Concept: Approval Chain Routing
You can add these steps to a business process definition:
- Approval Chain
- Consolidated Approval Chain
When your tenant includes complex supervisory organization structures, make sure approval chain steps route to the appropriate people to take action. You might want to route approval chain steps up a supervisory organization structure instead of a management chain.
You can configure
Approval Chain
and Consolidated Approval Chain
steps to route based on:
- Management hierarchy. Workday routes approvals using position-based routing.
- Organization hierarchy. Workday routes approvals using organization-based routing.
By default, Workday uses position-based routing to route approval chain steps if you don't enable organization-based routing.
If you want to route approval chain steps using the enhanced position-based routing functionality, you can enable the
Enable Enhanced Position-Based Approval Chain Routing
check box on the Edit Tenant Setup - Business Processes
task. When you select the check box, Workday consistently evaluates all approvers in each level of an Approval Chain
or Consolidated Approval Chain
business process step when a person reports to 1 or more managers in their position. Workday recommends that you consider enabling this enhanced position-based approval chain routing functionality even if people in your organization might not have multiple managers.Based on the configuration you set, Workday determines the next-level approver of the step and assigns the approvals.
For
Approval Chain
and Consolidated Approval Chain
steps, you can define while-running conditions and exit conditions. On a business process definition, you can add or change the condition associated with Approval Chain
or Consolidated Approval Chain
steps. From the related actions menu of the step, select .Route by Organization Hierarchy
You can use organization-based routing to route approvals to leaders who might manage multiple areas beyond their direct reporting structure. Example: You use organization-based routing for these processes:
- Hire request.
- Merit increase.
- Supplier invoice.
Workday routes the step to the manager of the person's organization, and then to the manager of the second-level organization. If necessary, Workday next routes the step to the manager of the third-level organization, and so on, up the organization hierarchy.
To use an organization-based hierarchy, access the
Maintain Advanced Routing
task from the related actions menus of the business process step. When you select the Organization-Based Routing
check box, you:
- Can only select constrained role-based security groups for theApproval ChainandConsolidated Approval Chainsteps. Workday recommends that you select a security group that has access rights configured for the current organization and unassigned subordinates. Otherwise, the approval chain step might go unassigned or route to all assignees at a higher level in the organization structure.
- Can't later change the step to another step type on the business process definition.
When you don't enable organization-based routing, Workday uses position-based routing for approval chain steps.
Use Case | Details |
|---|---|
When a person and their manager have 1 position, and their positions are in different organization hierarchies, we route the approval chain step to the top of the person's organization hierarchy chain. | You configure a business process definition with an Approval Chain step that uses organization-based routing. Your company uses this hierarchy:
For business processes related to James that use organization-based routing, Workday routes the Approval Chain step to Betty, Tony, and Chris. |
When an approver is in multiple organization levels and someone else approves the step, the approver still receives the approval step in a subsequent level. | On a business process definition, step c is an Approval Chain step with organization-based routing. An approver is in organization levels 1 and 3. Workday routes the step to:
|
When an approval chain step is in progress and the organization reduces the number of levels in the hierarchy, Workday skips a level of approvers. | An organization hierarchy has this structure of approvers:
James approves an Approval Chain step and it's awaiting action from Betty in level 2. Betty approves the step. Halfway through the approval chain process, the organization hierarchy changes to a new structure:
Since James and Betty initially approved the step, Workday routes the step to Steve. Logan doesn't receive the step. |
When the number of approvals increase in an organization hierarchy, an approver might receive the approval step again. But the step won't be required. | An organization hierarchy has this structure of approvers:
James approves an Approval Chain step and it's awaiting action from level 2, Logan. Logan approves the step. Halfway through the approval chain process, the organization hierarchy changes to a new structure that includes a new organization level:
Since James and Logan initially approved the step, Workday routes the step to Logan in level 3 and marks the step as Not Required . Betty doesn't receive the step.Workday recommends that you not change the organization hierarchy when an approval chain event is in progress. |
Route by Management Hierarchy
Position-based routing enables you to route
Approval Chain
and Consolidated Approval Chain
steps by the management hierarchy of a supervisory organization.Workday routes all events based on the person’s position.
Use Case | Details |
|---|---|
Workday routes the step to the manager of the person's position, then to the manager of the person's manager in the position, and so on. | A business process definition includes an Approval Chain step. You don't configure organization-based routing. Your company uses this hierarchy:
For business processes related to James that use position-based routing, Workday routes the Approval Chain step to Betty, Logan, and Steve. |
When you select the Enable Enhanced Position-Based Approval Chain Routing check box on the Edit Tenant Setup – Business Processes task to use the enhanced routing functionality, Workday consistently evaluates approvers in the approval level and routes the business process step. | Fred is in Organization 7100, and he reports to James and Betty. The management hierarchy levels are:
Using the enhanced position-based routing, Workday routes the Approval Chain step to each level for approval. In level:
If the management hierarchy changes while an Approval Chain or Consolidated Approval Chain step is in progress, an approver might be skipped.Workday recommends selecting a constrained role-based security group for Approval Chain and Consolidated Approval Chain steps on your business process definition if you enable the enhanced position-based routing functionality. |
When you enable the
Enable Enhanced Position-Based Approval Chain Routing
check box and use these report fields in a report, we process and return values consistently:
- Workers Possibly Assigned Next. Example: The report field returns the same set of managers based on how Workday routes theApproval Chainstep.
- Workers Possibly Assigned Next Excluding Delegates.
- Workers Possibly Assigned Next On Behalf Of.
- Workers Possibly Assigned Next On Behalf Of with Retained My Tasks Access.
Workday recommends that you update condition rules, if needed, based on the values these report fields return.
Not Required Approval Chain Steps
When an approver approves an
Approval Chain
or Consolidated Approval Chain
step in a previous level and the approver is also an approver in a later level, Workday marks the step as Not Required
. Workday doesn't generate a custom business process notification for the Not Required
step.