Form to create and modify approval processes

Select the AR System form that you are connecting to the Approval Server. This becomes the approval request form.

You must add the form to the Form tab of the AP:Administration form to make it appear on this menu.

Enter a valid AR System user name or select the field that identifies the owner of the approval request from the menu. The fields in this menu are populated from the approval request form.

Enter a valid AR System user name or select the field that identifies the first approver for this process from the menu. The fields in this menu are populated from the approval request form. This field is required for Ad Hoc process type, optional if you allow ad hoc overrides, and otherwise unused.

Select generate preview setting from the available options:

• None—The Approval Server does not generate preview information in the Preview Signatures form for the process.
• On Request Only—The Approval Server generates preview information only when it receives a Generate-Preview signal. With this option, the application controls the load on the Approval Server.
• On Start of Process— The Approval Server generates preview information when any of the following events occurs:
  • A Generate-Preview signal is received
  • A new approval process starts
    For example, when a details request is created, or when an existing request that was closed is reopened
  • A new signature is created
  • The status of an existing signature changes
• On Generation or Change to a Signature— The Approval Server generates preview information when any of the following events occurs:
  • A Generate-Preview signal is received.
  • A new approval process starts
    For example, when a details request is created, or when an existing request that was closed is reopened.
  • A new signature is created or the status of an existing signature is changed.
• Real-time Only—The Approval Server generates preview information but does not cache it only when a preview is requested.
  This option displays the most current information, but it puts the highest load on the Approval Server.

If you select the On Request Only, On Start of Process, or On Generation or Change to a Signature option, the preview displayed might not be the most current information.

This menu lists all the fields on the application form. Select a field that contains login names. The users from the selected field are excluded from the list of approvers and their signatures are not created for a request of this process type.

If the selected field contains a role:

• Users belonging to that role are excluded.
• If the role is part of an approval chain and contains only one user, the other approvers can act on the request and the process can complete successfully regardless of the One Must Sign or All Must Sign setting.
  If an excluded user is an approver in the middle of an approval chain, the approver before the excluded user can act on the request, and the request remains open. However, when the excluded user is encountered, the request state is changed to Error on the application and detail form, and no further action can be taken. The exclusion takes place only after the Get Next Approver rule is executed. Because these users are excluded from the list of approvers, they do not appear on the Approver tab of the AP:Show-Detail form. For a Level process, if one of the approvers is excluded on a level, other approvers can take action, and the request can proceed. When processing Auto Approval and Self Approval rules, the Approval Server ignores this field. If a user specified in this field is the only approver for the request, the approval process fails and an error is reported. The user exclusion operations and the related errors, if any, are listed in the approval log files.

The values in this field are ignored in the following situations:

• When defining a process:
  • If you select the Ad Hoc type.
  • If one of the users specified for exclusion is also specified as the first approver.
• When acting on a request, regardless of process type:
  • If an approver reassigns a request to one of the users specified for exclusion.
  • If an approver specifies one of the users specified for exclusion as the next approver.

The check for excluding users from the list of approvers is done before signature creation, therefore it does not impact the requests for which signatures have already been created.

Select the manner with which the Approval Server determines whether the approval process for a request is complete:

• (Default) No More Approvers—The process is complete when all signature lines are complete. If you select this option and if the signature line for a request is canceled and no other signature exists, the request is marked Approved, not Canceled.
• Completion Rule—Use a Completion rule to determine the successful completion of the approval process. If you select this option, you must create a Completion rule and associate it with this process or the process is never considered complete.

This field applies only if you are defining an Ad Hoc process or are going to allow ad hoc overrides. The value you select determines how many signature line records the Approval Server creates when building an approver list. Specify using the available options how to manage signature entries when a request is assigned to multiple approvers:

• One Must Sign—Create only one signature line for a list of potential approvers. The signature line is complete when one of the approvers acts on the request. The first approver to act on the request determines the response; the request is withdrawn from the other approvers.
  The field for approver names on a signature-line record is limited to 255 characters on certain databases. Using roles might help you to work around this limitation, because roles are internally expanded to individual approver names during further processing.
  This option overrides the If Multiple Approver setting on any roles selected as an approver.
  
  
• All Must Sign—Create separate signature lines for each approver. All approvers must act on their own signature line for the request to proceed.

If an approver list includes roles, the If Multiple Approver setting for the specific role determines whether the role is expanded into individual signature lines for each member of the role or a single signature line is created for the entire role.
For more information, see Defining-roles-for-an-approval-process.

• (Default)Allow Only One Approver—Create a single signature line for one individual. If you use this option and a requester specifies multiple approvers, the Approval Server stops the process and marks it as an error.

For information about how notifications are sent when a request is approved or rejected, see Form-to-create-and-modify-notifications-sent-by-approval-processes.

This field specifies how the Approval Server determines the next approver, when the requester is not the person who submitted the approval request (for example, when an assistant enters an approval request on behalf of someone else). Select from the available options:

• (Default)Use Get Next Approver Rules—Use a Get Next Approver rule to determine the first approver.
• Assign to Owner if Approver—Use the requester as the first approver if the requester is defined as a valid approver for the Approval Server. If you select this option, you must define a Validate Approver rule to verify whether the owner is a valid approver.
• Always Assign to Owner—Use the requestor as the first approver in all cases.

This field determines if the Approval Server should verify the value in the next approver field by running the Validate Approver rule.

Select from the available options:

• Yes—Validate the approvers when saving a request.
• (Default) No—Skip validating approvers.

Require Password?

The AR System populates this field with the Assignee Group for the request; the Public group is selected by default. The Approval Server uses this field to support multi-tenancy for use by application service providers. If you use this field for multi-tenancy support, create workflow to populate this field with the correct assignee group name. You do not need to change this setting when creating the rule. The ID of this field is 112, and it appears on all Approval Server forms. The value of this field is automatically used from records created in the AP:Detail form in all the other Approval Server forms, for example, AP:Signature, AP:More Information.

For more information, see Error-333-and-Assignee-Group-Permission.

This list displays all the forms in the AR System server. Select the form that you want to be displayed when an approver clicks the Adhoc button on the AP:Show-Detail form. Approvers should be able to provide data about ad hoc approvers in this form, and the form should have the necessary workflow to store this data in the AP:AdhocDetails form. If you select a custom form, make sure that application developers have added the necessary fields and workflow to it.

This field determines the course of action in case the Approval Server fails to retrieve the first approver for a request.

• Yes, At First Level—If the first approver does not approve the request, set the state of the request to Error.
• Never—If the approver does not approve the request at any level, go to next process-level till the request is approved, and complete the approval process.
• Yes, At any level—If the approver does not approve the request at any level, set the state of the request to Error, and complete the approval process.
• Yes, No Approver At All levels—If the approver approves the request at any level, complete the approval process. If the approver does not approve the request, set the state of the request to Error.

Select from the following list to approve or reject a request:

• No—To indicate that the justification is optional; an approver is not prompted to justify approving or rejecting a request.
• To Reject—To make it mandatory for an approver to provide a justification when rejecting a request. 
• To Approve—To make it mandatory for an approver to provide a justification when approving a request.
• To Approve or Reject—To make it mandatory for an approver to provide a justification when approving or rejecting a request.

The justification reason is added to the field specified in the Justification Field menu.

Select the field in which to store the rejection justification. This menu lists Character fields from the application form.

Currently, this menu also displays Attachment fields along with Character fields, because of an AR System server issue.

From the list of available fields, select a Character field whose length is unrestricted (0 ). Otherwise, if the approver enters a justification of more than 255 characters:* A warning is added to the approval log:

If you do not select a field from this menu, the approver's input is stored in the Justification field (ID 14518) on AP:Signature and as a comment of the Justification type on AP:Question-Comment-Info. For more information, see Form-to-provide-justification-for-rejecting-approval-requests.