Approval Groups

Approval Management

You can set up individuals to approve orders. When an order exceeds a certain amount, you can require that the order be approved after it is submitted. For example, orders less than $200 may not require approval but orders exceeding $200 must be approved. When an order requires approval, an email is sent to the approver you select. The order must be approved before it can be processed. To effectively use this feature, you set up approval groups.

You can add Top Level, Customer, and Department approval groups. You can add multiple Top Level groups per account. This can be helpful for certain approval groups, such as school districts, for example. While the school district acts as the main account, all the individual schools within the district act as departments. Each school has an approval chain with a top approver unique to each school. Orders created by the specific school can now be specifically directed to its top approver. Before this enhancement, you had to create new main accounts or include all users in the top approval chain and appropriately remove their orders. For details, see About Approval Groups.

Note: This page lets you set filters to limit the information. For example, you can set a filter to only include accounts containing a specific description. To set a filter, click to the right of the box and select a filter from the drop down box. For more details, see Filtering Information.

Click the Consumer Admin training toolbar and select Approval Management, then Approval Groups. You can also click Customer Settings and click Approval Management, then Approval Groups.
The Approval Groups Management page opens. To view groups by customer, click the down arrow in the Search for Group By Customer box and select the customer from the list.
To set limits for the groups to view, use the Account through Group Type boxes. Click the box and enter the limit. Then click the down arrow to choose the filter by which to limit.
The customer group and department information can be expanded. To view additional information, click corresponding to the group name. The Department and Department Name boxes open.
This page lets you perform a variety of tasks, including:

Click to edit an existing approval group. This page lets you edit information and also create new approval groups. If you click a group in the Approval Chain section, you can view and change the group’s detail. For details, see Approval Groups View.

Click to delete an existing approval group. At the Are You Sure prompt, click OK. The system indicates which groups can be deleted by displaying the beside the approval group. Those groups cannot be immediately deleted. For more details, see Delete Approval Groups.

Click Add New Approval Group. The Approval Group wizard opens. To add a new group:

Click the down arrow in the Account box and select the account number to assign this group.
Click the Description box and enter a description for this approval group.
Click the Email CC Address on Approval Emails box and enter the address.
Click Next. On the Group Type page, select either Top Level, Customer, or Department. You can also click Use Grid to Select Options to select members using a list.
Click Next. On the Members page, click the down arrow to assign members to this group. You can also click Use Grid to Select Options to select members using a list. (If this is the only Top Level approval group, click Finish. This ends the procedure.)
Click Next. On the Limits page, set the limits for this approval group. (If this is the only Top Level group, this page does not appear.) You can set each of the following limits:

Authorized Order Dollar Limit
Authorized Line Item Limit Ext Dollar Limit
Maximum Line Item Unit Price
Authorized Max Dollars Per Month
Non-Contract Items Require Approval
Over Monthly Budget Requires Approval
Click Next. On the Approvers page, click the down arrow in the Available Approvers box to select the approvers for this group. (If this is the only Top Level group, this page does not appear.)

Note: When assigning top level approvers, it is important to remember that this approver is at the highest level of responsibility for approving orders. If this individual is out of the office for any reason, vacation, for example, orders requiring his approval are not processed until he can approve them.

Click Finish.

Note: After you set up groups, you can view and edit approval chains. For details, see Approval Chains.