Oracle Approvals Management (AME) Case Studies For AP, PO and HR

Oracle Approvals Management (AME) Case
Studies for AP, PO and HR

Updated Feb-2017
Presented By
Susan Behn
VP, Oracle Practice

About the Speaker
■ Oracle Ace
■ Over 20 years E-Business Suite development and support
■ Member-Oracle Proactive Support Customer Advisory
Board
■ Chair-Oracle E-Business Suite User Management SIG
■ Chair-Texas-Louisiana Oracle User Group TLOAUG
■ Treasurer – Dallas Oracle Users Group – DOUG
■ Board Member – Customizations and Extensions SIG
■ Over 100 presentations on E-Business Suite
■ Co-author for multiple books on E-Business Suite
■ The ABCs of Workflow for E-Business Suite Release 11i
■ Release 12 and The Release 12 Primer – Shining a Light on
the Release 12 World.
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■ R12.1.3, R12.2.5, OBIEE
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■ Posted presentations on
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Agenda
■ AME Overview
■ Setup examples
■ Testing Workbench and Sample Business Case
Scenarios
■ Payables
■ Purchase Requisitions
■ Human Resources – iRecruitment Vacancy Approval
■ Migration with FNDLOAD
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Partner
What is AME?
■ Purpose is to find approvers based on business rules
■ AME generates the approver list
■ AME returns the next approver to calling application
■ Request for next approver re-generates approver list to
return next approver to calling application
■ Integrated with multiple E-Business applications such
as HR, PO and AP
■ APIs allow integration with 3rd party apps
5 Gold
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AME and Approval Workflows
■ Approval routing is controlled by AME rules via workflow
■ Workflow sends request to AME to find approvers
■ AME rules determine next approver and sends person_id,
user_id, position_id, etc… back to workflow (id based on
approver type
■ Workflow sends notification to approver identified by AME
AME
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Partner
Advantages of AME
■ Reduces approval cycle time
■ But some workflow approvals have functionality to reduce
cycle time
■ Approval Rules can be developed by business users
with minimal development assistance
■ Approver Lists leverage off existing Oracle hierarchies
(e.g. HR supervisor, HR position)
■ Approver Lists can also leverage off custom hierarchies
■ AME responds to changes such as organization
hierarchies or rule changes
■ Alternative is workflow customization
■ Requires significant development expertise
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Partner
Planning for AME
■ Gain support from the management team and users
■ Plan for all corporate rules using flow charts or decision
trees
■ Provides basis for testing
■ Improves overall logic by identifying combinations
■ Identifies alternatives
■ Speeds implementation process
■ Identifies potential problems
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Partner
Setups for some Transaction Types
■ Setup requirements vary by transaction type
■ Refer to the user guide for the application
■ Will cover the following as examples
■ iExpenses
■ Payables
■ Purchasing
■ GL Journals
■ HR iRecruitment
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iExpenses AME Setup
■ Profile option “AME: Installed must be set to “Yes” at the
Application level for Payables to use AME for iExpenses
■ This has no impact on approvals for payables invoices
■ For additional details see Oracle Internet Expenses

Implementation and Administration Guide – section “Setting
Up Approval Rules”
■ For line level approvals, define Cost Center orgs and
Approval Managers
▸ See MOS note 261362.1
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Payables Invoices AME Setup
■ In
SetupOptionsPaya
bles Options Approval
Tab
■ Check “Use Invoice
Approval Workflow”
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Purchasing AME Setup
■ SetupPurchasingDocument Types
■ Query the document Type
■ Enter the approval transaction type for the document type to
use AME.
▸ PURCHASE_REQ for Purchase Requisition Approval
▸ INTERNAL_REQ for Internal Requisition Approval
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General Ledger AME Setup
■ Check the Enable Journal Approval check box on the Set of
Books window
■ Whether to use JE Approval is set per Ledger
■ Once selected, default is Employee / Supervisor
■ Check the Require Journal Approval check box for each
journal source that should be subject to approval
■ Create employee supervisor hierarchy in HR
■ New for 12.1.3 and later – AME – profile option set at
application level, but doesn’t force ledgers not marked for
JE Approval to use approvals – see MOS note 2038960.1
■ Set profile option “GL: Use Approval Management (AME) for
journal approval” to yes
■ Optional: Update the profile option “GL: Number of journal
lines to display in AME journal approval notification”
■ Default is 5
■ Set up AME rules
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iRecruitment Vacancy Approval AME Setup
■ iRecruitment Vacancy Approval is delivered with
seeded rules
■ If different rules are needed, create a custom
transaction type for iRecruitment
■ Change the profile option IRC: Vacancy Approval
Transaction Type to the new transaction type name
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AME Access
■ AME uses Oracle Role Based Access Model (RBAC) to
access AME components
■ Functional Administrator Responsibility
■ Grant access to data – (who can see what transaction type)
■ User Management Responsibility
■ Login in as the SYADMIN user
■ Grant access to roles
▸ Approvals Management Business Analyst - define business cases
▸ Approvals Management Administrator - add transaction types, add
approver types and view logs
■ User Management Presentations with Details
■ http://www.infosemantics.com/presentation-downloads/
EBS User Management for Dummies – Current
requirements and features including Grants, Permissions,
RBAC and Proxy users
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Business Analyst Dashboard
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Administrator Dashboard
■ See exception log to resolve errors, create transaction
types and enable approver types
Users, Employees, Positions,

TCA Parties, Etc…
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AME Building Blocks
■ Approver Types
■ Configuration Variables – Global defaults or per
transaction type
■ General Variables
■ Rule Priority Modes
■ Forwarding Behaviors
■ Transaction Types
■ Attributes
■ Conditions
■ Actions/Action Types
■ Approver Groups
■ Rules
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Approvals Management
Administrator Tasks
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Administrator Dashboard - Approver Types
■ Verify approver types needed are enabled or click the
button to add an approver type from the list
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Configuration Variables - General
■ Control runtime behavior
■ Default applies to all transaction types
Change for
specific
trans. type
transaction
type
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Rule Priority Modes
■ Scroll down the configuration variables page to set the rule priority mode
for each rule type
■ Options are disabled, relative or absolute
■ For absolute or relative, enter a numeric threshold (1 is highest priority)
■ Threshold is compared to the rule priority during run time
▸ Absolute – if the evaluated priority value < rule priority mode, rule is processed
▸ Relative – processes the highest number of rules = the threshold value
■ Details on how this works is explained in MOS Id: 225672.1
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Forwarding Behaviors
■ Scroll down the configuration variables page to set
forwarding behaviors
■ Determines how AME treats both the forwarder and
forwardee when request for approval is forwarded
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Forwarding Behavior Choices
■ Ignore – treats as approval
■ Forwardee Only – add forwardee to approver list
■ Forwardee then Forwarder – add both to approval list
■ Skip Forwarder – extend chain of authority starting with
forwardee, but skip forwarder
■ Repeat Forwarder – extend chain of authority starting
with forwardee and include forwarder
■ Remand – add to approver list all approvers between
the forwardee and the forwarder including the forwarder
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Transaction Types
■ What will be approved
■ Invoice, requisition, salary change…
■ R12.2.6 has 251 transaction types
■ Custom transaction types can be created
■ For the next few slides, query Payables Invoice
Approval and click the pencil to edit
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Transaction Type - Item Classes
■ Page 2 shows levels at which approval rules can be
configured
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Transaction Type - Mandatory Attributes
■ Some values can be changed
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Approvals Business
Analyst Tasks
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Transaction Type
■ Query transaction type, then click the setup icon to edit
attributes, conditions, action types and approver groups
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Attributes
■ Variables used to build rules (e.g. invoice amount,
supplier, etc.)
■ Can be static (constant value) or dynamically retrieved at
runtime (SQL query)
■ Basic attributes seeded for all transaction types
■ Existing attributes can be modified
▸ SUPERVISORY_NON_DEFAULT_STARTING_POINT_PERS
ON_ID – Update to start with a different person
■ Create additional attributes for anything linked to
transaction id for header (invoice id, requisition id)
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Seeded Attributes
■ Examples from the Payables Invoice Approval
transaction type
■ Description makes this very intuitive to utilize
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Create Attribute for Sales Tax Approval Rule
■ Attribute to return the number of sales tax lines that
exist
Lookup
code = TAX
Tax code
name =
SALES TAX
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Conditions
■ Represent the IF part of an approval rule
■ Attributes are evaluated runtime
■ This is why AME adjusts immediately to changes
■ Result can either be true or false
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Condition Types
■ Ordinary
■ Compare attribute to value or range
■ Exception
■ Same as ordinary but can only be used in List Creation
Exception Rule Types
■ List Modifier
■ Checks for presence of specified approver
▸ The action will determine what happens when this approver is
encountered
Any Approver
Or
Final Approver
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Actions/Action Types
■ Represent the Then part of an approval rule
■ Provide instruction to AME when an approval rule has
been satisfied
■ Determine the approvers and number of approvers
■ Action Types are grouping of actions
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Action Types
■ Grouping of Actions
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Action Types – Use Existing Action Type
■ If action type needed does not appear, click the “Use
Existing Action Type Button”
■ Next, choose the rule Type
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Action Types – Use Existing Action Type
■ Select action type to add
Symbol denotes
action types already
available for use
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Partner
Actions for Chain of Authority Rule type
■ Example of Action Types and Actions for Chain of
Authority Rule Type
Available Action Types
Actions for Absolute

Job level selected type
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Action Type Examples
Action Type Description Example

Absolute-job-level ~Ascends HR Require approvals up
supervisor hierarchy to at least job level six
~Based on specific job •Specific purchase
level types
Relative-job-level ~Ascends HR Require approvals at
supervisor hierarchy least four levels up
~Based on job level •Pay changes
relative to requester’s
job level
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Partner

Manager-then-Final- ~Ascends HR Require approval up
Approver supervisor hierarchy to first supervisor and
~Supervisor and final level six final approver
approver are required •Capital with CFO
to approve approval
Supervisory-Level Ascends HR Require approvals up
supervisor hierarchy a to three supervisors
specified number of •Expenses
levels
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Partner

HR-Position Ascends HR position Require approvals up
hierarchy up to a to Accounting
specified position Manager
•HR approvals
Approver-Group ~Ascends custom If transaction item is
Chain-of-Authority approver hierarchy related to a project
~Builds chain-of- •Approver groups
authority type based on project roles
approver list
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Partner

Final-Authority Grants final authority If Approver is Susan
to an approver by Behn, allow final
ending the approval approval
chain when target •VP Approval
approver is reached
Pre and Post Chain- Approvers are added Require IT pre-

Of-Authority before or after normal approval for hardware
chain-of-authority list purchase
build for a transaction •Accounting and
Technical
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Create New Approver Group
■ Dynamic approver groups are better than static due to
maintenance requirements due to employee turnover
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Dynamic Approver Group
■ Get key
members
with role
“Project
Manager”
for each
project on Will return
invoice multiple project
managers if
distributions more than one
project
referenced in
lines
48 Gold
Partner
Voting Method
■ Serial – one-at-a-time, if order number same then AME
breaks tie arbitrarily, all must approve
■ Consensus – parallel, all must approve
■ First Responder Wins – parallel, first response determines
response for group
■ Order Number – notified in sequence of order number, if
order number same then notified in parallel, all must
approve
49 Gold
Partner
Rules
■ Represent the translation of an organization business
approval rule in AME
■ Associate one or more conditions to a rule
■ When the rule applies
■ Select an action type to build approver list
■ What to do when the conditions are met
■ Can have multiple rules each yielding a different list of
approvers
■ Rules re-evaluated during each approval iteration
50 Gold
Partner
Rule Types
■ List Creation
■ Generate Chain-of-Authority Approver Lists
▸ IF INVOICE_AMOUNT > $500K , THEN REQUIRE
APPROVALS UP TO 2 SUPERVISORS
■ List-Creation Exceptions
■ Uses one ordinary condition and one exception condition
▸ IF INVOICE_AMOUNT < 1000 AND (Exception)
SUPPLIER_TYPE IS IN (‘UTILITY’) THEN REQUIRE
APPROVALS UP TO 1 SUPERVISORS
■ Combination
■ Combination of actions
▸ IF REQUESTER IS ‘JOHN DOE’, REQUIRE PRE-APPROVAL
FROM TEAM LEAD, POST-APPROVAL FROM AP MANAGER
51 Gold
Partner
Rule Types
■ List-Modification
■ Used to extend or reduce final approver authority
▸ IF INVOICE_AMOUNT > 5000 AND PAYGROUP IS ‘COMPEQUIP’
AND ANY APPROVER IS GERALD JONES GRANT FINAL
AUTHORITY
■ Substitution
■ Allows an approver on approver list to be substituted for
another person
■ Alternative for vacation rules
▸ IF ANY APPROVER IS GERALD JONES, THEN SUBSTITUTE
SUSAN BEHN FOR THE APPROVER
■ Pre- and Post-List
■ Approvers are inserted either before or after the normal chain-
of-authority approver list
▸ IF LINE-TYPE IS ‘TAX’, THEN REQUIRE PRE-APPROVAL FROM
TAX DEPARTMENT
52 Gold
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Testing Workbench and
Business Cases
53 Gold
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Testing Workbench
■ 11i.AME.B provides a testing workbench to allow
defined business rules to be evaluated and tested
against transactions
■ Testing workbench allows user to verify various aspects
of setups
■ Are attribute values, particularly custom attributes,
retrieving values correctly?
■ Does the invoice satisfy the appropriate rule?
■ Is the proper approver chain being generated for the
transaction based on the rule chosen?
■ Examples will be shown in Business Cases later in this
presentation
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Business Case 1- Payables
■ For project related invoices, require pre-approval from
key project members in the following roles:
■ Project Manager
■ Require approval for project related invoices as follows:
■ 500 - 10K Go up supervisor hierarchy 1 level
■ >10K Go up supervisor hierarchy 2 levels
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Business Case 1– AME Components
■ Transaction Type = Payables Invoice Approval
■ New Conditions
■ SUPPLIER_INVOICE_AMOUNT >= $500 and <= $10,000
■ SUPPLIER_INVOICE_AMOUNT > $10,000
■ Actions/Action Types – use existing action types – not new
■ Supervisory Level – Require approvals up to the 1st, 2nd or 3rd
supervisor
■ Pre-chain-of-authority approvals – pre-approval from approver groups
■ New Dynamic Approver Groups to find employee in key role
■ SB_PROJECT_MANAGER – example on slide 48
■ New Rules
■ Option 1 ***This options shown in example on following slides
▸ Combination Rule for $500 to $10,000
▸ Combination Rule > $10,000
■ Option 2
▸ Pre-Approval Rule
▸ Supervisor Rule
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Business Case 1 - Conditions
■ SUPPLIER_INVOICE_AMOUNT >= 500 and <= 10K
■ SUPPLIER_INVOICE_AMOUNT > 10K
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Business Case 1 - Actions
■ Use existing actions and select pre-chain-of-authority-
approvals
■ Approval Groups will be available as actions
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Business Case 1 - Combination Rule for
Project Invoices 500 – 10K
Matched POs
would already
be approved
Can have
different rules
by ledger,
operating unit,
etc…
59 Gold
Partner
Business Case 1 - Combination Rule for
Project Invoices > 10K
■ Only
difference
is this one
goes to
two
superiors
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Business Case 1 - Test
■ Create Invoice with a Project number
■ Invoice Amount $6000 related to Project
■ Susan Behn is Requester, Pat Stock is Susan’s
Supervisor
■ Casey Brown is Pat Stock’s supervisor
■ Pat Stock is also Project Manager for FP201
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Testing Workbench
■ Get the ID of the transaction using HelpExamine or query
■ Click the test icon
■ Run real transaction test
■ Enter transaction id and click ‘GO’
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Testing Workbench
■ Scroll down to view values of all attributes
■ Click Run Test Case to see test results
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Testing Workbench
■ Use to show details for rules and approvers
■ View Approval Process Stages to view additional details
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Testing Workbench - Expand Rule Details
■ Rule details expanded
■ Shows rule applied, applicable conditions met and
resulting actions
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Testing Workbench - Suppress Repeated
Approvers
■ Pat Stock is repeated (Supervisor and Project Manger)
■ Repeated approvers are suppressed - Pat will only get
approval request once
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View Approval History from Invoice
■ After initiation of approval
■ After Pat Stock approves
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Business Case 2 - Purchasing
■ Requisition approvals are based on supervisor level
approvals based on total requisition amount
■ 0 to 25K 1 Supervisor
■ 25K to 50K 2 Supervisors
■ 50K to 100K 3 Supervisors
■ > 100K 4 Supervisors
■ New vehicle purchases must be approved by a director
level with an approval authority job level = 5
■ Pre-approvals are required for some requisitions based
on item category
■ Computer PC purchases must be pre-approved by the IT
manager
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Business Case 2 – AME Components
■ Transaction Type = Purchase Requisition Approval
■ Attributes
■ None – attributes used in this rule are seeded
■ New Conditions
■ ITEM_CATEGORY = AUTOMOTIVE.VEHICLE
■ ITEM_CATEGORY = COMPUTER.PC
■ REQUISTION_TOTAL – Create conditions for each range
■ Approval Groups
■ IT Approver - approval group for IT purchases
■ New Rules
■ Supervisor rules based on requisition total
■ Pre-Approval rule for computer purchases
■ Absolute Job Level rule for vehicle purchases
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Business Case 2 - Conditions
■ Item Category Conditions
■ Vehicle
■ Computer Equipment
■ Requisition Total Conditions
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Business Case 2 – Approval Group
■ Approval Group for IT Purchases
■ Try to avoid static approvers due to maintenance
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Business Case 2 – Rules
■ Requisition Total Rules
■ Rule 1 shown
■ Create rules 2-4 similar with different ranges and action
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■ Pre-Approval Rule for Computer Purchases
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■ Set the Approval Authority
SetupPersonnelJobs ■ Absolute Job Level Rule
for Vehicle Purchases
■ Approval authority =
absolute job level in AME
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Business Case 2 – Test 1
■ Create Requisition for New Car
■ Category = AUTOMOTIVE.VEHICLE – (need job level 5 or above
approval)
■ Amount = $45K
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■ Susan’s Supervisor is Pat Stock
■ Pat Stock’s Authority
■ Pat Stock’s Supervisor is Casey Brown

■ Casey Brown’s Authority
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■ Vehicle Purchase Rule and third Amount Based Rule apply
■ Repeated Supervisors are suppressed
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■ Create Requisition for Computer Purchase
■ Category = COMPUTER.PC – (need IT pre-approval)
■ Amount = $3K – (need approval from 1 supervisor)
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■ Computer Purchase Rule and Amount Base Rule 1 apply
■ Mary Palmer from approver group
■ Casey Brown(Pat Stock’s supervisor)
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Business Case 3 – iRecruitment Vacancy
Approval
■ A FYI Notification should be sent to the hiring manager
when a requisition has been created on their behalf (i.e.
Recruiter)
■ Requisition is sent to the hiring manager’s VP for approval
■ If there is no VP then it should go to the Division Controller
■ If VP approves requisition it goes to the Controller for this
hiring manager
■ If Division Controller approves it goes to the Hiring
Manager’s SVP which is based on the people group
■ There may not be a SVP. If not, go to the next level
■ If SVP approves it goes to the Hiring Manager’s EVP or
CFO, COO or President also identified by the people group
80 Gold
Partner
Approval
■ This example is to show how powerful AME can be if
needed
■ However, make an effort to simply approval processes
before building AME rules
■ Question the value of this level of complexity
■ Complex logic was all be accomplished with dynamic
sql approver groups
■ SQL statements
■ SQL statements calling packages
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Approval
■ Custom approver groups were used to determine the
various VPs and controllers
■ The dynamic query in this case calls a package to handle
the advanced logic
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Approval
■ More dynamic approver groups
■ These are just sql statements where a complex package
was not needed
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AME Setup Migration
■ See MOS note 1168883.1
■ Uses FNDLOAD
■ Available for
■ Attributes amesmatt.lct
■ Conditions amesconk.lct
■ Approval Groups amesappg.lct
■ Action Type Usages amesaagc.lct
■ Action Types amesaatc.lct
■ Rules amesrulk.lct
■ Rule Actions amesactu.lct
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Partner
Tips and other issues
■ Workflow timeout processing- MOS note 421904.1
■ It is common practice for calling applications to send a "No
Response" status back to AME in the case of a timeout
▸ AME will use the Surrogate functionality (often the Supervisory
hierarchy) to try and get a response before moving to the next
approver as per defined rules
▸ Handle with vacation rules to avoid surrogate functionality default
processing
▸ Modify workflow to handle timeouts differently for AME
■ Timeout and last approver in chain
▸ Workflow errors “No surrogate approver exists” – See enhancement
request Bug 3092952
▸ Create an exception rule but you could end up in a loop in this case
■ Profile option AME: Append to List option on Approvers region
▸ If set to "no“, the "Append to List" option is not available
85 Gold
Partner
References
■ Oracle Support Document 2083817.2 ( Information
Center: Oracle Approvals Management (All Application
Versions))
■ Oracle Support Document 1168883.1 (How To Migrate
AME Setups From One Instance To Another)
■ Oracle Support Document 1207863.1 (Master
Reference For AME Based Requisition Approval In
R12)
■ Oracle Support Document 431815.1 (Oracle Approvals
Management (AME) Frequently asked Questions
(FAQ))
■ Oracle Support Document 1316098.1 (R12: Purchasing
PO Approval Chain Diagnostic Test)
86 Gold
Partner
Questions?
Comments
Thank You!!!
Susan Behn
Susan.Behn@Infosemantics.com
87 Gold
Partner

Oracle Approvals Management (AME) Case Studies For AP, PO and HR

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Oracle Approvals Management (AME) Case

Studies for AP, PO and HR

VP, Oracle Practice

■ For additional details see Oracle Internet Expenses

Users, Employees, Positions,

■ Next, choose the rule Type

Available Action Types

Actions for Absolute

Action Type Description Example

Action Type Description Example

Action Type Description Example

Action Type Description Example

Pre and Post Chain- Approvers are added Require IT pre-

■ SUPPLIER_INVOICE_AMOUNT > 10K

■ Approval Groups will be available as actions

■ Run real transaction test

■ Enter transaction id and click ‘GO’

■ After Pat Stock approves

■ Requisition Total Conditions

■ Pat Stock’s Supervisor is Casey Brown

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