Offline vs. Online Approval

[Former Member]

I'd like to know when I can use offline approval and it's not allowed. Is online/offline approval based on the approval type such as shopping cart level approval vs. line item approval? Or is it based on the number of approval steps (1 step vs. 2 steps or n steps)?

Does anyone know the criteria and can explain it? I have a shopping cart level approval process with multiple approval steps where the approval has to go up the management organization sequentially for approval (i.e. (1) manager (2) director (3)VP etc...). Can I set up an offline approval for such process?

Regards,

SN

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi

<b>For Off-line Approval</b>

<b>Report RBBP_NOTIFICATION_OFFAPP</b>

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_srm50/helpdata/en/31/ec423b4ac8d506e10000000a11402f/frameset.htm

<u>BADI - BBP_OFFLINE_APP_BADI</u>

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_srm40/helpdata/en/31/ec423b4ac8d506e10000000a11402f/frameset.htm

<b>OSS Note 455140</b>

<b>Other Related links /threads -></b>

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/795. [original link is broken] [original link is broken] [original link is broken]

Do let me know.

Regards

- Atul

[former_member244470]

Hi,

Online/Offline approval is not based on the approval types. Its about how the user can approve/reject.

RBBO_NOTIFICATION_OFFAPP will send the work items in HTML format to the email client. There user can approve or reject and no need ot login to EBP. This is called offline approval.

In online approval user approves or rejects in EBP inbox.

Regards

Raveendra

[Former Member]

So if I have an approval process as follows:

1st - manager

2nd - director

3rd - president

where the approval steps are sequential that the manager has to approve before it goes to the director who has to approve before the president. I was told that since this is a multi-step approval process, the approval has to be online where each person has to log in to EBP and approve/reject. Offline approval is not possible in this scenario.

Are you saying that the approval type (shopping cart or line item level) or the number of approval steps (1 or multiple) does not matter. I can have offline approval in the multip step process as described above?

[Former Member]

Hi

Yes, Generally SAP Approval Workflow recommends to use On-line approval scenario.

However, You can choose Off-line approval as well in your case, but this might involve some more complexities as the mail approved/rejected in Local PC, Desktop of a user, etc.. needs to be synchronized and the same decisions needs to updated in SRM server.

Hope this will solve your query now. Do let me know.

Regards

- Atul

[Former Member]

SN,

Offline or online approval is just a process of approving the work items. It has nothing to do with the type of workflow you are using, you can use one step or n step approval to follow offline or online or both. If you want to implement offline, check the documentation and it is a simple process to set up.

Thanks,

Sreedhar

[Former Member]

It's good to hear consistent responses from different people.

When I first thought of implementing SC line-item approval, I was told that offline approval is not possible because when an item is rejected, it goes back to the requester, and the requester has to accept the rejection in order for the approved line items to complete. That made sense to me. So then I decided to go with a simpler solution with a shopping cart level approval, I then was told I cannot use the offline approval method either because it requires multiple approvals at different levels (multiple sequential approval steps). And that made no sense at all...so I had to ask to make sure that the type and # of steps of approval have no bearing on whether I can implement offline or online approval. I understand there's more config / customizing that needs to be done for offline approval.

Has anyone tried implementing WS 14000133 BBP_WFL_APPROV_BADI with offline approval?

Points will be rewarded accordingly to all responses in this thread.

Thank you,

SN