PO Approval Hierarchy Methods

Oracle Purchasing offers three methods to route documents for approval..

1. Position Approval hierarchy
2. Employee/Supervisor approval hierarchy
3. Advanced Approval Support for Requisitions

1. Position Approval hierarchy
Position Hierarchies are hierarchies that have a position relationship. By position, we mean position that are attached to employees. Purchasing utilizes positions as a roadmap to determine how and where documents will be routed once the approval process has been initiated. It is first necessary to have created all positions that are going to be used in the system. Once all positions have been created, it is necessary to build the position hierarchy. Each position has approval limits, so when a purchase order exceeds the limits of the position, the purchase order is forwarded onto the next position in the Hierarchy.

2. Employee/Supervisor approval hierarchy
Employee/Supervisor approval hierarchy uses the employee-supervisor relationships.
To implement this form of approval routing, you need only to define jobs. The job will then serve as the tie to the Approval group, and based on the approval limits from the Approval Group, the Document will either be Approved or Forwarded to the Employees’ Supervisor. If no Supervisor
is able to be located and the jobassigned to the employee does not have Approval Authority, then the Approving employee must enter a Forward-to person, or the Document will be returned to an Incomplete status and a notification will be sent to the Approving employee, stating - 'No Approver Found'

3. Advanced Approval Support for Requisitions
Feature offered in Release 12 which closely integrates with Oracle Approvals Management module.

How to determine which approval method is setup?
Navigate to Financial Options (Purchasing --> Setup --> Organizations --> Financial Options)
The Human Resources tab on the Financial Options form has an option called "Use Approval Hierarchies". This option determines which type of hierarchy is used for the approval process. When checked, the Position Hierarchy is used and when unchecked the Employee/Supervisor relationship (i.e. Jobs) is used