Report Type - Requisitions Approval Statistics

  • Updated

The Requisition Approval Statistics report is a key operational tool used to monitor the efficiency and health of your community's approval workflows. It provides a detailed audit trail of how long requisitions stay with specific approvers and the eventual outcome of those tasks.

 

Purpose of the Report

This report is used by Procurement Administrators and Department Heads to:

  • Identify Bottlenecks: Spot specific approval steps or individuals that consistently take longer than the institutional average to take action.
  • Measure Responsiveness: Evaluate the "speed to buy" by tracking the time elapsed between task creation and completion.
  • Audit Approval Quality: Review the reasons provided by approvers when they decline or approve a request with comments.
  • Workflow Optimization: Use data to determine if certain approval thresholds are too low, causing unnecessary delays.
  • Sample report: Unimarket Requisition Approval Statistics Example

 

Report Scope and Logic

  • Inclusions: Includes all requisitions created within the specified date range.
  • Exclusions: This report automatically excludes requisitions that are in an Incomplete or Abandoned state, as these have not yet entered or have been removed from the formal approval process.

 

How to Analyze Approval Efficiency

When reviewing the Total Time (Hours) column, consider the following benchmarks:

  • High Total Time / High Volume: If a specific approver has a high hour count across many tasks. They may need an alternate or "Pool" approver to assist with the workload.
  • Decline Reasons: Regularly audit the Approve / Decline Reason column. A high frequency of "Declined" statuses with the same reason (e.g., "Missing Attachment") may indicate that more user training is needed for the initial requesters.
  • OBO Impact: Analyze if requisitions created "On Behalf Of" others take longer to approve, which might suggest extra verification steps are occurring outside the system.

 

Best Practices

  • Monthly Reviews: Run this report monthly to maintain a baseline for your community's "Procurement Cycle Time."
  • Identify "Outliers": Focus on tasks that exceed 48–72 hours to ensure that urgent institutional needs are not being delayed.
  • Delegate Actions: If an approver shows high "Total Time" and you know they are out of the office, use this data to justify setting up Approval Delegation for their account.

Note: Because this report breaks down data by "Line" and "Approver," a single requisition number may appear multiple times if it has multiple items or passed through several approval steps.

 

Report Columns and Definitions

Column Name Description
Requisition Number The unique identifier for the requisition.
Line The specific line item on the requisition (allows for line-level approval tracking).
Requester / Buyer The individual who initiated the request.
OBO The "On Behalf Of" user, if the request was created for someone else.
Outcome The final status of the requisition (e.g., Approved, Declined).
Approver The specific user assigned to the approval task.
Task Created The timestamp when the requisition arrived in the approver's task list.
Task Completed The timestamp when the approver took action.
Total Time (Hours) The calculated duration between Creation and Completion.
Approver Decision The specific action taken (e.g., Approve, Decline, Delegate).
Approve / Decline Reason The comments entered by the approver when taking action.