APINV - How Do I Setup AP to Use Invoice Approval Workflow

The AP User Guide states that Oracle Approvals Management (OAM) otherwise known as Approval Management Engine (AME) is required to be setup in order for Payables Invoice Approval (APINV) to work.  This is NOT an out of the box product.

Oracle Payables User Guide > Setting Up Invoice Approval Workflow

The Invoice Approval Workflow routes invoices to designated individuals for approval. This workflow uses the approval rules that you define in Oracle Approvals Management (OAM) to determine if an invoice requires approval. If the invoice requires approval then the workflow routes the invoice according to the ordered list of approvers for approval. For more detailed information on the Invoice Approval Workflow, see: Invoice Approval Workflow Overview, page 4-101.

This document describes the unmodified workflow program.

The workflow begins by finding the first approver on the ordered list of approvers. If the invoice requires no approvers to approve it, then the invoice’s approval status is set to Not Required and the workflow program ends.

If the invoice has a first approver, then the workflow program sends an invoice approval request to the approver’s e-mail or Oracle Workflow Notifications Worklist web page (or both).

If that approver approves the invoice, the workflow program then looks for the next approver on the ordered list. If there is another approver, the workflow requests approval from that person. The workflow completes when all persons on the ordered list approve the invoice, or if an approver rejects the invoice.

If an approver does not respond within the specified time period, the workflow removes the original notification from the approver’s Notifications Worklist and sends a reminder notification to the approver. If the approver still does not respond, then the workflow removes the reminder notification from that approver’s Notifications Worklist and sends that person’s manager an escalation notification.

Whenever an invoice is approved or rejected, Payables updates the approval record of the invoice, which you can review in the Invoice Approval History window or the Invoice Approval History Status Report. See: Invoice Approval History Window Reference, page 4-106, and Invoice Approval Status Report, page 9-49.

The invoice approval status is updated when the workflow completes.

You can initiate the Invoice Approval Workflow Program in the following ways:

• Schedule regular submission of the Invoice Approval Workflow concurrent program

• Initiate the Invoice Approval Workflow Program from the Submit Request window

• Manually initiate the workflow by selecting one or more invoices in the Invoices window and then from the Invoice Actions window selecting Initiate Approval

To set up the Invoice Approval Workflow:

1. Install and set up Oracle Approvals Management/Approvals Management Engine (OAM/AME).

In OAM/AME, you define the rules that the system uses to determine who the appropriate approvers are for an invoice.

Patch AME.B.RUP2 - Patch 5708576 is the latest available minipack and this superseeds the last full install patch #261423

If you use HR hierarchies to generate your lists of approvers in OAM, then you need to provide logic so OAM can identify the starting approver. You provide this logic by writing a dynamic usage query for the Transaction Requestor ID attribute owned by OAM. Your logic can identify a starting approver by using any system data such as project, descriptive flexfield, or requester on purchase order.

For example, if you want your starting approver to be the person who requested a purchase order for an item, then your logic can derive that person’s personid from the purchase

order to which the distribution is matched.

For information on defining rules in OAM, refer to the Oracle Approvals Management User Guide.

2. Install the Oracle Workflow Builder client component program if you want to modify the Invoice Approval Workflow.

For more information on workflow installations, see: Setting Up Oracle Workflow (Oracle Workflow Administrator’s Guide or online help).

3. Set up approvers to receive notifications. You can set up Oracle Workflow Notification Mailer so the Invoice Approval Workflow Program can use e–mail, and your system administrator can grant approvers access to view invoice approval notifications from the Oracle Workflow Notification Worklist web page.

For more information see: Setting Up Oracle Workflow (Oracle Workflow Administrator’s Guide or online help).

4. Complete additional Oracle Workflow setup steps. Specify the timeout value, the time period in which an approver needs to respond before sending a reminder notification or escalating the request to the approver’s manager.

For more information, see: Setting Up Oracle Workflow (Oracle Workflow Administrator’s Guide or online help).

5. (Optional) Modify the Invoice Approval Workflow.

For example, you can modify the message text that appears on your notifications.

Also, the Exclude PO Matched Invoices rule is disabled by default, and you might want to enable it.

See: Setting Up Oracle Workflow (Oracle Workflow Administrator’s Guide or online help).

6. Consider one of the following modifications to handle cancelled invoices.

• In Oracle Workflow, modify the predefined workflow notifications to show the invoice status.

• In Oracle Approvals Management, set an OAM rule to remove invoices from the approver’s list when the status becomes Cancelled.

7. Set the Use Invoice Approval Workflow, Allow Force Approval, and Require Validation Before Approval Payables options.

See: Invoice Payables Options: page 2 – 52.

8. Set up a designated person who receives notification of workflow errors through the Oracle Workflow Default Error Process. We recommend that the person who receives OAM error notifications should also receive Oracle Workflow process error notifications.

See: Setting Up Oracle Workflow (Oracle Workflow Administrator’s Guide or online help).

9. (Optional) In the Submit Request window, set up Invoice Approval Workflow to run regularly.

See: To schedule automatic submission of the Invoice Approval Workflow Program: page 4 – 104.

10. Ensure that the seeded agent listener service component named Workflow Deferred Agent Listener, provided by Oracle Workflow, is

running for the WF_DEFERRED agent. This agent listener performs deferred processing including launching the Invoice Approval Workflow for all invoices with an approval status of Initiated. Use

Oracle Applications Manager to schedule and manage the Workflow Deferred Agent Listener.

For more information, please refer to Oracle Applications Manager online help.

11. (Optional) Set up the Invoice Approval History Status report to run nightly to reportatus Report: page 9 – 49.