The individual must have some signature authority within Oracle Financials. This ensures they are known to the system as having taken the required Cost Policy training.

“Special” approvers that are set up by central offices (DPA Screening or Tax-Exempt Alcohol) may only delegate their approval authority to someone who also has this special approval authority

It is your responsibility to select the right person to whom to delegate your Worklist. The person who established your authority in Authority Manager does not do this for you. You must pick an appropriate person, communicate your expectations to them, and ensure they will be able and available to take actions in a timely manner. If they are planning a vacation and delegate to someone else, YOUR transactions will also delegate to that person!

Click the “Apply” button to complete the delegation process.

You will then be returned to your vacation rules page where you will see your latest delegation, along with any others you have

Share Access to Your Worklist1. Go to the Worklist Access page by navigating to your Worklist and selecting the Worklist Access link.

2. The page will display your previous Worklist access grants, if any. The start and end dates for each user determine the access period when the user can view and act on your Worklist. The user's active or inactive status depends on whether the current date is within the access period.

Note: If a user has an e-mail address defined in Oracle Applications, you can select the link in the User Name column to send e-mail to that user. It is up to you to instruct the person with whom you are sharing your Worklist about your expectations. You may do this via the email built into the system, via a separate email or other means. When you will be out of town and want the person with access to cover for you, you must let them know so they know that they should check your Worklist. They will not receiver your notifications, as they would if you set up a Vacation Rule.

To grant access to another user, choose the Grant Work list Access button.

The Grant Worklist Access screen will open:

Select the user you want (using the flashlight search process as described above), and enter an optional description.

Note: someone who accesses your pending transactions via shared Worklist access will NOT be able to approve a transaction they originated themselves. This feature is typically used with colleagues of similar levels rather than with a subordinate who originates transactions.

Specify the start date when the user can begin accessing your Worklist. You have the option of specifying an end date after which the user will no longer have access, or leaving the end date blank to grant access indefinitely. Click “Apply” to save the changes

3. To update the start and end dates of a user's access period, select the Update icon for that user and enter your changes.

4. To delete a user from the list, select the Delete icon for that user. The user will no longer have access to your Worklist, even if the user's access status was previously active.

Note: When you delete a user, the record of the user's access no longer appears in your Worklist Access page. If you want to keep this record for re-use, you can simply set the end date to end the user's access, rather than deleting the user.

Act on Delegated Transactions 1. Your delegate will receive your Workflow Notifications, including whatever message you entered

when setting up the Vacation Rule. For iBudgets, iJournals, iOU, Labor Distribution Adjustment or PCard workflows, the notification will come “from you”; the Routing List will show that it is “pending approval” from you; the Action History will show that you have delegated the transaction to your delegate, and your message will appear in the details:

2. A delegated Requisition Workflow Notification looks slightly different. The Approval Sequence section will list you with an action of “Delegated” (sequence number 3 below). The person immediately following that row is the person to whom you delegated (sequence number 4 below). The note will include the message you entered when you set up the vacation delegation rule:

3. The delegate will then act on the workflow by clicking the link in the email or logging into Oracle and selecting SU Workflow Notifications. The delegate can approve, reject or hold the transaction, entering any comments needed in the Notes box. See the Audit Trail generated by their actions below.

Access a Shared Worklist 1. The person with whom you shared your Worklist will not receive any workflow notifications. Instead,

they need to check to see if there are any transactions in your Worklist that are appropriate for them to act upon, based on your agreement (be sure to discuss expectations with them!). They simply go to their Worklist and click on the “Switch User” button. This button only appears if someone has granted them Worklist Access:

2. The Switch User button will bring up a screen showing all the Worklists to which they have access. Select the appropriate name using the Select button and click Apply.

Note: someone who accesses your pending transactions via Shared Worklist access will NOT be able to approve a transaction they originated themselves. This feature is typically used with colleagues of similar levels rather than with a subordinate who originates transactions.

Access Your Delegated Transactions 1. Navigate to the Worklist page and in the View drop-down menu select “Notifications From Me”.

2. Click the “Go” button.

3. You may then select a transaction and act on it yourself

4. Note that the approval action history for a requisition that you act on yourself will look a little strange. Approval history before action taken shows that the original approver (sequence 3 below) delegated requisition approval to the person included in sequence 4:

However, if the original approver acts before the delegate does, the approval history will appear as if they both acted; the fact that only the original approver acted can be inferred based on there being

no “Note” (from the vacation delegation set up) in the Notes line of the approval that appears after the reserve step.

Audit Trail 1. For Requisitions approved via Worklist Sharing, or for iBudgets, iJournals, iOU, Labor Distribution

Adjustment or PCard workflows that are approved by your Vacation Delegate or via Worklist Sharing, your name will show as the approver, but the Action History will show the SUNet ID of the actual approver in the comments field, after any comments they entered themselves:

2. However for Requisitions approved by your Vacation Delegate, the approval history will include “Delegated” in the row with your name (for the original approver), and the Notes will include the message you entered when you established the Vacation Rule. The name in the next row is the person to whom you delegated, and their actions will appear in the status column, as illustrated in the example below from the Requisition and Purchase orders Query (Web Inquiry):

3. To access a list of all the transactions handled by others on your behalf, use the Vacation Query.

Use the Vacation Query 1. Select SU Inquiry Tools from the Oracle Financials home page

2. The available inquiry tools appear in the right-hand panel of the home page. Click on “Vacation Query.”

3. Enter the SUNet ID of the person you are checking and click Enter

4. The query will return the person’s Vacation Delegation history and their Worklist Access history (with active delegations sorted to the top). This can be used for audit purposes, or if originators need to know whom to call if a transaction has not been acted upon.

5. Click on the link noted above to see all the transactions handled on the person’s behalf. A list of transactions, sorted with most recent on top, will be appended to the bottom of the delegation history page.

oracle po Guide Delegate Approval Worklist (2)

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