Item Level Approval in Incoming Invoice

[Former Member]

Hi Gurus,

I am new to the concepts of workflow and really dont have good experince to take up this job. But still I want to give my best shot and see if I can do.

I am trying to accomplish item level approval for incoming invoice using business object FIPP. I have below mentioned questions in this regards,

1) Is it possible to achive item level approval for incoming(vendor) invoice using business object FIPP?

2) If <b>YES</b> , Please provide me with some hints on how to achieve it.

3) Is there any BADI available to enalbling this functionality?

Any kind of help in this regard is highly appreciated and rewarded.

Regards,

Sapna Madhuri

Message was edited by:

sapna madhuri

[Former Member]

Yes, this is possible by using FIPP. The most difficult part is to create the logic how you want to divide the parked invoice for different approvers.

Anyhow the basic idea is that you "divide" the invoice, and based on this you start for example parallel subworkflows, in which you will have the approval step. Then the "release step" is after these subworkflows => The document gets released only, if all the subworkflows are completed. (This is just one idea.)

[Former Member]

Hi Karri kemppi,

Thanks for your inputs that was really helpful in terms of getting some idea on how this task can be accomplished. As I am very strong in this area it would be really helpful if it is more detailed. so expecting to get more detailed information.

regards,

Sapna

[surjith_kumar]

Hi,

FIPP is the Business object for Park and Post workflow. Then are 2 standard workflows available for this.

WS10000051 -

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Parallel

WS00400032 -

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Sequential

Can you please explain how many levels of approval you needed.

Regards,

surjith

[Former Member]

Most probably, it will be two levels of approval, I would really appreciate if you can help me by providing more detailed help on this.

regards,

Sapna

[Former Member]

First you were speaking about "item level approval", but now "two levels of approval"? Which one is it?

By item level approval I would understand that the invoice items should be approved by multiple approvers (item 001 is approved by manager A and item 002 by manager B). But by two level approval I would understand that you mean that the invoice must be approved by two different approvers as whole: first manager A approves it, and then manager B approves it.

"Two level approval" is quite easy and straightforward, and there is a standard solution(s) for this provided by SAP. Just check the standard WF templates for parked invoice. The item level approval is another story...

[surjith_kumar]

Hi,

WS10000055 is sub-workflow which have approver, you just copy it and change how many approver you want.

Give the same binding as in the std.

Regards,

Surjith

[Former Member]

Hi Karri Kemppi,

My requirement is for both item level and depending on the amount in item higher level approval as well. Seems like too complicated task to achieve. Any kind of inputs in this regard will help me a lot.

Regards,

Sapna

[KKilhavn]

Not at all too complicated, just send it to all the first level item approvers first and then to the second level item (or overall) approver(s).

[Former Member]

Hi Kjetil Kilhavn,

Thanks for contineous help on this, to give you more clear idea, let me explain it this way,

Invoive id: 12345678 having 3 lineitems 10, 20 and 30.

Item 10 has to be approved by A1 and may be A2(Depending on amount inside).

Item 20 has to be approved by B1 and may be B2(Depending on amount inside).

Item 30 has to be approved by C1 and may be C2(Depending on amount inside).

Now , keeping this in mind, if you can answer me to the below mentioned questions, it would be of great help to me.

1) What kind of steps are required from workflow builder to accomplish this kind of functionality?How does the workflow graph should look like?

2) Keeping workflow aside, how does this item level approval functionality can be accomplished from transactions? how kind of configuration steps are required?

I know they are too many questions, hope you will not mind taking few minutes of your time to answer them.

regards,

Sapna

[Former Member]

For this you have to create a Multiliner Container element that will store the number of Line items that require approval. Use this Multiliner Container element(Item1,Item2,Item3) in the Miscallenious or Other Tab of Sub workflow for approval.

You also have to do the sequential approval(Approver Level 1 and approval Level2 for a particular Line itemn) using a Loop Until step(Inside the Sub Workflow).

Thanks

Arghadip

[KKilhavn]

Your solution design must of course depend on the functional requirements (specification). I can not (will not, I have a job to attend to even if I tend to spend too much time here on SDN sometimes) tell you everything that is involved in the workflow builder, nor what the graph should look like.

There is not one answer to these questions. You can probably find several (more than two) different technical solutions that meet the requirements. Not all will be equally elegant. Not all will be equally robust. Not all will be equally maintainable. Some will give a higher system load than others. And so on, and so on. <b><u>You</u></b> have to make the choices, not some fellow SDN-er far away from you and your customer.

<b>First question:</b> is approval of level 1 and 2 approvers performed independently for each item or depending on the previous level being completed (i.e. must all level 1 approvers approve before relevant items are sent to level 2 approvers)?

If they are handled independently, you can create a subworkflow and use dynamic parallel processing to instantiate it for all items. If there is dependence, you can perhaps use two dynamic parallel processing steps, first for level 1 approvers and then for level 2 approvers.

<b>Second question:</b> what happens if an approver rejects an item?

There is no easy way out, you have to spend time to find out what the best solution is. I'm not here to spoon-feed anyone any solutions, but I don't mind telling what my ideas are. OK, once in a while I will actually give someone a complete solution, like many others here, but that's mostly to very specific and limited questions. Your query is very broad and nearly unlimited in scope.

[Former Member]

Thanks Kjetil Kilhavn .

Have been so helpful to me. Thanks for that, I will try and drive this to next steps my self and hope to resolve these issues myself.