To Set Up Approval of Sales Orders

For many businesses, approval of sales orders is required for sales performed on credit. You can set up approval for sales orders by using the Sales Orders Preferences (SO101000) form.

Before You Proceed

Before you can set up the approval of sales orders, make sure the following steps are completed in your system:
  1. On the Order Types (SO201000) form, make sure that the Supports Approval check box is selected for each order type for which you want to set up the approval of orders.
  2. Review the organization's hierarchy of workgroups on the Company Tree (EP204061) form, and add new groups whose members are authorized to approve sales orders, if needed.

    Select the employee who will be the default owner of each workgroup—the member of the group to whom the documents will be assigned for approval by default. A group may include only one default owner.

  3. By using the Assignment and Approval Maps (EP205500) form, create the approval maps that will be used to determine the employee or employees who should approve an order of a specific type with specific properties. For details on configuring approval maps, see To Create Approval Maps for Parallel Approvals and To Create an Approval Map for Multistage Approvals.
    Note: For each type of sales orders for which approval is required, you should configure at least one approval map. If multiple parallel approvals are required, create an approval map for each required approval.
  4. For each order type, create email templates for notifications about orders pending approval. These emails will be sent to employees authorized to approve sales orders of a specific type. You can create email templates by using the Email Templates (SM204003) form.

To Set Up Approval

  1. Open the Sales Orders Preferences (SO101000) form.
  2. On the Approval tab of this form, select the Require Approval check box.
  3. For each order type for which you need to configure approval, add an approval map as follows:
    1. Click Add Row in the table.
    2. In the SO Type column, select the type of sales orders that requires approval.
    3. In the Approval Map column, select the approval map to be used for orders of the selected type.
    4. In the Pending Approval Notification column, select the email template you created for generating emails about orders of this type pending approval.
  4. If multiple parallel approvals are required for orders of the specific type, repeat Step 3 for each of the approval maps.
  5. Click Save on the form toolbar.

Notes About the Procedure

The notes in this section describe the nuances of the UI elements available on the form, such as when an element is required and when it is not, and when the system fills in settings by default. This section can include other notes.

Note the following about this procedure:

  • The functionality related to approvals is available only if the Approval Workflow feature is enabled on the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form.
  • Approvals are supported for the orders of the following predefined types: CS, CR, IN, SO, SA, CM, TR, and QT They are also supported for orders of custom types that are based on the available templates that use the following automation behaviors: Invoice, Sales Order, Transfer Order, and Quote.