Setup and Manage Delegated Approvals

In the Administration Module the Approvals General tab allows your community administrators to configure general approval settings. This separated into three sections, Approval Settings, Escalation Settings, and Requisition Editing Settings. Users with the Community or Approval Administrator roles can access these settings by going to the Administration Module and selecting Approvals from the left side menu. 

Approval Settings 

• Default Reminder Period - The amount of time before a reminder email is sent to an Approver. Leave this blank to disable reminders.
• Require Reason on Decline - When checked, Approvers will be required to enter a reason when declining a requisition. When unchecked, the decline reason will be optional.
• Send Approval Emails - Unchecking this will suppress all approval notification emails.
• Proxy Approval Enabled - This allows approvers to choose other users to approve on their behalf while they are unavailable.
• Proxy Approval Limited by Org Unit - Limits the users approvers can select as their Proxy to users within the same Org Unit.

Escalation Settings

• Enable Manual Escalation - When checked, Allows users with the Escalate Approval role to escalate requisitions to the next approver.
• Enable for all users - Only visible if Enable Manual Escalation is checked. When checked, this enables all users to escalate requisitions.
• Enable Automatic Escalation - When checked, requisitions will automatically escalate to the next approver after the period set in the Time Before Escalation field.
• Time Before Escalation - Only visible if Enable Automatic Escalation is checked. Set the time period in hours before the requisition is escalated. 

Requisition Editing Settings

• Allow Requisition details to be edited during approval - When this is enabled, approvers will be able to review a requisition and make extended changes, such as amending the quantity of a non-catalog product.
• Allow Buyers to Edit Pending Requisitions - When enabled, the Buyer for a requisition will be able to edit details of a Requisition. Approvers could use the comments to ask a Buyer to make changes, rather than declining the requisition or having to make changes on behalf of the buyer.
• Allow approvers to pause escalation - Approvers can select this option if they need more time to investigate the details of a requisition before it escalates. Community Administrators can unpause any requisition.
• Pause Time - Only visible if Allow approvers to pause escalation is checked. Set the pause time period in hours before the requisition is escalated. 

Note: Time Before Escalation and Pause Time excludes weekends and public holidays.

For more information on managing approvals see Setup & Manage Approvals.

Approvals can be configured by users with the Community Administration or Approval Administrator role. Administrators can access the approval options by going to Administration Module -> Approvals.

Before your approvals are configured you will need to set up your users. For more on this see Manage Community Users.

 

 

Manage Approvals

Each tab within the Manage Approvals page has a dedicated help article to assist in updating and maintaining Approvals within Unimarket. Please see the below for more detailed information about each section.

General - allows your community administrators to configure general approval and escalation settings.

Levels - levels control the dollar amount a user can clear up to both for delegated and self approval.

Groups - allows multiple users to represent one step in an Approval Chain (must be enabled for your community to appear).

Chains - chains of approvers where requisitions are routed.

Rulesets - Approvals will route to a specific approval chain based on the rules set up here.

Process - Approvals in Unimarket will route by either Org Unit or Account Code.

Holidays - Dates that approvals will not auto escalate on.

Approvals in Unimarket will route by either Org Unit or Account Code. The approval process will be designed by your community administrators during the implementation process. To make adjustments to the process, contact your account manager.

Approval by Org Unit

Approvals will be based on the buyer's Org Unit. If the buyer belongs to multiple Org Units, they will select the appropriate one during the checkout process. Below is an example of a user checking out a requisition above their set Self-Approval level, showing the requisition routing to the appropriate chain based on the Org Unit.

Approval by Account Code

Approvals will route to a specific approval chain based on the account code used. To configure this, select Approvals from the Administration menu, select the Account Codes tab and click on the name of the rule set you wish to update to open it.

From here, you will see all the account code rules, showing which account codes will route to which chains. These rules are applied in order from top to bottom, so it may be useful to add a CATCH-ALL rule at the bottom that catches any accounts not mentioned in the rules. You can reorder the rules as you please.

You can edit a rule by selecting Edit next to the rule you wish to edit. The rule can be configured for routing your approvals per individual account codes or ranges of account codes.

Once you have built your rules, you can test them to make sure they are routing to the correct chain, using the Test Rule functionality found in the More Actions menu.

Approval levels are assigned to members of approval chains to determine the dollar value they can clear up to for approvals. These levels can also be assigned within a users profile for "self approval". If the user creates a requisition that is within their self approval level, the requisition will be approved and sent to the supplier immediately. You can view and create Approval Levels by going to Administration Module -> Approvals -> Levels. 

 

Approval Levels

To add an approval level enter the Name and Limit for the level and select Add.

After you have created the Approval level it can not be updated only deleted if the Approval level is not currently being used within an Approval Chain or as a self approval limit.

 

Approval Chain

Once created, you will be able to use the Approval Level within an Approval Chain. This sets the limit delegated approvers are able to authorize before it is escalated along the chain.

 

Self Approval Level

An Approval Level can also be assigned to a user, to set a limit for purchases that do not need delegated approval by Editing a User.

Approval Groups are designed to allow multiple users to represent one step in an Approval Chain. Instead of an approval step routing to one user, it can route to 3 users, any or all of which (depending on the process configured during implementation) can be required to approve. Seen below, the approval groups are named with the members of those groups listed to the right.

These groups can be configured within Unimarket with the Edit and Delete options, or users can alternatively export the approval groups, edit them in a spreadsheet, and import the new groups using the Download and Import Groups options in the Actions dropdown menu to the right.

Note: Be sure to include all groups in the upload, as any missing groups will be deleted. If groups are deleted, historical data will still show who it went to at the time of the approval.

 

Approval Chains are hierarchies of Approvers where requisitions are routed. The requisition will move up the chain until it reaches a user or group with an Approval Level higher than requisition dollar amount. The approval chain a requisition uses will be based on the Org Unit or Account Code (depending on your community's Approval Process). When a user or group with an Approval Level above the requisition dollar amount approves the requisition, the Approval chain is cleared and requisition approved.

Edit Chains

To edit an Approval Chain, use the Edit option on the right. This will allow you to configure the users/groups as well as their approval levels for the chain.

 

Add an Approver

If you need to add an Approver to a chain and that Approver has an approval level less than the highest approval level, you will need to click Edit next to the Approver with an approval level which is one level higher than the one you wish to add.

A pop up window will appear with the details of the approver you have clicked edit on. Take note of the user and the approval level.

Change the user to the one you wish to add to the chain, change the approval level to the appropriate level for the new approver and click OK.

Repeat the above steps for each approver going up the chain until you have only the highest approver left, then click Add Approver and enter the appropriate user and level.

If the approver you are adding will have the highest approval level in the chain just click Add Approver.

Add Chains

To add new Approval Chains click the small three dot Actions menu and select Add Approval Chain. This will cause the below pop-up to display.

Enter the Name of the chain to make it easily identifiable. Click Add Approvers  to assign the Approvers required for the chain from lowest Approval Level to highest. Once the chain is complete, click ADD to create the chain. Click ADD MORE if you wish to create additional Approval Chains.

Exporting and Uploading Chains

You can update your Approval chains in Bulk by exporting and uploading a CSV file.

To export your current Approval Chains click the small three dot Actions menu and select Download Chains. This is generate a export CSV file of your current Approval Chains.

 The columns in the file are as follows:

Column	Type	Mandatory	Length	Description
Chain	Text	Y	255	The name of the approval chain.
Level	Text	Y	255	The name of the approval Level. You must have setup Levels in the system before uploading, as the name must match an existing approval level name.
Approver	Text	Y	255	The Username of the approver. The user must exist in the system. Either this or Group must be populated (and not both). If there are multiple approvers at the same level then the chain will be built based on the order (sequence) of these approvers in the file.
Approver Name	Text	N	255	The First and Last name of the approver. This is ignored during import but is populated during export for readability purposes.
Group	Text	N	255	The Name of the approval group. This must match an existing group you have setup in the system. Groups can be used on a chain in place of a user if you want more than one person at a single point on the chain. Either this or Approver must be populated (and not both).

You can use this download to update your approval chains in bulk. After you have made the requisite changes Save the file as a CSV.

To upload the updated Approval Chains, click the small three dot Actions menu and select Import Chains.

Note: All existing approval chains will be deleted and replaced with the content of the new upload file.

 

For more information on managing approvals see Setup & Manage Approvals.

If your Community has been configured for approvals in Unimarket to be routed by Account Code. Approvals will route to a specific approval chain based on the rules set up on this tab. These rules can be managed individually or in a bulk upload by users with the Community or Approval Administrator roles.

 

Add Individual Rules

1. Go to the Administration Module, select Approvals from the left side menu and go to the Rulesets tab
2. Click on the name of the Ruleset (e.g. Account Codes) to see all the account code rules, showing which account codes will route to which chains. These rules are applied in order from top to bottom, so it may be useful to have a 'Catch All' rule at the bottom that catches any accounts not mentioned in the rules. You can reorder the rules as you please.
3. To add a rule, click the Add Rule button, or Select Add Rule from the More Actions menu on the right of the screen and configure the rule fields.4. Once you are happy with the rule select Add or, if you would like to add another rule select Add More.
   
   

   Field	Description
   Format	The account code format you wish to apply the rule to.
   Chain	The approval chain you wish to route the approvals to for this rule.
   Part	The parts that make up your account code format.
   Type	Any - Matches anything Range - Matches values within a range e.g. 101000-102000 (case doesn't matter) Single Value - Matches a single value (case doesn't matter)

 

Export and Upload Rules

You can export your current approval rules if you prefer to review and apply changes in bulk. To do this follow the below steps:

1. Select Approvals from the Administration module and go to the Rulesets tab, click on a ruleset (e.g. Account Codes)
2. Select Export Rules from the More Actions menu on the right of the screen.
   
   
3. This will provide you with a CSV file of your current rules, conforming to the below format.
   

   Column Header	Type	Mandatory	Length	Options	Comments
   Chain	Approval Chain	Y			The name of the approval chain to route approvals to for account codes that match this pattern.
   Format	Account Code Format	Y			The code for the account code format.
   Part1Type	Value	Y		ANY, VALUE, RANGE	The type of matching to user for Part 1.
   Part1Value	Text	N	25		The value for Part 1 when Part1Type is VALUE. Otherwise blank
   Part1Lower	Text	N	25		The lower bound for Part 1 when Part1Type is RANGE. Otherwise blank
   Part1Upper	Text	N	25		The upper bound for Part 1 when Part1Type is RANGE. Otherwise blank
   Part2Type	Value	Y		ANY, VALUE, RANGE	The type of matching to user for Part 2.
   Part2Value	Text	N	25		The value for Part 2 when Part2Type is VALUE. Otherwise blank
   Part2Lower	Text	N	25		The lower bound for Part 2 when Part2Type is RANGE. Otherwise blank
   Part2Upper	Text	N	25		The upper bound for Part 2 when Part2Type is RANGE. Otherwise blank
   Part3Type	Value	Y		ANY, VALUE, RANGE	The type of matching to user for Part 3.
   Part3Value	Text	N	25		The value for Part 3 when Part3Type is VALUE. Otherwise blank
   Part3Lower	Text	N	25		The lower bound for Part 3 when Part3Type is RANGE. Otherwise blank
   Part3Upper	Text	N	25		The upper bound for Part 3 when Part3Type is RANGE. Otherwise blank

4. Update the required rule details and save the file in CSV format.
5. Select Import Rules from the More Actions menu on the right of the screen.
   
   
6. Select Browse and locate the file to import.
   
   
7. Click OK once you have selected the correct file and the rules will start importing.

Note: All existing account code rules will be deleted and replaced with the content of the new upload file. If you are just adding rules to the current rule set you can also select Export Rules from the Actions menu to export a spreadsheet containing all current rules, make changes to the spreadsheet and then import the updated file.

A good way to streamline approvals for small value items is to introduce a Self Approval step into your approval process. The Self Approval delegation limit is set on the user and applies to all spend within that delegation.

If configured, the process will check to see if the user purchasing has self approval delegation before looking for a delegated approver. For example if a Self Approval limit is set on the user for $300, then all spend below $300 will be automatically approved and not require delegated approval. Note that it cannot be tailored to specific scenarios unless the Group Self Approval option is used which is outlined in this article: Group Self Approval Process

If you do not want to have any self approval option available, then you can either not set a Self Approval limit of your users, or you can choose to remove the Self Approval rule from your approval process entirely.

 

 

 

 

 

Scenario

Group Self Approval can be used when you want to provide users with the ability to self approve for specific account codes or projects (rather than for all). It should be used in place of the Self Approval step in the process.

How it works

Unimarket Rulesets support both a specified Group and a Chain. Adding a Group to the ruleset is optional as not all rules require the self approval check.

When a Ruleset is triggered, it routes the approval to the identified Approval Group (if specified) to determine if the person buying is part of the group. If they are part of the Group the process will determine if the requisition is below the user’s Self Approval limit (specified on the user). If it is not within their Self Approval limit it will continue on to the delegated approval chain in that ruleset.

Note that using this configuration in place of the broader Self Approval rule only triggers self approval according to the specified rulesets.

The following needs to be established during configuration:

1. Users are setup with Self Approval Limits on their user
2. Rulesets need to be configured to contain both Groups and Chains

Adding Groups to Rulesets

The configuration requires a Group to be added to the Approval Ruleset file as per the below CSV format. 

 

CSV Format

Group	Chain	Format	Part 1 Type	Part 1 Value	Part 1 Lower	Part 1 Upper
IT Approval	ITSpend	GL	VALUE	IT123
ABC23501-TM	ABC23501	PROJECT	VALUE	ABC23501

 

Example

Tim is a project team member on project ABC23501. The community wants to give project team members the ability to self approve project expenses up to $200. To do this the Self Approval limit on users is set to $200.

Tim is put within the group ABC23501-TM and therefore if he is purchasing the rule will look firstly at ABC23501-TM to see if he is part of that group.

If he is part of the group and the purchase is below his self approval limit of $200, then the requisition will be self approved.

If he is not in ABC23501-TM OR the value is greater than $200, then it will route to the delegated chain ABC23501 (as per standard process).

If no group is provided then that rule will simply progress to the delegated chain.

 

This article explains the many options associated with approval processes within Unimarket. A download of the information in this article can be found here.

Approval System Settings:

Header Level approvals

The total amount of the requisition is assessed to route the requisition to the appropriate approver in the assigned chain. With Organization Unit approvals the whole requisition will go to the chain for the org unit. For GL pattern matching approvals the total sum of the like GL lines will be assessed to route the approvals to appropriate chains assigned to the GL pattern.

Line Level Approvals

Used with GL pattern matching approvals only - Single line total of a requisition will be routed for approval based on the GL pattern and the single lines can be approved or declined. The approved lines will go to PO and the the declined will not.

Hybrid Approvals

Used with GL pattern matching approvals only - Same functionality as the Line Level Approvals above but if a single line of a requisition is declined the whole requisition declined.

Approval Routing Rules:

Organization Unit or departmental based approvals: Route requisitions based on the Org Unit that the user is assigned in their profile that contains the approval chain for that Department.

Patterns matching approvals: GL Code based approvals routing for the requisition to the appropriate approval chain based on a single GL code, having the GL code fall within a range of codes, having multiple GL codes match a defined pattern.

Example: A pattern of * 1234 * * will capture a requisition line that contains "1234" in the second GL field.

Category Based Approvals: UNSPSC commodity codes for each line item product or service can be utilized to route requisitions for approvals based on a defined mapping of UNSPSC category codes.

Product Type Based Approvals: Approvals can also be based on the type of product that has been requested, Catalog (Contracted), Non-Catalog, Quote or Roundtrip product types can all be additional factors for different approval routing.

Order Type Based Approvals: Approvals can also be based on the type of Order that has been requested, Standard Order, Blanket Order or Retrofit Order. 

Supplier Tag Based Approvals: Approvals can also be based on the supplier tag to route approvals or skip some more lengthy approvals if the supplier is a "Preferred" supplier.

Contract Y/N Approvals: Approvals can be routed to an approval ruleset based on whether or not the requisition is associated with a contract, using the Unimarket Contracts Module.

Self-Approval: Self-Approval is different than the Auto Approve in the Buyer As Approver settings of the approval process and is used for all requisitions created by someone with a Self-Approval level, not just those requisitions where the user is in the related approval chain. Self-Approval amounts are set within each individual users profile. Including a self-approval step in the process instructs Unimarket to clear any requisition originating from a buyer whose self-approval limit is greater than the item(s) on the requisition.

On-Behalf-Of(OBO) Approvals: When the approval process contains the On Behalf Of Approval the purchases that are placed by users with the On Behalf Of role for other users, the requisition will be routed the person that the purchase was made on behalf of for their review. The On Behalf Of approval step can be added at any point of the approval process but s often done at the beginning.

Approval Process Step Configurations

All Must Approve: When All Must Approve is turned on, the approval process will route a requisition through the entire delegated approval chain. This routing begins at the lowest level approver and moves upward until it reaches the approver whose approval level is high enough to clear the requisition. When All Must Approve is not turned on, the requisition will be automatically routed to the single approver whose level gives them the ability to clear it. All Must Approve is a recommended setting when it is important to ensure that the necessary personnel review the requisition before sending it on to higher level approvers.

Example: An Approval Chain is set up as follows:

Jim @ level 1 ($2000), Jane @ Level 2 ($10,000) and Tom at level 3 ($25,000)

Mary, a buyer, creates a requisition for $15,000 that is routed to the chain above.

If All Must Approve is turned OFF: The requisition will route directly to Tom. Once Tom approves the requisition, the requisition is sent to the next approval requirement or a purchase order is created.

If All Must Approve is turned ON: The requisition will route to Jim (the first approver). Once Jim approves it, the requisition will move to Jane. Once Jane approves, it will move to Tom, and once Tom approves, the requisition is sent to the next approval requirement or a purchase order is created.

On-behalf-Of(OBO) and Buyer As Approver : The following 3 scenarios outline the different options a community has when determining the role of an approver if he/she is the creator of the requisition being approved.

Auto Approve: The requisition will be approved by the buyers approval authority if the buyer is in the approval chain and has sufficient approval authority for the total amount being approved.

Exclude: The buyer will be excluded (skipped) in the approval chain. When it is the buyers task to approve, he/she will be skipped and the requisition will move on to the next person in the chain even if the requisition total is below the higher level approver's authority.

Start Above: If the buyer is in the approval chain and Start Above is enabled the requisition will go directly to the approver in the approval chain that is above the buyer's authority. The approval task will not go to any approver below the authority of the buyer.

Validate Account Code: This is the step in the approval process where the integration is used to communicate with the community's finance system and verify that there are sufficient funds within the GL account(s) referenced in the requisition. The budget check is done when the approver clicks the Approve/Decline link to open the action window. The response from the ERP finance system is displayed in the Approve/Decline popup window.

 

Approvals, Routing Rule, Approval Process, Process

The Public Holiday Schedule allows Communities to set any holiday dates that they do not wish approvals to automatically escalate on. This ensures that approvals are not escalated to users who are out of the office on these days and potentially miss them.

Setting Dates

The Holidays tab is separated into two sections. Public Holidays, which can be disabled or enabled and Local Holidays, which can be created or deleted. 

Users with the Community or Approval Administrator roles are able to manage these dates by going to Administration Module -> Approvals -> Holidays.

To add a Local Holiday click +Add Holiday.

In the pop up enter the Name, Start Date and End Date of the holiday.

Once you have filled the details, click Add to finishing adding the holiday. If you have additional holidays to add, click Add More.

Note: Approvals will not auto-escalate on weekends as a default.