Approval Workflow - Item vs Header

[Former Member]

Hi,

I have a requirement to enhance the current shopping cart approval workflow with the addition of a commodity based approval step to the existing cost object based approval. The new product category workflow will most likely be operated at line item level. However we want to keep the existing cost object based approval which currently is header based.

My question is, is it possible to have a financial approval at the header level, and then switch to item level workflow for the commodity based approval?

Thanks

[martin_nooteboom · Accepted solution]

Hi Andrey,

I don't think you could use two workflows for one approval process, but it has been a while since I did workflow in SRM. I think you could use the item approval and group all items together to do a "header" approval. But as I said it has been a while so I could be mistaken.

Regards,

Martin

[Former Member]

Thanks

[Former Member]

Hi Andrey,

Yes it is very much possible using n-step approval BADI <b>BBP_WFL_APPROV_BADI</b>

You can use this BADI in the following 3 scenarios :

1. Implementing a dynamic n-step approval process for shopping carts

(using the workflow WS14000133 N-step approval of shopping cart [BAdI])

2. The approval workflow WS14000145 N-step approval for PO also uses this BAdI for determining the N-step dynamic approval process for purchase orders (PO) and change versions of purchase orders (PO-CV).

The dynamic parts are the number of levels in the process and the number of approvers for each approval level. The approvers and the requirement for further approval steps are determined before the first approval and after every subsequent approval step. This means that any conditions that change during the approval are taken into account. Therefore, after saving an SC or a PO/PO-CV, there is no longer a rigid predefined approval chain, instead the scope and the structure of the chain are continually adapted.

Note:

Relevant workflows are also available for bid invitation (WS14500028), contract (WS14000148), and bid (WS14500044). These provide identical functionality for these documents.

3. Implementing a dynamic n-step Approval process for shopping carts on an item level

(using the workflow WS14500015 Item-based approval).

While the approvers determined in 1 always receive the whole shopping cart (all items) for approval, in 3 there is also the option to limit the responsibility of the defined approvers to particular items. The approver can then only change and approve/reject these items. In this case, in addition to the approvers for each approval step, in the method GET_REMAING_APPROVERS you also need to determine for which items in the shopping cart the approvers are responsible.

Items in the shopping cart that are to be approved by the same approver in the approval step are grouped together into "Approval Objects". The approver then only receives one work item for each approval object.

For each approval step, you can also define whether the approver can view the other items, for which he/she is not responsible. (In the BAdI implementation: hide_items_not_responsible = a, if a = 'X', then only the items relevant for approval are visibler, if a = ' ', then all other items are also visible.)

(*) Note

See the following SAP Notes 866496 (Item approval: Problems with restart), 784408 (Item approval: Rejected items in BADI) and 826637 (Item approval: Rejection results in problems)!

Hope this info. helps you in resolving your issue. Clarifications are welcome.

You can also use SAP Help by mentioning this BADI name in SE18 transaction and by clicking on Documentation tab.

Award points for helpful answers.

Rgds,

Teja