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Troubleshooting for Requisitions / Purchase Orders in Process or Pre-Approved Status [ID 225017.1]
Modified: Jul 23, 2012 Type: TROUBLESHOOTING Status: PUBLISHED Priority: 1

In this Document

Purpose
Troubleshooting Steps
Introduction
Is this issue happening for all documents?
Has the document been correctly forwarded?
Check If Document Submission Check Failure occurred
Document is likely hung up in the workflow
Document Manager Exceptions
How to see the Document Manager exceptions:
How to prevent Document Manager Error 1 and 2:
Receiving the Document Approval Manager Error 1 (Timeout):
Receiving the Document Approval Manager Error 2 (Not Active):
Receiving the Document Approval Manager Error 3:
How to Retry Documents Stuck in In Process or Pre-Approved Status
Is there a single (or just a few) documents stuck?
Is there a large volume of documents stuck?
How to cancel Documents Stuck in In Process or Pre-Approved Status
Logging
Additional Resources
Still Have Questions?
References

Applies to:

Oracle Purchasing - Version 11.5.1 to 12.1.3 [Release 11.5 to 12.1]

Information in this document applies to any platform.

Purpose

This Troubleshooting Guide documents difficult-to-diagnose problems. It is provided to assist in debugging complex issues relating to usage of the product. When possible, diagnostic scripts are included in the document to assist in
troubleshooting problems.

Troubleshooting Steps

Introduction

Sometimes a document finds itself in the status of 'In Process' or 'Pre-Approved'. This article is intended to troubleshoot the reasons why it is in this status, and if necessary to get it moving again towards approval. This article is intended for all
users of the Purchasing application, specifically anyone who creates and submits requisitions and purchase orders for approval, as well as those who hold the approving function.

During the approval process in Oracle Purchasing, documents will at times be in a status of 'In Process' or 'Pre-Approved'. When a document reaches this status, it should not be considered a problem until the proper research has been
conducted.

Is this issue happening for all documents?

The issue is most likely related to a condition in the environment. Refer to Note 1104843.1 ' Purchasing Approval Errors Occurring to All Documents Troubleshooting Checklist' for a checklist of what to do for approval issues happening for all
documents.

Has the document been correctly forwarded?

If the issue is not happening for all documents, the first step is to view the action history of the document in question to understand why the document has a status of 'In Process' or 'Pre-Approved' and if the document has been forwarded. If
the document has been forwarded to the next person in the hierarchy then the document is correctly in the status of 'In Process' or 'Pre-Approved' until the notified employee takes an action via the notification on the document(s).

The action history can be viewed by using the summary screens for purchase orders and requisitions.

Navigation: Purchasing Responsibility -> Purchase Orders -> Purchase Orders Summary
or Purchasing Responsibility -> Requisitions -> Requisition Summary

a. In the 'Number' field enter the document number in question and click the Find button
b. From the top menu bar, select Inquire => View Action History
c. Verify the Action History

Once the most recent action has been located in the View Action History window, it is necessary to confirm if action is needed or if an action has already been taken. This is done by confirming the value in the Action field for the top-most
sequence in the View Action History window. If the Action Field is Null, and the Performed by Field has a value of an Employee, then the Document has been forwarded to that employee and is awaiting Action on this document.

When a change request from iSupplier or from an iProcurement generated requisition has been entered, the last action will be 'Change requested' as shown in the screenshot below. In this scenario, the corresponding purchase order (if one
exists) is set to 'In Process' pending approval of the change request.

To approve or reject the change request, the employee needs to follow these steps:

Navigation: Purchasing Responsibility -> Purchase Orders -> Pending Purchase Order Changes

a. Select the purchase order

b. Click on 'Respond to changes'
c. Select 'Accept' or 'Reject' for each line in the Response field
d. Click on submit changes

If the attempt to view the action history results in the error 'APP-PO-14288 - This document is incomplete or you do not have access to it.' and the document has a status of 'In Process' - then this would depict that the workflow has had a
breakdown at some point prior to the update to the action history - but after the starting point. A status of In Process along with this error usually results in a valid case of documents which are stuck 'In Process' and most likely are in need of
further troubleshooting outlined in this document. If it is determined that indeed the document is stuck, please follow the troubleshooting tips outlined below.

Check If Document Submission Check Failure occurred

1) Have user that last tried to approve the document login and access their worklist and find this notification with subject like "Unable To Approve Document NNNNNNNN" that has information in the body that the Purchase agreement was not
approved

2) If the notification exists, have this user choose the option to "Send Back to Preparer" which will Reject this document. From there the user can then go to PO (or Requisition) Summary, query the document and take necessary action to
continue with the document.

3) To prevent this in the future, you can use the option from PO (Requisition) Summary > Inquire > View Approval Through Workflow where you could see the last workflow activities and see if a notification like this has been sent. Then
provide instructions like this again as needed.

Document is likely hung up in the workflow

When it is suspected that the purchasing document is hung up due to workflow errors, the next step is to obtain more detailed information on the errors. Refer to Note 1231023.1 'Reviewing the Workflow Activity for an In Process or

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Pre-Approved Purchasing Document [Video]' to review three alternative methods to review the workflow and the errors. The note also shows how to use the error detail found to aid in searching for known issues and resolutions.

Document Manager Exceptions

One of the most common errors in the workflows are document manager exceptions that occur during a call to the PO document approval manager. In this scenario, the workflow will send a document manager failed notification to the owner
of the document or the workflow administrator, depending on the exception.

How to see the Document Manager exceptions:

The approval process will send a Document Manager Failed notification to the user that is configured in the SYSADMIN_USER_NAME workflow attribute of the POERROR workflow for document manager failures due to Doc Mgr Error 1 (Approval
Manager Timeout) or Doc Mgr Error 2 (Document Approval Manager Not Active).

Use this script to identify the notification and owner of the notification:

select recipient_role, subject from wf_notifications

where status = 'OPEN'
and message_type = 'POERROR'
and message_name = ' DOC_MANAGER_FAILED_SYSADMIN'
and subject like '%&document_number%';

A notification may be sent to either the Preparer (person that submitted the document) or the document owner for Document Manager Failures due to Doc Mgr Error 3 (Other exceptions in the Document Approval Manager code).

Use this script to identify the notification and owner of the notification:

select recipient_role, subject from wf_notifications

where status = 'OPEN'
and message_type = 'POERROR'
and message_name = 'DOC_MANAGER_FAILED'
and subject like '%&document_number%';

This is an example of one document manager failed notification for a Doc Mgr Error 3. In many cases, the notification will display more detail on the error as in this case.

Refer to Note 462695.1 for a listing of common document manager errors #3 and troubleshooting tips.

How to prevent Document Manager Error 1 and 2:

Make the recommended changes in Note 297862.1 'How to Help Prevent a Large Percentage of PO's Failing with PO Document Approval Manager Not Active or TimeOut (When the PO Document Approval Manager is Active)'.

Additionally follow Note 224028.1 Oracle Purchasing POERROR Workflow Setup and Usage Guide White Paper as the Workflow can be configured to automatically handle the Doc Mgr Error 1 and 2 errors. If using Real Application Cluster (RAC)
environment, follow Note 1161534.1 to ensure that RAC is properly installed and setup.

Receiving the Document Approval Manager Error 1 (Timeout):

Retest the issue after implementing the steps from Note 297862.1 and if there are no new errors confirming resolution, move to the section below How to Retry Documents Stuck from Document Manager Errors if there are existing stuck
documents. If the steps provided in the previous section How to prevent Document Manager Error 1 and 2 does not resolve the error for new documents, then move directly to the Logging section below.

Receiving the Document Approval Manager Error 2 (Not Active):

Verify the status of the Document Approval Concurrent Manager and if necessary restart the manager, as follows:

Navigation: System Administrator -> Concurrent -> Manager -> Administer

a. Select PO Document Approval manager

b. If the Document Manager is Not running then the Status field value = Not Running
c. Click on the line containing the PO Document Approval Manager
d. Click on the Activate button
e. Requery the PO Document Approval Manager should now be restarted
f. Also confirm the Actual Process and Target Process have the same value

Retest the issue and if there are no new errors confirming resolution move to the section below How to Retry Documents Stuck from Document Manager Errors if there are existing stuck documents.
If the problem still occurs with new documents then move to the Logging section below.

Receiving the Document Approval Manager Error 3:

Use the error found in the Document Manager notification to search the knowledge base for known issues or fixes. For example in the screenshot below the user received the error 'Unexpected error tax calculation exception 023' and used it to
search the knowledge base.

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If the notification does not include additional details about the error, refer to Note 1231023.1 'Reviewing the Workflow Activity for an In Process or Pre-Approved Purchasing Document' to gather more details about the workflow.

How to Retry Documents Stuck in In Process or Pre-Approved Status

There are multiple options to retry documents that remain stuck (with status in process or pre-approved), after the root cause has been resolved. Following are some of the options:

Is there a single (or just a few) documents stuck?

a. Run wfretry.sql or the alternate wfretry documented in Note 134960.1 Running WFSTATUS and WFRETRY For Oracle Purchasing Workflows.
b. If the retry does not resolve the issue then attempt the reset script from Note 390023.1 How To Reset a Document From In-Process or Pre-Approved To Incomplete/Requires Reapproval For Isolated Cases.
c. For document manager exceptions, refer to Note 312582.1 How To Resubmit a Document For Approval When the Document is IN PROCESS Due To PO Document Approval Manager Errors

Is there a large volume of documents stuck?

Attempt the mass retry as documented in Note 458216.1 How To Retry Multiple Errored Approval Workflow Processes After A Fix Or Patch Has Been Implemented.

Note: In some cases, it is not possible to perform retry because the document does not have a workflow associated. A cause of this problem is that the workflow is canceled via the status monitor. This action will not have any effect in the
document, causing it to remain stuck in In Process or Pre-Approved status. Refer to Note 1273245.1 for immediate and long term solutions.

How to cancel Documents Stuck in In Process or Pre-Approved Status

It is not possible to cancel documents with with status In Process or Pre-Approved. Follow the steps of previous section (How to Retry Documents Stuck in In Process or Pre-Approved Status) to progress the workflow and approve the
document. Once the document is approved, do the cancel.

Logging

If this Troubleshooting Guide did not resolve the issue with in process or pre-approved documents, please log a service request with My Oracle Support and provide the following:

a. Follow the steps in Note 1103068.1 'How to enable and collect approval debug data in table PO_WF_DEBUG?' to enable workflow debug. Once the debug is enabled, reproduce the issue and review the po_wf_debug table for
additional error messages that will help to troubleshoot the issue.

b. For Document manager exceptions, provide the debug and trace as documented in Note 409155.1 How to Capture Debug / Log / Trace Files During the Purchase Order / Requisition Approval Process?

c. Provide the wfstat.sql for the document used to reproduce the issue in step a. Reference Note 134960.1 Running WFSTATUS and WFRETRY For Oracle Purchasing Workflows to generate a file with the workflow activity.

d. Provide the Purchasing Approval Diagnostic on one of the documents stuck in process:

From the responsibility "Oracle Diagnostics Tool" click on the hyperlink next to Purchasing.
Choose the + next to 'Data Collectors'.
Choose the hyperlink to PO Approval.
In the 'Responsibility ID' field from the list of values choose the responsibility name used for Purchasing.
Under Document Type choose the correct document type from the list of values.
In the number field enter the document number.
Then choose the Run Test button.

e. Zip all the files together and upload the data collection to the Service Request

Additional Resources

To access a recorded webcast session on Approval workflow troubleshooting, review Note 1279616.1. This one-hour session is recommended for technical and functional users and include these topics:

- Purchasing Approval Basics

- How to See the Workflow for a Purchasing Document
- Advanced Troubleshooting
- Helpful My Oracle Support Notes

Still Have Questions?

To discuss this information further with Oracle Experts and industry peers, we encourage you to review, join or start a discussion in the My Oracle Support Procurement Community.

References

NOTE:462695.1 - Troubleshooting Guide - Document Manager Error Failed With Error Number 3 (DOC_MGR_ERROR) for Purchasing Workflows
NOTE:1103068.1 - How to enable and collect approval debug data in table PO_WF_DEBUG?
NOTE:1104843.1 - All Purchase Orders or Requisitions Getting Stuck in Pre-Approved or In Process Status - Troubleshooting Checklist
NOTE:1161534.1 - How to Review the RAC Configuration For Purchasing Approvals
NOTE:1231023.1 - Reviewing the Workflow Activity for an In Process or Pre-Approved Purchasing Document [Video]
NOTE:1273245.1 - Help With Purchase Order / Requisitions that are In Process or Pre-Approved Status with Cancelled Workflow or Missing Workflow
NOTE:1279616.1 - EBS PROCUREMENT - APPROVAL WORKFLOW TROUBLESHOOTING
NOTE:134960.1 - Running WFSTAT and WFRETRY For Oracle Purchasing Workflows
NOTE:224028.1 - Oracle Purchasing POERROR Workflow Setup and Usage Guide White Paper
NOTE:297862.1 - 11i Only: How to Help Prevent a Large Percentage of PO's Failing with PO Document Approval Manager Not Active or TimeOut (When the PO Document Approval Manager is Active)
NOTE:312582.1 - How To Resubmit a Document For Approval When the Document is IN PROCESS Due To PO Document Approval Manager Errors
NOTE:390023.1 - How To Reset a Purchase Order or Requisition From In Process or Pre-Approved To Incomplete/Requires Reapproval For Isolated Cases
NOTE:409155.1 - How to Capture Debug / Log / Trace Files During the Purchase Order / Requisition Approval Process?
NOTE:458216.1 - How To Retry Multiple Errored Approval Workflow Processes After A Fix Or Patch Has Been Implemented

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