Most transactions generated in the Oracle Procurement System must be
approved by a person(s) with appropriate spending authority before they
are considered complete.
Oracle uses workflow to manage the transaction approval process. There is a feature in Oracle that allows you to delegate or share your approval workflows.
Oracle Procurement allows both Vacation Rules(Delegation) and Worklist access .
Vacation Rules - Delegate/Redirect or auto-respond to notifications.
i.e., Selecting someone to act on your behalf for a specified period of time during your vacation.
Worklist Access - Specify which users can view and act upon your notifications.
i.e., The ability to give someone access to your worklist, to allow colleagues with similar authority to act for each other at any time, or for emergency back up.
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 Rules
1. Navigate to the Vacation Rules page by navigating to your Worklist (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 Rule
1. Navigate to the Vacation Rules page and choose to create or update a rule.
a) If you choose to create a new rule, the Vacation Rule: Type page appears first.
b) If you choose to update an existing rule, the Vacation Rule: Response page appears .
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:
3. 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.
4. Choose the Next button to proceed.
a) If you selected "All" as the type for the rule, the Vacation Rule: Response page appears.
b) If you selected a specific type, the Vacation Rule: Notification page appears.
5. 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).
6. Choose the Next button.
7. 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
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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 or Email.
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.
Share Access to Your Worklist
1. 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.
3. To grant access to another user, choose the Grant Work list Access button.
4. Select the user you want and enter an optional description.
5. 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
6. 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.
Oracle uses workflow to manage the transaction approval process. There is a feature in Oracle that allows you to delegate or share your approval workflows.
Oracle Procurement allows both Vacation Rules(Delegation) and Worklist access .
Vacation Rules - Delegate/Redirect or auto-respond to notifications.
i.e., Selecting someone to act on your behalf for a specified period of time during your vacation.
Worklist Access - Specify which users can view and act upon your notifications.
i.e., The ability to give someone access to your worklist, to allow colleagues with similar authority to act for each other at any time, or for emergency back up.
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 Rules
1. Navigate to the Vacation Rules page by navigating to your Worklist (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 Rule
1. Navigate to the Vacation Rules page and choose to create or update a rule.
a) If you choose to create a new rule, the Vacation Rule: Type page appears first.
b) If you choose to update an existing rule, the Vacation Rule: Response page appears .
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:
3. 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.
4. Choose the Next button to proceed.
a) If you selected "All" as the type for the rule, the Vacation Rule: Response page appears.
b) If you selected a specific type, the Vacation Rule: Notification page appears.
5. 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).
6. Choose the Next button.
7. 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
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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 or Email.
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.
Share Access to Your Worklist
1. 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.
3. To grant access to another user, choose the Grant Work list Access button.
4. Select the user you want 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.
6. 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.
Hi Sreekanth,
ReplyDeletethanks for the details. Is there anyway to check the worklist access through back end query?
Thanks,
Basim
Thanks Basim. Please find the Requested query -
ReplyDeleteSELECT RoutingRulesEO.rule_id,
RoutingRulesEO.message_type,
RoutingRulesEO.message_name,
RoutingRulesEO.begin_date,
RoutingRulesEO.end_date,
RoutingRulesEO.action,
RoutingRulesEO.action_argument,
ItemTypesEO.display_name AS TYPE_DISPLAY,
MessagesEO.display_name AS MSG_DISPLAY,
MessagesEO.subject,
LookupsEO.meaning AS ACTION_DISPLAY,
ItemTypesEO.name,
MessagesEO.TYPE,
MessagesEO.name AS NAME1,
LookupsEO.lookup_type,
LookupsEO.lookup_code
FROM apps.wf_routing_rules RoutingRulesEO,
apps.wf_item_types_vl ItemTypesEO,
apps.wf_messages_vl MessagesEO,
apps.wf_lookups LookupsEO
WHERE RoutingRulesEO.message_type = ItemTypesEO.name (+)
AND RoutingRulesEO.message_type = MessagesEO.TYPE (+)
AND RoutingRulesEO.message_name = MessagesEO.name (+)
AND RoutingRulesEO.action = LookupsEO.lookup_code
AND LookupsEO.lookup_type = 'WFSTD_ROUTING_ACTIONS'
AND RoutingRulesEO.end_date IS NULL
ORDER BY type_display,
msg_display,
begin_date
Note : Remove the Condition 'RoutingRulesEO.end_date IS NULL' to know all the Vacation Rules including the inactive ones.
Thanks,
Sree
Hi Shrikant, Very useful information .
ReplyDeleteThank you so much.
Can you please let me know how to access Delegated Transactions?
Hi and thank you for the guide,
ReplyDeleteI would like to ask if the vacation rule or the work list access could any how help on the approval process I am describing below…
Top line manager – defined on the very top of the Position hierarchy, sets vacation rules for providing access to his/her subordinate
Requisition is being send to Subordinate to approve expense in total 100 USD
Top line manager subordinated – does have approval limit assigned with 50 USD
How would the vacation rule solve this problem? Is the vacation rule only added workflow logic for notification or its providing any privileges linked to user who delegated?
Thank you for your comments
With kind regards
Jakub Falta - Purchasing specialist
Thanks for visiting my blog.
ReplyDeleteWhen you are delegating the approval using vacation rules or Worklist access then the user to whom the authority has been delegated, will act on your behalf and use your signing limit.
So in case the user
who is delegating has sufficient authority, the user to whom the authority was delegated will be able to approve the Requisition, regardless whether this user him- or herself has the authority to approve Requisitions.
I case the user who is delegating does not have sufficient authority (let's say User X), delegates authority to User Y, and User Y approves the Requisition, it will be forwarded to the supervisor of User X.
Note: From R12.2.4 onwards, worklist access functionality is replaced with Manage Proxies Option.
Thanks,
Sree
Hi there,
ReplyDeleteI am wondering regarding step 11 below:
11. 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 or Email.
What is the difference between selecting "Employee" and "All Employees and Users" in the "Reassign" field?
Hi I'm really thankful for your information. Can you please explain about the below one. User A gives worklist access to B. So that B can have access to the worklist of A when B does switch user. If user A is end dates, it is shown in the worklist of B ias end dates. Is there any way to remove the end dated user in the worklist? Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.
ReplyDelete