You can assign tasks and approval steps to employees in an organizational hierarchy. The following information will help you set up a hierarchy and assign tasks and approval steps to employees in the hierarchy.

Set up an organization hierarchy

To set up an organizational hierarchy, you must set up employees, jobs, and positions. For more information, see Human resources setup.

Set up approval and spending limits

You can set up approval limits and spending limits, and assign a task or approval step to employees based on these limits. Complete the following procedures to set up approval and spending limits.

Create a limit type

A limit typeis an approval limit or spending limit associated with a specific document type. For example, you can create an approval limit for purchase requisitions, or a spending limit for expense reports.

Use the following procedure to create a limit type.

  1. Open the Limit typesform ( Basic> Setup> Limit types).

  2. Press CTRL+N to create a new line.

  3. In the Limit IDfield, enter an identification code for the limit. For example, if you are creating an approval limit for purchase requisitions, you may want the limit ID to be PurchApprovalLimit.

    The limit ID cannot contain any spaces.

  4. In the Limit typefield, select Approval limitor Spending limit.

  5. In the Document typefield, select the type of document this limit type applies to.

  6. In the Descriptionfield, enter a description of the limit, such as Purchase requisition approval limit.

  7. Save your changes.

Specify a default limit amount for each job

Specify a default limit amount for employees in each job. For example, by default, you may not want purchasing clerks to approve purchase requisitions that are greater than $500. You may not want purchasing managers to approve purchase requisitions that are greater than $5,000.

Use the following procedure to specify a default limit amount for a job.

  1. Open the Jobsform ( Basic> Setup> Job).

  2. Select a job and click Setup> Limit defaults. The Limit defaultsform is displayed.

  3. Press CTRL+N to create a new line.

  4. In the Limit IDfield, select a limit type.

  5. In the Default limitfield, enter the default amount employees in the selected job can approve or spend (depending on the limit type you selected in the previous step).

  6. In the Currencyfield, select the currency associated with the amount.

  7. In the Active datefield, enter the date that this default limit amount should go into affect.

  8. In the Expiration datefield, enter the date that this default limit amount should expire.

  9. Save your changes.

  10. Repeat this procedure for each job.

Specify a limit amount for each employee

Specify a limit amount for each employee. The amount you enter during this procedure will override the amount that you entered in the previous procedure.

For example, by default, you may not want purchasing managers to approve purchase requisitions that are greater than $5,000. However, you want Inga, a senior purchasing manager, to be able to approve purchase requisitions up to $10,000.

Use the following procedure to specify a limit amount for an employee.

  1. Open the Employeeform ( Basic> Common Forms> Employee Details).

  2. Select an employee and click Setup> Limits. The Limitsform is displayed.

  3. Press CTRL+N to create a new line.

  4. In the Limit IDfield, select a limit type.

  5. In the Limitfield, enter the amount the selected employee can approve or spend (depending on the limit type you selected in the previous step).

  6. In the Currencyfield, select the currency associated with the amount.

  7. In the Active datefield, enter the date that this limit amount should go into affect.

  8. In the Expiration datefield, enter the date that this limit amount should expire.

  9. Select the Activecheck box.

  10. Save your changes.

  11. Repeat this procedure for each employee.

Set the hierarchy-based assignment options

You can assign a task or approval step to employees in an organization hierarchy. To understand hierarchy-based assignment, assume that you have the following hierarchy.

Name

Job

Approval limit

Ann

CEO

$20,000

Mark

Corporate President

$10,000

Bill

Corporate Vice President

$5,000

Liz

Regional Manager

$1,000

Kevin

Sales Manager

$500

Sam

Salesperson

$100

Suppose that you want to assign a purchase requisition approval step to users in this hierarchy. To do so, you would need to complete the following procedure.

  1. Open the Assignmentform. For information about how to open this form, see Configure an approval step.

  2. Select the Hierarchy basedoption.

  3. The system must retrieve a range of employee names from the hierarchy. These names represent employees the approval step may possiblybe assigned to.

    In order for the system to retrieve a range of names, you need to specify the starting point and ending point of the range.

    • To specify the starting point, select a person from the Start fromlist.

      Since you are configuring a purchase requisition approval step in this example, you can select Requisitioner. (This is a purchase requisition field that contains an employee name.)

      The system will determine who submitted the purchase requisition. Assume that Sam submitted the purchase requisition. This means that the system will start retrieving the employee names that are above Sam in the hierarchy.

    • To specify the ending point, click Create stop condition.

      The Workflow condition editorform is displayed. Enter a condition to indicate where in the hierarchy the system should stop retrieving names.

      For example, if you want the system to stop at Liz's name, you could enter the following condition: Line manager level = 2. (This is because Liz is Sam's second-level manger.)

      If you want the system to stop at Bill's name, you could enter: Job title is Corporate Vice President.

      If you want the system to stop at Mark's name, you could enter: Approval limit = 10,000.

  4. Now that the system has retrieved a range of employee names from the hierarchy, you need to specify which employees the approval step will be assigned to.

    • If you select Assign to all users retrieved, the approval step will be assigned to all employees in the range.

    • If you select Assign only to last user retrieved, the approval step will be assigned to only the last employee in the range.

    • If you select Do not assign to users that meet the following condition, the system will not assign the approval step to users in the range who meet a specific condition. Click Create conditionto specify the condition.

  5. Click OK.