SAP E-Sourcing Contract Mgmt : Addition of collaborator / Approver

[Former Member]

Hi

Is it possible to have collaborators/approvers to be added at the time of Clause & Section creation in contract management

We have seen the addition of Approver / Collaborator/ other roles for Contract Document Template level

However, if a company has a process of approval of sections or clauses, how is this achieved.

How will the approver or reviewer be alerted that a clause is pending their review and needs to be moved from Draft->Review->Approved->Retired

Is this managed via Authorisation.

How do we add the collaborator / reviewer/approver at the time of clause or section creation, please help?

Regards

Tridip Chakraborthy

SAP SRM Consultant

+91-9902764700

Edited by: Tridip Chakraborthy on Jun 9, 2008 8:19 AM

[Ramki · Accepted solution]

Hi Tridip

Collaborators can be added to business documents only.

This means you cannot add collaborators to Clauses/Sections.

You can have authorizations for Clauses -- Create/Edit. Whoever is authorized to edit, they can change the phase from Draft to approved.

Best regards

Ramki

[tridip_chakraborthy · Accepted solution]

Hi Ramki

I just need one more clarification before flagging this as Answered. I completely understand that Collaboraors/approvers are added to business documents

But lets take a situation

incase a company has a legal department that is split in such a way that one team creates content (clauses/sections) and the other team approves / modifies content, can we still use the approval workflow scenario to move the document phases from Draft->Review->Approved

where *Draft (Creator of the Clause)*

*Review (Legal expert for language standardization)*

*Approved (head of the legal department)*

This situation was there when we worked alongside the legal department in my earlier organization, theough the entire process was paper and email based

if you throw some light on how to address this busines situation, then I'll go ahead and mark the process that us suggest as the best practice going forward

Regards

Tridip

9902764700

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

There are four phases at clause/section levels

Draft, Review, Approved and Retired.

Draft ---> user who has access to create clause/section

Review ---> Legal and internal review

Approved -

---

> Finalized

Retired ---> Incase to inactivate

Depending on each clients requirement and business process these phases can used.

Regards,

[tridip_chakraborthy · Accepted solution]

Hi Kamalakar

I understand the phase configuration part of the process, even Ramki esplained it very well.

But my question was around the approval workflows being crafted for these phases.

Lets see what Ramki has to say finally

Regards

Tridip

[former_member224222 · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately, the system does not directly support what you are trying to achieve. That is, there is no way to use workflow in conjunction with the phases associated with Sections and Clauses. In the scenario you described above, the approval of the Sections and Clauses would need to be coordinated and achieved by the organization, outside the scope of software. This is a known limitation.

Rob

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

That correct, I agree with Rob. We are looking forward to see these workflow enchancements in the future release of esourcing.

[Ramki]

Dear Tridip

I agree with Rob. Workflow for phases is not available here though that would have been great.

The only workaround I can propose is what I indicated in my earlier post :

Have a set of users with only 'Create' authorizations. They can create the clause.

Have different set of users with 'Edit' authorizations (e.g. legal/reviewers). They can set the other phases indicating the approval. Ofcourse, you cannot differentiate between reviewer and approver here.

I am not sure if scripting help you to build validation and throw error during saving when an unauthorized user 'approves' a clause.

Best regards

Ramki

[tridip_chakraborthy]

Hi Ramki / Rob / Kamalakar

Thanks for all your inputs helping me close on this, am now clear about the workaround to deal with this business process step.

Lets hope to see if the future releases of SAP E-Sourcing 5.1, 6.0 and 7.0 or the xCLM releases has this feature as most of the legal contract authoring questions from RFP's have reference to the approval workflow requirement at the Clause / Section level ven before reaching to the business document level in the heirarchy.

Thanks

Regards

Tridip