Skip to main content
Documentation
Documentation
Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2024-10-04
Steps: Create Project Approval Flows

Steps: Create Project Approval Flows

You can require project approvals from individuals and groups in your company. With project approvals, you can:
  • Build rules to automate the approval process and order of approvals.
  • Enable ad hoc changes to be made to approval flows.
When you enable ad hoc approval changes, these roles can edit the approval workflows of projects:
  • Company admins with Read/Write permission
  • Department admins with Read/Write permission
  • Sourcing managers with Read/Write permission
  • The sourcing owner of the project
When you add ad hoc approvers, Strategic Sourcing sends notification emails to newly added and replaced approvers when approvals are sent. When edits are made to an approval flow, these edits won't remain if the approval state is retracted. When a record is retracted and then sent for approval again, the ad hoc approval must be re-set up. You can't delete users from the existing approval group on the project. You can change the order of approvers only for Approval Groups which already have an order determined.
When you enable project approvals, existing and new projects will require users to send projects for approval before moving to Completed, even if no approval groups or approval flows are configured. If you don't configure approval groups or approval flows, Strategic Sourcing automatically approves projects when you move them to Send for Approval.
  1. When creating approval groups, you can’t route to roles. You must create approval groups with specific users.
  2. Access
    Approvals
    Project Approval Flows
     from
    Settings
    .
  3. Click
    Create New Flow
     to create a new project approval flow.
  4. (Optional) Select the
    Enable Ad Hoc Approval Changes
     to edit project approval workflows within a project.
  5. In the new approval flow, click
    Add a New Phase
    .
  6. Click
    Create New Rule
    .
  7. To add project approval workflow criteria, click
    Edit Rules
    . Select filters and columns to define criteria that a project must meet to begin the approval flow.
    When you add multiple fields to the rule, the project must include 1 value from each of the added fields.
    When you add multiple values to a field, the project must include 1 of the values.
  8. Click
    Add Approval Groups
    . Select approval groups for the defined criteria.
    Approval groups in:
    • A single phase will all receive approval requests simultaneously unless you define an order in the
      Then Send To…
       section.
    • Consecutive phases receive requests sequentially.
    All rules execute simultaneously within a phase. Once all applicable rules within a phase are approved, the approval process moves on to the next phase.
  9. Add additional rules and phases to meet your business needs.
You can:
  • Send and monitor approval requests before project completion.
  • Retract approval requests.
  • Record approval details.
This example illustrates how to create a rule that excludes a specific project type.
The project types for GMS, Inc. are:
  • General Project
  • Performance Review
  • Sourcing
  • Supplier Onboarding
To route all project types except the
Performance Review
 project type to the Procurement Approval Group:
  1. To add a new rule, click
    Edit Rules
    .
  2. Click
    Choose Filters & Columns
    .
  3. Select
    Project Type
    in the Pipeline Fields section.
  4. Click
    Save
    .
  5. In the
    By Project Type
     prompt, select these options:
    • General Project
    • Sourcing
    • Supplier Onboarding
  6. Click
    Add
    .
  7. Add the
    Procurement Approval Group
    .
  8. Save the rule.