Approval Groups

Approval Groups are used to help manage the Approval process for both Timesheets, Expense Reports and Expense Requests. These groups contain lists of approvers and submitters, and help control who should approve each users entries and in what sequence a series of approvals may occur.

An Approval Group can have zero to many Approvers. These Approvers are selected from a list of Managers. The Approval Groups may also contain a list of Timesheet Submitters and/or Expense Submitters. Each User in Unanet belongs to an Approval Group as setup in the Person Admin Screen when creating a user. A User may belong to different Approval Groups for their Timesheets and/or Expense Reports.

When Approvers are added to an approval group, the sequence in which they are entered is very important. The approval process will always attempt to follow a sequence from top of the list to bottom (as displayed on the screen) when determining which approver should be the next to approve. The Standard Approval Sequence applies to both timesheet approvals as well as expense approvals. For expense approvals, Unanet also has a Dynamic Approval Sequence.

When a user submits their item (either a timesheet, expense report or expense requests), the control of that item is passed to the first person in that person's Approval Group. As the item gets approved, it continues through all the managers in that Approval Group (from top to bottom as displayed on the screen) until everyone has approved that item. At that point, the item is set to COMPLETED. If an item is ever disapproved by any manager, control is always passed back to the owner of the item and the entire approval process must be done again.

There are several steps needed to create this approval process -

Adding Approval Groups -- basically -- assign it a name. You may consider naming this according to your departmental structure.
Adding Approvers to the Approval Group -- assign zero to many approvers to the approval group.
Adding Submitters to the Approval Group -- assigning zero to many submitter to the approval group.

When defining your Approval Group scheme, consider the following items:

Decide on Approval Group names; consider using same names as internal organizations.
Who should approve timesheets in each department, office or organizational unit?
Who should approve expense reports in each department, office or organizational unit?
What is the order of approvers for each department, office or organizational unit? (loosely tied to the org chart?)
Will the Accounting or Payroll be responsible for the final approval of all timesheets?
Will AP be responsible for the final approval of all expense reports in Unanet?
Decide on Alternate Approvers for each primary approver.
Customize E-mail templates for approval events

Importing Approval Group Information

The list of "Approvers" or simply the names of the Approval Groups can be managed via the Approval Group Import
The list of "Submitters" can be managed via the Person Import

Adding Approval Groups

Privilege Needed: Administrator

Location: Administrator - Approval Groups - Add.

	Saves current data on the form
	Clears all values on the form

Listing Approval Groups

Location: Administrator - Approval Groups - List.

Once an Approval Group has been created, you must define who the Approvers (managers) are that you want in that group. To define the Approver for an Approval Group you first must list all the groups. You will see a screen similar to the one below (with the Approval Groups you entered).

	Press to edit and change the Approval Group Name.
	Press to delete an Approval Group. In order to delete an Approval Group, you must first remove all managers from the group and remove any People that are using that approval group to submit either their time and/or expenses. To see each of these, press the following three icons below for this approval group.
	Press to view or change the Approvers in an Approval Group. This is the list of managers that will approve each expense and/or timesheet in order as they appear in the window from top to bottom.
	Press to view all the people who submit their timesheets to this Approval Group. These are the Timesheet Submitters.
	Press to view all the people who submit their expense reports and expense requests to this Approval Group. These are the Expense Submitters.

Adding Submitters to Approval Groups

Pressing the timesheet icon () will show you all the people who submit their time to this Approval Group. To add timesheet users to this group, press the edit button below the list. Next you will see a list of timesheet users followed by their current approval group in parentheses. And to the right you will see a list of the current timesheet submitters as shown below. To add people to your approval group, highlight each person in the left box and press the arrow right button. You can not remove people from an Approval Group from this screen. That must be done from the Person Page for each person.

Pressing the expense icon () will show you all the people who submit their expenses to this Approval Group. To add expense users to this group, press the edit button below the list. Next you will see a list of expense users followed by their current approval group in parentheses. And to the right you will see a list of the current expense submitters as shown below. To add people to your approval group, highlight each person in the left box and press the arrow right button. You can not remove people from an Approval Group from this screen. That must be done from the Person Page for each person.

	Highlight the fields in the left column click this button to move them to the right column.
	Saves current data on the form.
	Clears all values on the form.
	Goes back to the main editing page.

Since a company can have thousands of employees, the person can filter the "Available Approvers" by entering the person's "Last Name" or the "Organization" and pressing this button.

Note: Unanet also offers an E-mail option that sends a customized E-mail message to each manager as they gain control of a timesheet they must approve. A copy of that E-mail message is sent to the owner of the timesheet. E-mail is an option that can be turned off both at the Unanet System level or on an individual basis in their User Profile.

Dynamic Approval Sequence

The purpose of this feature is to limit the number of Approvers that must approve a particular expense item, depending on their Expense Approval Authority Amount.

NOTE: In order for this feature to be enabled, one of the following properties must be set to true:

unasense.approval.authority.report or unasense.approval.authority.request (both default to false)

This feature only applies to the Una$ense approval process for Managers.

If you have purchased Una$ense and are making use of the Dynamic Approval Sequence, then you will also see the amount that each manager has the authority to approve for an entire expense report next to their name (in the list of approvers) -- see screen shot below. This value is set in the Person Page for each manager.

If you are using this option, it is suggested that the approvers be ordered according to their approval amounts in ascending order (as shown in the example below) -- with the lowest amount at the top of the list, and progressively larger thresholds as you move down. This is not necessary, however, as the software will sort the entries in this order. Keeping your approval group in this order may just be less confusing if you're trying to follow the approval sequence.

Using the dynamic approval sequence would allow for an expense report to be approved -- while not necessarily requiring the approval of all Managers in the approval group.

For Example: Given the approval hierarchy in the screen shot below, an expense report with an amount of $50.00 would only need to be approved by mike. Further, an expense report with an amount of $200.00 would need to be approved by both mike and john. Essentially, you are saying, we don't need to bother michelle, patrick or rebbeca for these lower expense reports -- we empower mike and john.

NOTE: There is an exception to this scheme. If any manager has an approval authority amount in their Person Page of NULL (empty) or an amount less than or equal to $0.00, then that manager will be forced to approve or disapprove every expense item regardless of the previous manager's approval authority. This may come in handy if you want to have a final approver -- that must approve all expense reports (e.g. an expense finance audit manager -- who verify receipts). Further, any Manager with the $0.00 approval amount will be automatically be sorted to the bottom of the approval list during the approval process. If more than one $0.00 approver is listed, the approvals will be processed in the order in which these Managers appear in the Approver List.

	(Highlight the fields in the left column) click this button to move them to the right column.
	(Highlight the fields in the right column) click this button to move them to the left column.
	Saves current data on the form.
	Clears all values on the form.
	You can change the order by highlighting names in the right window, and pressing the arrow keys.

The individuals in the left window are all the potential Approvers (managers). The individuals in the right window are the approvers assigned to this Approval Group. Highlight each manager and click on the left/right arrow buttons to move highlighted names from window to window.

The order of the managers in the right window is important (unless you are using the dynamic approval sequence)! Control of the expense report is passed to the first person in the list and then passed down through the list in that order. So in the example above, "rebbeca" has final approval authority in this group.

Related Properties:

There is a parameter you can add to your unanet.properties file called unanet.approve.self=true (true is the default). Click here to see more details. Setting this flag to true allows users to submit timesheets and expense reports to approval groups on which they are also an approver. That is, they can approve their own Timesheets and Expense Reports. Setting this flag to false prevents this capability.

unasense.approval.authority.report - If this value is true in your properties file, then all Expense Reports will be passed through the Dynamic Approval Sequence as describe above. If false, then the approval amounts in the manager's Person Page are ignored and every Expense Report must be approved by all managers in the Approval Group.

unasense.approval.authority.request - If this value is set to true in your properties file, then all Expense Requests for Authorization will be passed through the Dynamic Approval Sequence as describe above. If false, then the approval amounts in the manager's Person Page are ignored and every Expense Request must be approved by all managers in the Approval Group.

Note: The administrator can prevent non-managers from being an alternate by setting a value in the unanet.properties file called unanet.prevent.nonmanager.be.alternate=yes. They can also prevent non-employees from becoming an alternate by setting a value in the unanet.properties file called unanet.prevent.nonemployee.be.alternate=yes.

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