An approval workflow failure email is sent to an approval workflow's approval administrator whenever an approval assignment cannot be made to an employee for an approval step of the approval workflow.
An approval administrator is assigned to an approval workflow on the General tab in
.
Approval workflow steps require an employee's approval before the record that requires approval can move to the next approval step or be completely approved. Roles and employees are assigned to approval workflow steps in the Approval Steps grid on the Workflow tab in Approvals Configuration.
Example of an Approval Workflow Failure:
- Approval step 1 for an approval workflow for purchase orders is assigned to the project manager role of the cost distribution project for purchase orders.
Project Manager is entered in the
Assigned To field in the Approval Steps grid of the Workflow tab in Approvals Configuration.
- A purchase order is entered for cost distribution project A, but no project manager is specified for project A in the Project Info Center.
- When the purchase order is submitted, the purchase order is now in step 1 of the approval process. No employee can be assigned to the step because there is no project manager entered for the cost distribution project.
- An approval workflow failure email is sent to the approval administrator of the approval workflow. The approval administrator is specified on the General tab in Approvals Configuration. The approval administrator's email address is entered in the Employee Info Center.
This scenario can also occur if no cost distribution project is entered for the purchase order on the Default Distribution tab of the Purchase Orders entry form.
Approval Workflow Failure Emails
The approval workflow failure email:
- Identifies the approval step that failed, the reason for the failure, and the role or employee who is responsible for completing the step.
- Contains a
Changed Record hyperlink that opens the entry form for the record. On the entry form, you can click the
option on the toolbar to reassign the approval step to an employee. After the approval administrator re-assigns the step to an employee, then the approval step can be approved.
Correcting an Approval Workflow Failure
The approval administrator assigned to an approval workflow can open the record that has an approval workflow failure and use the
option on the entry form toolbar to assign the step to an employee.