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Approvers

Approvers in APM have the authority to approve or reject documents that are sent to them for approval using an approval route. Approvers have maximum approval limits for each approval route they are on. You can specify that an approver must review all requests.

When you set up an approval route, you will identify the approvers who will review the documents sent to the route. You can specify the maximum value these employees are authorized to approve.

On an approval route, you can define an approver as one or more employees. When two or more employees are included, approval is based on one of the following responses:

•	Any one of the employees can approve a request

•	All of the employees are required to approve each request

•	A specified number of employees (for example, two out of four) are required to approve a request

Note that when any one of the employees rejects a request, it is returned to the requestor with the status “Rejected”.

Approvers and Routes

Approvers who are set up to approve all requests to the route are last on the route, even if their approval limit is lower than other approvers on the route. This setting overrides the approval route’s threshold amount (if set). If an approver on the route must approve all requests, all requests are sent to him or her regardless of their values. For example, you could have an approver who checks certain work orders for safety reasons.

For example, a route contains three approvers: Bill with an approval limit of $2,000, John has an approval limit of $5,000, and Tom who is flagged as approving all requests. A request for $500 is sent for approval. The request is first routed to Bill, who reviews and approves it. The request is not sent to John for approval because Bill’s approval limit is sufficient to approve the request from a monetary point of view. The request is sent to Tom because he must approve all requests.

Employees with approval authority for different areas of responsibility can be included on multiple approval routes. However, an employee cannot be included more than once on the same approval route. For example, it is valid for John to be included on an approval route for purchases in the castor department and on a different approval route for maintenance work in the same or a different department. It is not valid for John to be mentioned twice on either of these routes.

Approval Limit

The approval limit identifies an approver’s spending or authority limit and also controls the order in which requests are approved. An approval limit is set for each employee on each approval route. An employee can have different approval limits on different routes.

One approver on the approval route must have an approval limit that is high enough to accommodate the approval requests sent to the route.

Approver Substitutions

In APM, approver substitutions are used when an approver wants to delegate approval responsibilities to a stand-in approver for a period of time. Substitutes are usually appointed when an approver is going to be unavailable for an extended period, such as during a vacation. The original approver’s approval limit is used.

A substitute approver can be identified in one of two ways. The next approver on an approval route can be named as a substitute. Then, all new approval requests skip the original approver and move to the next approver on the route, unless all other approvers in the route have responded. The other way to identify a substitute approver is to assign a specific employee as the substitute. Different substitutes can be named for each approval route.

While the substitution is in effect, any requests that would normally be sent to an approver are routed to the substitute. Substitutions are in effect for the specified period of time or until the original approver cancels the substitution.

When a substitution is canceled, approval requests that have already been routed to the substitute are not affected by the cancellation. To re-route these requests, the substitute can access the requests and forward them to the original approver (that is, the employee for whom the substitution was created). Requests sent after the substitution is canceled are routed to the original approver.

For example, James is away on vacation and approval requests are re-routed to Rob. When James returns, he cancels the substitution and new requests are sent to him. Requests that were sent to Rob while James was away and are still waiting for approval are not automatically sent to James.

For example, James is away on vacation and approval requests are re-routed to Rob. When James returns, he cancels the substitution, and new requests are sent to him. Requests that were sent to Rob while James was away, and are waiting for approval, are not automatically sent to James.

Bypassing Other Approvers for a Request

Situations can arise where a document is waiting for an approver to act, but the approver is unexpectedly absent due to an illness or some other reason and has not named a substitute. Circumstances might not allow you to wait for the employee’s return. It could be necessary to bypass the absent employee.

Any employee identified as an approver on the same approval route and who has a higher approval limit than the absent employee can approve the request. The absent employee and any approvers between the absent employee and the actual approver are pre-empted by this approval.

A warning message advises that you are pre-empting the current approver. If you accept the warning, you can approve, reject, or forward the request.

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