Setting Up Document Approval and Security

Human Resources with Purchasing

Human Resources and Purchasing share job and position information if they
are installed together. You should consider your requirements from both
perspectives before deciding on an approval/security structure.

Human Resources uses jobs to classify categories of personnel in your

organization, and associates information like the exempt/non-exempt code and
EEO code with individual jobs. Examples of a typical job include Vice
President, Buyer, and Manager. Positions represent specific functions within
these job categories. Examples of typical positions associated with the Vice
President job include Vice President of Manufacturing, Vice President of
Engineering, and Vice President of Sales.

Human Resources uses position hierarchies to define management line

reporting and control access to employee information.

Review your Personnel department's system requirements before you decide

how you want to use positions, jobs, and position hierarchies in Purchasing.

Using Approval Hierarchies

If you choose to use approval hierarchies, you must set up both jobs and
positions, and you must define position approval hierarchies.

If you choose to use employee/supervisor relationships, you define your

approval routing structures as you enter employees using the Enter Person
window. In this case, Purchasing does not require that you set up positions.

While positions and position hierarchies require more initial effort to set up,
they are easy to maintain and allow you to define approval routing structures
that remain stable regardless of how frequently individual employees leave
your organization or relocate within it.

Using Security Hierarchies

If you want to specify a Security Level of Hierarchy for any of your document
types, you must first define all positions which should have access to the
documents you want to restrict in this manner. (Even if you are using jobs to
route documents for approval, you must define positions before you can enable
this Security Level). You then define a security position hierarchy, and specify
it in the Purchasing Options window.

Approval Workflow

Purchasing uses Oracle Workflow technology to handle approvals. Workflow

works in the background, using the approval controls and hierarchies you
define in the setup steps below to route documents for approval. Because
Workflow handles your approval process in the background, you can use
Oracle Workflow Builder's easy interface to modify your approval process. For
more information about the approval workflow in Purchasing, see: Approval
Workflows.

Approval and Security Setup Steps

1. Use the Financials Options window to indicate whether you want to

route documents for approval using approval hierarchies or
employee/supervisor relationships. This decision applies only to the
Business Group you choose for your Purchasing installation in the
Financials Options window. See: About Financials Options.
If you choose to use approval hierarchies, you must define positions in
addition to jobs. You later build your hierarchies by referencing these
positions.
2. Use the Job window to create each of the job titles in your
organization (for example: Buyer, Supply Base Engineer). If you are not
using positions, you assign one or more employees to each job. If you
are using positions, you assign one more positions to each job, and later
assign one or more employees to each position.
Attention: You assign authorization rules to jobs or positions based on
your decision in Step 1. It is important to ensure that your job/position
infrastructure supports the different approval levels in your organization.
For example, if your purchasing staff includes a Junior Buyer, a Senior
Buyer, a Supply Base Manager, and a Purchasing Manager, all of whom
have different authorization levels for different document types, you can
define a different job or position for each role. If your purchasing
department is comprised of five employees with common authorization
limits, then a single job or position of Buyer may suffice.
See: Representing Jobs and Positions.
3. Use the Position window to create each of the positions in your
organization. This step is required if you plan to use either security or
approval hierarchies. See: Representing Jobs and Positions
 4. Use the Position Hierarchy window to build and administer your
position hierarchies. There are two distinct uses for position hierarchies
in Purchasing: 1) document approval routing and 2) document security
control. You can use a single position hierarchy for both purposes.
See: Representing Jobs and Positions.
5. Use the Purchasing Options window to choose a single security
hierarchy for your installation if you want to use the document Security
Level of Hierarchy for any or all of your document types. See: Defining
Control Options.
Attention: Note that a security hierarchy controls which positions (and
therefore which employees) have access to a particular document type. It
does not control whether an employee has the authority to approve a
document or perform other actions. An Off-line approver is a valid
employee with approval authority, but without access to the relevant
form. An On-line approver is an active employee with approval
authorization, and with access to the relevant form.
6. Use the Document Types window to specify distinct security and
approval controls for each document type/subtype. See: Defining
Document Types.
7. Use the Approval Groups window to define approval authorization
rules. See: Defining Approval Groups.
8. Use the Assign Approval Groups window to associate approval rules
with a specific job or position and a document type. See: Assigning
Approval Groups.
9. Use the Enter Person window to assign employees to jobs or positions.
If you are not using position approval hierarchies for document routing,
you must provide the employee's supervisor. See: Enter Person.
10. Run the Fill Employee Hierarchy process. This process creates an
employee-populated representation of your approvals hierarchy and
should be run whenever you make a structural or personnel change to
your hierarchies or assignments. You can set up this process to run
automatically at predefined intervals. See: Fill Employee Hierarchy
Process.

Approval and Security Setup Matrix