What is Approval Management?
Oracle HCM Cloud Approval management is based on human workflow to automate tasks from one user or an application to another user for actions. Fusion HCM Workflows are routed in a predefined sequence to achieve an end result based on the initial configuration of the human workflow.
-It Controls approval workflows for business objects such as Hire an Employee, Promotions, Salary Changes, Grade Changes etc.
-It enables you to define complex, multistage task routing rules.
-It integrates with the setup in HCM to derive approvers based on the supervisory hierarchy.
Approval management falls under 3 points:
- Controls workflows for business processes such as hiring an employee or managing promotions.
- Enables you to define task routing policies that can be as simple or as complex as needed.
- It is fully integrated with HCM to derive approvers based on the supervisory hierarchy, areas of responsibility (such as HR or Benefit Representatives), and other criteria, such as job levels.
Approval Workflow:
-Workflows are processes in which transactions are routed automatically among users for their review or action.
-Workflow human task is any workflow component that requires attention or action from managers.
-In Oracle Fusion HCM the tasks for the users come up in the worklist notifications and approval region.
This is the high level diagram of what happens when a task submitter submits the tasks, it goes to the first approver then goes to the final approver, there is also a possibility that the first approver could itself be the final approver and when that happens, the task can be approved. This is a very high level generic flow, diagram of a workflow.
Transactional Flow:
This is a typical fusion HCM approval workflow,
When the transaction is submitted; the information is routed automatically to the work list of the 1st level manager.
If the submitter’s 1st level manager approves the transaction, the information is then routed automatically to the work-list of the 2nd level manager.
If the 2nd level manager approves the transaction, then the information is committed to the database tables.
Depending on the access granted, either of the respective approvers may edit the transaction at any time.
Approver Types:
An approver type is any Workflow Directory Services originating system that defines entities, which can receive Workflow notifications requesting an approval. For example, the HR application defines its set of employees as a Directory Services originating system, so an HR employee can be an approver.
There are various types of approvers available in Approver types, where we can include any number of approvers in the approver sequence by dragging and dropping them into the approval flow. This topic explains each of the approver types.
Application Role:-
If your enterprise defines duty roles for security purposes, you can enter the duty role to include it in the approval sequence. A duty role is assigned to several users.
Approval Groups:-
It is nothing but a group of employees, when we require the approval from multiple people then we are going to use an approval group. All approval group members are notified at the same time. We can create approval groups using the BPM Work-list. When defining an approval sequence, we can enter the names of one or more existing approval groups.
Management Hierarchy:-
In Management Hierarchy, we can setup approvals using the employee supervisor hierarchy. We can set up employee with appropriate job and supervisor such as
- Line manager
- Resource manager
- Project manager
- Regional manager
If your enterprise defines additional types of managers, then they appear automatically in the Approvers section of the Manage Approval Rules page. You can include them in the approval sequence
Position Hierarchy:-
Position hierarchy defines positions’ relationships. In HCM position hierarchy is built based on these relationships. We enable the HCM position hierarchy on the Manage Enterprise HCM Information page in the Setup and Maintenance work area.
If you include a position hierarchy in your approval sequence, then position holders are invited to approve the transaction. For positions with more than one position holder, the transaction is approved by the first position holder to approve.