Multiple Approval Groups Assigned to a Single Position Results in Questionable Approval Routing / Incomplete No Approver Found Result

Last updated on OCTOBER 25, 2017

Applies to:

Symptoms

Purchase Orders or Requisitions appear to route according to an incorrect hierarchy, regardless of the account range or amount limits defined.

Setup Details:
1) Position hierarchy is used

2) A position is assigned two approval groups for the same document type (ex: Approve Purchase Requisitions or Approve Standard Purchase Orders).

a. Goods Approval Group
Document amount rule:  'Goods <= $10 000 USD

and

b. Expense Approval group
Document amount rule:  'Expense <= $99 999 USD

3) Approval Groups are defined with no overlapping accounts. 

a. Goods Approval Group :  Limited to a specific Goods account / amount limit of  $10,000 USD 

Name =  'Goods <=10 000' 
Description= Goods Approval Group <=10 000  Account=01-000-1570

Approval Rules
  Object                  Type      Amount Limit       Low Value           High Value
  Document Total    Include    $10 000   
  Account Range     Include    $10 000            01.000.1570           01.000.1570  --  Account 01.000.1570 user can approve up to $10,000 USD

b. Expense Approval Group:  Excludes the "Goods" specific account range / document total limit of $99,999 USD

Name=  'Expense <= 99 999'
Description= Expense Approval Group

Approval Rules
 Object                   Type      Amount Limit        Low Value           High Value
  Document Total    Include   $99 999 
  Account Range     Include   $99 999               02.000.0000           02.ZZZ.ZZZZ -- On account 02.xxx.xxx user can approve up to $99,999 USD


Approval Routing for a Requisition: 

For a requisition with
-  Charge Account:  01.000.1570          
-  Document Total:  $8.000 USD
-> Document routes correctly with the "Goods Approval Group" Dollar limit

For a requisition with
-  Charge Account:  02.000.999          
-  Document Total:  $12.000 USD
-> It is expected Document should route with the "Expense Approval Group" Account Range limit but it is incorrectly routed with the "Goods Approval Group" Dollar limit

Even when a requisition is for expense account that falls in the Expense group, if it is more than $10000 the user cannot  approve it and it goes up the hierarchy to his manager.

The system does not find the approval rights:
The Workflow step VERIFY_APPROVER_AUTHORITY / Does Approver Have Authority returns N

If there is no one with sufficient authority to approve the document the Workflow Activity Statuses for the document may show the following process activity and document remains in INCOMPLETE status

Also debug_message in po_wf_debug table will show

Else the document is forwarded to next approver and document remains in IN PROCESS status

Cause