Purchase Order (PO) approval Hierarchy

PO Approval in Oracle is based on the Approval hierarchy setup for this process. The basic setup can be explained via a flow diagram as below

The basic setups need for the setup are:

1. Postion creation and assignment to a Position Hierarchy
2. PO approval Group Creation and Assignment
3. User Creation , Assigning it to an employee and setting it up as a buyer

The approval workflow consists of the disparate setups which are interlinked together to complete the PO Approval workflow in Oracle

1. Postion creation and assignment to a Position Hierarchy

First Step in setting up the Approval hierarchy to Define a position which basically signifies the position of the employee in the organization. This position will be assigned in a position hierarchy to identify the level of this approval / the complete hierarchy of the employee . This will determine that if an employee submits a PO for approval if it will directly approved or if it will be passed on to someone else for review and approval . The position hierarchy will be assigned to the PO document type which will be mapped to the PO workflow

2. PO approval Group Creation and Assignment :

The first step is PO Approval Group creation ,  we need to create an approval group which has information of the amount of PO that can be approvaed and also the list/range of distribution accounts that can be approved . Once the Approval Group has been created , it needs to be assigned to a position

3. User Creation , Assigning it to an employee and setting it up as a buyer

The PO’s will in the end be created and approved by business users. This will need creation of employees in the system these employees need to be assigned one of the positions created above. This will determine where the employee lies in the hierarchy and if their PO will be directly approved or passed to someone else for approval. The Employee has to be setup as a buyer and needs to be mapped to an end user in Oracle .

Run the Standard Program : Fill Employee hierarchy details to make these changes come into effect

Once this is done create a PO and try for approval. Based on the position hierarchy setup either the PO will be directly approved or passed on to the superior