Getting Started With Approvals Management Engine

1. Getting Started With Approvals Management Engine John PetersJRPJR, Inc. john.peters@jrpjr.com John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

2. Before We Start A Quick Audience Survey • How many of you have used approvals in Workflow? • How many of you have had to customize the Workflow to accomplish the required approvals? • How many of you have tried Approvals Management Engine? John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

3. What we are going to cover • E-Business Suite Modules that currently utilize Approvals Management Engine • Technically where is AME • Where does Approvals Management Engine fit into the Workflow approvals processing • System Administration steps to enable Approvals Management Engine (briefly) • Definition of AME processes • Testing AME processing • Quick Demo of AME (time permitting) John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

4. Modules that currently utilize AME John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

5. Many OraApps Modules Have Restrictions • Requisition Approvals can not be forwarded to other approvers • Quote Approvals can not process approvals in parallel • Please review the restrictions for your OraApps Module on Metalink John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

6. Technically Where is AME • Tables exist in HR schema • Tables begin with AME_% • This tells us that Oracle views this as a component of HR • This is very important to realize since the functionality is HR centric in the approval list building process John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

7. How does AME fit in? • AME builds approval lists. • AME uses the logic you setup to control the building of the approval list. • AME does not send notifications or handle any of the other required “glue” in an approval process. • Typically AME is just a few new processes/functions on an existing approval process defined in Workflow. John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

8. Using the Requisition Approval process as an example John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

9. Using the Requisition Approval process as an example (cont.) John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

10. Using the Requisition Approval process as an example (cont.) John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

11. Sysadmin steps to enable AME • Assign responsibilities/roles to your system administrators • Setup AME System Wide Configuration • Setup module specific Profile Options • Assign responsibilities/roles to your functional users who will be setting up AME • Setup AME functionality for module • Steps 1-4 are only covered briefly here and are quite involved, we are going to instead concentrate on step 5 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

12. Assign resp/roles to Sys. Admins • AME uses the new User Management functionality • You must assign the responsibility ‘User Management’ to the people who will assign AME responsibilities to others • Have to do this assignment as the SYSADMIN OraApps user • The role to be assign is ‘Security Administrator’ John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

13. Setup AME Configuration Parameters • Using the responsibility ‘Approvals Management Administrator’ the SysAdmin’s can assign setup the AME Configuration Parameters. • For the most part these parameters can remain with their default values. John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

14. Assign resp/roles to functional super users • The SysAdmin’s must assign AME functional roles to the required OraApps user accounts using the User Management • The responsibility ‘Approvals Management Business Analyst’ is assigned along with the required roles, viewable in the Indirect Responsibilities tab of the Define Users form. John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

15. Setup AME Profile Options • 'AME:Installed' at the Application Levels • Oracle Quoting = Yes • For quoting there are several others to setup, these are module specific • 'ASO : Enable Approvals' = Yes • 'ASO : Allow Skip Approvers' = No John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

16. AME Approvers • AME Approvers must be setup as FND_USER’s • AME Approvers must be setup as Employees John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

17. Setup AME Module Functionality • The responsibility to be used is: ‘Approvals Management Business Analyst’ • Each OraApps module has different specific values, but the same general setup process holds true for each. John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

18. AME Allows For Very Complex Approval Rules An example of Quote Approval Requirements: • Discounts have different approval limits by product line by operating unit • Terms non-standard (non-default) • If the Sales Person is New • Sales Person Technical Review Required • Total Quote Price is $0 • Verify quote total is not less than GSA total • Remove Service Agreement items from quote/discount totals • Quote approvals go no higher than the VP of Sales All of these were implemented through customized of AME Attributes John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

19. Definition of the AME Process • Define Attributes • Define Conditions • Define Action Types • Define Approval Groups • Define Rules • Test Process All of this takes place on the AME Business Analyst Dashboard John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

20. Example of Approval Rules John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

21. AME Dashboard John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

22. AME Attributes • AME Attributes are the variables which are evaluated by your AME Process as it runs • AME Attributes can be Header or Line Item • Dynamic Attributes are filled in at run time by an SQL query • AME Attribute values are all stored internally as string values limited to a length of 100 characters • Most customization activity is around Attributes John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

23. AME Attributes – Data Types • Boolean • True or False • Currency • (amount,denomination,conversion method) • Date • ’YYYY:MON:DD:HH24:MI:SS’ • Number • Integer or decimal (using user’s character set decimal point) • String • Up to 100 characters in length John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

24. Currency Attributes • An SQL routine which populates a Currency Attribute must return three columns: • Amount = decimal value • Denomination = 3 Char Currency Code • Conversion Method = ‘Corporate’ • Static definitions are like the following:‘5000.00,USD,Corporate’ John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

25. Number Attributes • SQL routines should run the numeric values through the PL/SQL function: fnd_number.number_to_canonical John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

26. Date Attributes • Stored as a string • There is a PL/SQL date format mask you can use to format dates:ame_util.versionDateFormatModel • ’YYYY:MON:DD:HH24:MI:SS’ • Notice there are no spaces. John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

27. Dynamic Attributes • Dynamic attributes can be populated by an SQL expression.Select to_char(sysdate, ame_util.versionDateFormatModel) from dual; • All Attributes are stored internally as strings. • Must return one row. • The :transactionid is passed as a bind variable to the query. This is the key for the AME processes execution. • Limitation on SQL of 2000 characters John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

28. PL/SQL Usage • It is often advantageous to call a PL/SQL function rather than embed an SQL script in the attribute definition. • This has the added benefit of preventing functional users who can setup AME from modifying the underlying SQL. • Drawback is that Currency values require three PL/SQL function calls. John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

29. PL/SQL Example John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

30. PL/SQL Currency Example You end up with Currency PL/SQL calls like the following. select MY_PACKAGE.GET_MY_AMOUNT(:transactionId), MY_PACKAGE.GET_MY_CURRENCY(:transactionId), MY_PACKAGE.GET_MY_CONVERSION_TYPE(:transactionId)from dual John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

31. Conditions There are two types of conditions: • Regular ConditionsSimple logic statements • Technical Review Required = ‘Y’ • Discount is greater than -12 and less than or equal to -7.23 • List Modifier Conditions • Any approver is ‘Adams, John’ John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

32. Regular Conditions John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

33. Regular Conditions John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

34. List Modifier Conditions John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

35. Action Types • Action Types are groups of similar actions that build your approval list for you. • Common Predefined Action Rule Types are: • Chain of authority action types • List Modification action types • Post List Approval Group • Pre List Approval Group John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

36. Some of the Chain of Authority Action Types Job Level • absolute job level • chains of authority based on absolute job level • relative job level • chains of authority based on relative job level • final approver only • chains of authority containing only the final job-level approver Position • hr position • chains of authority based on a particular HR position • hr position level • chains of authority based on HR positions Hierarchy • manager then final approver • chain of authority includes requestor's manager and then the final approver • supervisory level • chains of authority based on number of supervisory levels John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

37. Job Level John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

38. Chain of authority action types John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

39. Absolute Job Level Actions: • Require approvals up to at most level 2 • Require approvals up to at most level 3 or • Require approvals up to at least level 2 • Require approvals up to at least level 3 Whats the difference: • Chain of approvers have levels 1,2,3,5 (4 is missing) • Requires Level 4 approval • At most => 1,2,3 • At least => 1,2,3,5 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

40. List Modification Action Types • final authority • grant final authority to an approver • nonfinal authority • extend the chain of authority past an approver John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

41. List modification action types John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

42. Pre or Post List Approval Groups • These actions add a list of approvers either before or after the approval is built. • Approvals in group can be serial or parallel. John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

43. Pre or Post List Approval Groups John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

44. Approval Groups • Either static or dynamic lists of approvers • Approvals can be: • Serial Voting (one after another, all for approval) • Consensus Voting (majority wins) • First-Responder-Wins Voting (parallel voting) • Order-Number Voting (one after another, all for approval)(allows for parallel voting) John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

45. Approval Groups John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

46. Rules • Rules are where one or more conditions result in an action. • This is what everyone has been waiting for. John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

47. Rules – Level 2 Approval • Actual Definition form John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

48. Rules – List Modification • Actual Definition form John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

49. Testing the Process • AME has an excellent Test Workbench for seeing how all these rules will actually work in real life. John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.

50. Testing the Process • Put in Transaction ID. For Quoting that is the Quote Header ID. • Historical transactions are required. John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.