ame invoice line level

Oracle/Client Confidential - For internal use only Page 1

Oracle Applications White Paper

White Paper on Using Approval

Management Engine for Invoice Line

Level Approval in R12 Author: Raghavender Vutukuru & Srinivas Nimmalapudi

Reviewed By: Sriram Ramanujam

Creation Date: 01-September-2014

Last Updated: 15- October -2014

Version: 1.2

Status: FINAL


Contents INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 3

OBJECTIVE ...................................................................................................................................................................... 3

BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................................................................... 3

SCOPE ............................................................................................................................................................................ 3

TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW ............................................................................................................... 4

TECHNOLOGY ................................................................................................................................................................. 4

BUSINESS CASE .............................................................................................................................. 7

METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................................................................. 7

BUSINESS SCENARIO ...................................................................................................................................................... 7

SET UP STEPS ................................................................................................................................ 8

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO SETUP ...................................................................................................................................... 8

1) PAYABLES OPTION SETUP .................................................................................................................. 8

2) SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR ................................................................................................................. 9

3) APPROVALS MANAGEMENT ADMINISTRATOR ...................................................................................... 10

4) APPROVALS MANAGEMENT BUSINESS ANALYST ................................................................................... 11 4.1) Defining/Using Attributes ............................................................................................................................ 11

4.2) Define Conditions ......................................................................................................................................... 12

4.3) Use Action Types .......................................................................................................................................... 14

4.4) Define Approval Groups ............................................................................................................................... 15

4.5) Define Rules .............................................................................................................................................. 18

TRANSACTIONS ............................................................................................................................. 23

1) CREATE PURCHASE ORDERS ............................................................................................................. 23

2) CREATE MATCHED INVOICE AND COMPLETE THE AME APPROVAL CYCLE .................................................. 23 Business Case 1: Process an Invoice with one line that of $900 .......................................................................... 23

Business Case 2: Process an Invoice with a line that of $900 and another line that of $1800 ............................ 34

REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................ 41


Introduction

Objective

To provide the setup steps to achieve serial line level approval in Payables Invoice approvals process

using Approval Management Engine (AME). This is intended to provide the reader a good understanding

of the feature, the setup and detailed steps on how to use Invoice line level approval in particular to

process matched invoices using approval-group chain of authority action type of AME.

Background

Oracle Payables integrates with Oracle Approvals Management and Oracle Workflow to approve

invoices. The Invoice Approval Workflow process uses Oracle Approvals Management and Oracle

Workflow to enable you to define business rules to determine who approves invoices and how they will

be routed for approval to different approvers.

You can define the approval rules in Oracle Approvals Management in one of the following ways:

Document-level rules only.

Line-level rules only.

Line-level and document-level rules.

Line-level approval is the approval of one specific line or set of lines within an invoice, rather than

approving the entire document. Approvers have access to the Notification Detail and Interactive Line

Details pages to review the invoice details. The pages display only the appropriate level of information

for the approver to view. That is, approvers view only the information that they can approve or reject.

Furthermore, no additional login or privileges are required for the approver to approve. The self-service

login that an approver uses to view the notifications is sufficient to review the invoice information.

The system does not initiate document level approval until all lines have been approved. If an approver

rejects one line, the remaining line level approvals continue to go through approval. This allows the

continuation of the line level approval process while the rejected line is being resolved. However, the

system does not continue to document level approvals unless all lines are approved.

Note: This document covers Line-level and document-level rules only.

Note: Line-level approval is only available for Payables invoices that are matched to a purchase order.

Scope

This paper will cover the set up side of processing matched invoices using line and document level serial

approval process in Oracle Payables.


Technology Overview

Technology

This solution is comprised of Oracle Workflow, Approvals Management, OA Framework, and Forms.

Architecture

Invoice Approval provides for routing invoices through needed approvals. The approval of an invoice

allows it to be paid though provision has been provided to force approval for users with the right

permissions. In the process of approval it also provides for the approver to negotiate with the supplier

(Price, Quantity) for non-PO matched invoices. Approval happens both at the invoice line level as well as

at the invoice level. The invoice level approval happens after all the lines have been approved.

One can define rules in AME using information from invoice headers, Invoice Lines and Invoice

distributions. Both the Line level approval and Document level approval are optional in the Invoice

Approval Workflow process.

The AME transaction type is APINV. The workflow for AP Invoice Approval is apfhanwf.wft and it mainly

constitutes of below processes:

1. Main Approval Process

The figure below gives an overview of the main approval flow:


The below section explains some of the important components of this main workflow approval flow:

1.1. Check Header Requirements (AP_WORKFLOW_PKG.CHECK_HEADER_REQUIREMENTS) - This

procedure checks if there are any header level transaction Rules in AME that would prevent the

approval. This is done by calling ame_api2.getTransactionProductions. If a NO INVOICE APPROVAL

REQUIRED production rule is found then the approval status for the header and the lines is set to Not

Required and this is recorded in the approval history and the procedure ends in Result out of No else if

no production rules are found it ends in a result out of Yes.

1.2. Check Line Requirements (AP_WORKFLOW_PKG.CHECK_LINE_REQUIREMENTS) - This procedure

checks if there are any header level transaction rules in AME that would prevent the approval of lines.

This is done by calling ame_api2.getTransactionProductions. If a NO LINE APPROVAL REQUIRED

production rule is found then the approval status for the lines is set to Not Required and this is

recorded in the approval history and the procedure ends in a result out of No else if no production

rules are found it ends in a result out of Yes.

1.3. Launch line approval Notifications (AP_WORKFLOW_PKG.LAUNCH_APPROVAL_NOTIFICATIONS) -

This procedure queries AP_APINV_APPROVERS and groups by approvers (so that each approver doesnt

get duplicate notifications for different lines) and launches the line approval process

1.4. Get Header Approver (AP_WORKFLOW_PKG.GET_HEADER_APPROVER) - This procedure queries

the AME for Invoice Header level approvers. If there are no further approvers and previously there was

at least one approver then the invoice is marked as Workflow approved.

2. Invoice Lines Approval Process

The Figure below describes the workflow process for the Invoice Line Approval Process.

The following are the main points to note:


o The Approver can either Approve or Request the lines in the notification.

o If the Approver fails to respond, an escalation notification will be sent to his/her Supervisor

as setup in HR.

o Whenever the workflow reaches a logical conclusion (i.e., Process Lines Approval, Process

Lines Rejection or the block is woken up by a negotiation sub-process), the main process is

woken up.

3. Invoice Approval Process

The Figure below describes the workflow process for the Invoice Approval.

The following are the main points to note:

o The Approver can either Approve or Request the lines in the notification.

o If the Approver fails to respond, an escalation notification will be sent to his/her

Supervisor as setup in HR.

o This process Ends in statuses Approve or Reject, which in turn is used in the main

process to either continue the workflow process or to stop it (i.e., Approval stops at the

first Rejection).

Note: The workflows shown above are based on the latest available AP_WORKFLOW_PKG

(120.64.12010000.56) and workflow file apfhanwf.wft (120.36.12010000.15)


Business Case

Methodology

We will take a business scenario and show the working product with couple of transactional flows. We

will define expected AME conditions, Action types and create Rules as per test scenario requirement.

Configure Approval Groups according to these requirements and show working product.

Business Scenario

If Supplier invoice amount is less than $1000, it should be approved by Payables Manager, Mrs.

Meenakshi Mehra and if its greater than or equals to $1000, it should be approved by Payables Senior

Manager, Mr. Vaideeswaran Subramanian.

At the same time if such Invoice line amount is less than $1000, it should be approved by Payables clerk,

Mr. Srinivas Nimmalapudi and if its greater than or equals to $1000, it should be approved by Payables

clerk, Mr. Raghavender Vutukuru.

i.e.,

Invoice Header < 1000 .....> Meenakshi Mehra

Invoice Header >= 1000 ..... > Vaideeswaran Subramanian

Invoice Line < 1000 ..... > Srinivas Nimmalapudi

Invoice Line >= 1000 ..... > Raghavender Vutukuru

Business Scenario 1 : Process an Invoice with one line that of $900

Business Scenario 2 : Process an Invoice with a line that of $900 and another line that of $1800


Set Up Steps

Step By Step Guide to Setup

This document covers the basic step by step guide to complete the Payables Invoice Approval setup.

1) Payables Option Setup

Check the Use Invoice Approval Workflow Payables option

Navigation: Payables Responsibility>Setup>Options> Payables Options

For Payables application to use Approvals Management Engine, Use Invoice Approval Workflow

Payables option should be checked. The Invoice Approval Workflow automates your invoice approval

process. Based on rules you define, the workflow determines if an entire invoice (document) or invoice

lines need approval, who will the approvers be, and in what order the approvers should approve the

invoice.


If you use Invoice Approval Workflow, then every invoice and invoice line that requires approval must be

approved before you can pay it. Payables indicate that an invoice require approval by setting the value

in the Approval status field in the Invoices window to Required. The approval status is derived from the

approval status of the document maintained at the invoice header and the approval status of the invoice

lines. For example, if the invoice lines require approval and the document does not, the system sets the

approval status for the invoice lines to Required, the approval status for the document to Not Required,

but importantly the derived approval status for the document also to Required.

When you use this feature, all invoices require approval, with the following exceptions.

Expense reports imported through the Payables Expense Report Export Program (because these

expense reports have already been through an approval process)

Recurring invoices if the recurring invoice template did not have the Approval Workflow Required

option enabled (because recurring invoices are often approved in advance)

Invoices that existed before you enabled the feature

Invoices that completed the Invoice Approval Workflow process and the Invoice Approval Workflow

process determined that according to the rules set up in Oracle Approvals Management that no one

needs to approve the invoice.

Approvers can approve or reject the invoice document or invoice line. If both invoice lines and

document need to be approved, all the lines of the invoice requiring approval must be approved before

the invoice document can be approved.

2) System Administrator

Define User

This is required to access the approval notifications to process Invoice approval request.

Navigation: System Administrator>Security>User>Define


Note: Ensure all the approvers for Invoices are defined as users in the application.

Note: All other approvers user details are created like this one.

3) Approvals Management Administrator

Transaction Type: Payables Invoice Approval

Navigation: Approvals Management Administrator> Admin Dashboard

For Transaction Type, Payables Invoice Approval, ensure that the order priority is same for Item class

Header and Line to use Line level approvals.


4) Approvals Management Business Analyst

Navigation: Approvals Management Business Analyst > Business Analyst Dashboard

This is the place where you define Custom Attributes (if needed), Conditions, Approval Groups and AME

Rules to get the invoices approved in system.

4.1) Defining/Using Attributes

Navigation: Approvals Management Administrator> Admin Dashboard

Look for Transaction type: Payables Invoice Approval

Click on Attributes link under Define the components section or click on Setup Icon (I) for the transaction

type.

Under Attributes tab, you can look for seeded attributes or create a new one on need basis.

Here for this test case, we are using below seeded attributes:

1. TRANSACTION_ORG_ID


2. SUPPLIER_INVOICE_LINE_AMOUNT

3. SUPPLIER_INVOICE _AMOUNT

Note: This is a pre-requisite before proceeding to next step.

4.2) Define Conditions

You create Conditions based on the Attributes defined earlier.

Navigation: Approvals Management Administrator> Admin Dashboard> Setup > Conditions (T)

To meet the business requirement here, we created below conditions.


a. TRANSACTION_ORG_ID = 204

b. SUPPLIER_INVOICE_LINE_AMOUNT < $1000

c. SUPPLIER_INVOICE_LINE_AMOUNT >= $1000


d. SUPPLIER_INVOICE_AMOUNT < $1000

e. SUPPLIER_INVOICE_AMOUNT >= $1000

4.3) Use Action Types

The action type used for this test case is Approval-Group Chain of Authority. The Ordering Mode and

Voting Method are set to Serial to get invoice approved serially.


Navigation: Approvals Management Administrator> Admin Dashboard> Setup > Action Types (T)

4.4) Define Approval Groups

In this step we define the list of approvers in the needed order so that the workflow sends notification

to get the invoices approved. For this test case, we created an Approval Group based on approver type

HR People.

Navigation: Approvals Management Administrator> Admin Dashboard> Setup > Approval Groups (T)

a. Invoice Header Approval for Amount < $1000


b. Invoice Header Approval for Amount >= $1000


c. Invoice Line Approval for Amount < $1000


d. Invoice Line Approval for Amount >= $1000

4.5) Define Rules

Navigation: Approvals Management Administrator> Admin Dashboard> Setup > Rules (T)

a. Invoice Header Approval Rule < $1000

While defining header rule, we will select item class as Header.


The two conditions are added above for this rule.

The action type and the approval group defined are selected.

The review page shows the summary of the rule header, conditions and actions.


Upon click on Finish (B), the rule gets saved and confirmation message will be shown.

As noted above, one of the header rules is created successfully.

b. Invoice Header Approval Rule >= $1000

Similarly another Header Rule is created with other conditions as noted below.


c. Invoice Line Approval Rule < $1000

While defining the Invoice Line rule, we will select the item class as Line Item.

The Line condition is added then for this rule.

The action type and the approval group defined are selected.

The review page shows the summary of the Line rule header, conditions and actions.


Upon click on Finish (B), the rule gets saved and confirmation message will be shown.

d. Invoice Line Approval Rule >= $1000

Similarly another Line Rule is created with other conditions as noted below.

Having defined two Header and two Line level rules, the Rules section looks like below.


Transactions

1) Create Purchase Orders

Navigation: Purchasing Responsibility> Purchase Orders> Purchase Orders

Create a Purchase Order (PO) using a supplier and get it approved

2) Create Matched Invoice and Complete the AME Approval Cycle

Business Case 1: Process an Invoice with one line that of $900

Navigate to Invoice workbench to create a matched invoice.

Navigation: Payables Responsibility> Invoices> Entry> Invoices/Invoice Batches


Note that the default approval status on the invoice is Required as we enabled Use Invoices Workflow

Payables option.

Created a Purchase Order (PO) matched invoice (AD2000) with a single line for an amount of $900.


As you note, even the Invoice line level Approval status is Required.

As you note, one can initiate such invoice for approval using either of the methods viz.,

i. Using Actions button of Invoice workbench


ii. Or using concurrent program

Having initiated the invoice for approval, the status of the invoice changed to Initiated.


As we have both Invoice header and line rules applicable for this transaction, you will note both the

rules honored and processed. Please note that invoice header and line amounts are $900 and hence the

below AME Rules will be honored.

a. Invoice Header Approval Rule < $1000

b. Invoice Line Approval Rule < $1000

To check the Invoice Header approval list/status, keep the cursor in any of the Invoice Header fields and

click on (M) Reports > View Invoice Approval History.

As you note below, both the header and line approval list will be seen from here. Importantly, Invoice

Line Approval notification is sent first and the header (Invoice Approval) notification is set to future.

Once all the line approvals are done, such header approval notifications will be sent.


To check the Invoice line approval list or status, keep the cursor in any of the Invoice Line fields and click

on (M) Reports > View Line Approval History.

As you note, this approval history shows only Invoice Line Approval notification information.


Such invoice approval notifications will be seen in the work list of the Approver (Nimmalapudi, Srinivas).

Note: You can set up your system to request and receive approval through the approver's e-mail,

through the approver's Oracle Workflow Notifications Workflow web page, or both.

Click on the hyperlink of the approval notification to open and act on it.


In this case, the invoice is approved by the approver and post which you will note that the approval

notification is no longer seen as an open work list item.

When we re-query the invoice and check the status of the Invoice approval history, noted that the

Invoice line is approved and now the header rule is honored and a workflow notification is sent to the

approver.

The approval history for this invoice from Invoice Workbench shows as below.

Note: Table AP_INV_APRVL_HIST_ALL contains the approval and rejection history of each invoice that

passes through the Invoice Approval Workflow process. The process inserts a record for each approver

assigned to review an invoice. This table corresponds to the Invoice Approval History window.

The approval status of the invoice line now will be Workflow approved as the line level approval is

complete.


Note: The status of the invoice as such will still be initiated as it is yet to complete the Invoice header

approval.


Now log in as Header approver (Mehra, Meenakshi) and will note that such invoice approval notification

is seen in the worklist.

Open the notification and approve the same.

Note: Table WF_NOTIFICATIONS holds the runtime information about a specific instance of a sent

message. A new row is created in the table each time a message is sent.

Now, having approved by both the header and line approvers, when you re-query the invoice, the status

of the invoice is Workflow Approved.


The approval history of the invoice from General tab of Invoice Workbench shows both the line and

document level approver action.


Business Case 2: Process an Invoice with a line that of $900 and another line that of $1800

Navigate to Invoice workbench to create a matched invoice.

Navigation: Payables Responsibility> Invoices> Entry> Invoices/Invoice Batches

Created a Purchase Order (PO) matched invoice (AD3000) with couple of lines

o One with $900 and

o Another with $1800.

We initiated the invoice for approval using Actions button. The invoice status changed to Initiated

status.


Each of these invoice lines approval status will also be changed to Initiated (from Required).


As we have both Invoice header and line rules applicable for this transaction, you will note both the

rules honored and processed. Please note that invoice header is $2700 and line amounts are $900 &

$1800 respectively and hence the below AME Rules will be honored.

a. Invoice Header Approval Rule > $1000

b. Invoice Line Approval Rule < $1000

c. Invoice Line Approval Rule >= $1000

To check the Invoice Header approval list/status, keep the cursor in any of the Invoice Header fields and

click on (M) Reports > View Invoice Approval History.

As you note below, both the header and line approval list will be seen from here. Importantly, First

Invoice Line Approval notification is sent first and the other line along with header (Invoice Approval)

notification is set to future.

From the work list of the Approver (Nimmalapudi, Srinivas), opened the notification and approved the

invoice line.


Having approved by the line approver, when we re-query the invoice and check the status of the Invoice

approval history, noted that the Invoice line 1 is approved and Line 2 approval notification is sent to the

corresponding approver.

The approval history for this invoice from Invoice Workbench shows as below.

Now from the work list of the Approver (Vutukuru, Raghavender), opened the notification and approved

the invoice line.


The approval history for this invoice from Invoice Workbench shows as below. As noted the Invoice lines

are approved and now the header rule is honored and a workflow notification is sent to the approver.

The approval status of these invoice lines will be shown as Workflow Approved.


Now, log in with Invoice header approver (Vaideeswaran Subramanian) and approve the request.

Now, having approved by both the header and couple of line approvers, when you re-query the invoice,

the status of the invoice is Workflow Approved.


The approval history of the invoice from General tab of Invoice Workbench shows both the lines and

document level approver action.


References

Refer to the following documentation for more information on the Invoice Approval Workflow feature:

Oracle Payables User Guide Release 12

Oracle Approvals Management Implementation Guide Release 12

Release 12 Oracle Payables Invoice Approval Workflow Technical Transfer of Information (TOI)

ame invoice line level

Documents

internal use

approval management

business case

business scenario

use action types

step guide

system administrator

technology overview