9.2 Managing Workflows: Approvals, Delegation, Reminders, Escalation, and Auto-Approval

9.2 Managing Workflows: Approvals, Delegation, Reminders, Escalation, and Auto-Approval

Quick Answer: Users act on requests from the Home Page (the Approvals card, the To-Do panel, or View Pending Workflows). Stalled workflows are handled with reminders (Workflow Action Reminder job), escalation paths (Workflow Auto Escalation job), or auto-approval (Workflow Auto Approval job). Delegation requires Is Delegate Supported = Yes on the workflow record.

Where Users See Workflows

Employees track and handle requests from the Home Page. View Pending Workflows organizes requests into six categories:

Requests can be approved from the Approvals card, the To-do panel, or the link Access requests awaiting my approval. To stop quick approval, disable that permission in RBP > Manage Workflows. More filters in My Workflow Requests require Manage Workflows > Professional Edition Manage Workflow Requests.

Assign to Me

In a dynamic group, Assign to me lets one member take ownership of a request. Other members see who took it, and members can remove the assignment from themselves or others. It requires the Manage Workflow Assignments permission, and requests can be filtered by assignment in My Workflow Requests. This prevents parallel work on the same request, for example one that needs a works-council hearing.

Delegation

With Is Delegate Supported, an approver can hand a workflow to someone else, who approves or declines on their behalf. The delegate can refuse, and the original approver can recall.

• Manual delegation: the approver names a delegate at a step.
• Auto delegation: users name delegates in advance under Homepage > Delegate My Workflows.

Delegation is configured in the Corporate Data Model. With the is-delegate-supported field enabled in wfConfig, each workflow record gets a Yes/No value (default No). Both delegation types need Is Delegate Supported = Yes on the record. Delegation follows the four-eyes idea: the submitter cannot be the delegatee.

Auto Delegation

• Users need the RBP permission Allow Auto-Delegation.
• All workflows with Is Delegate Supported = Yes route to the nominee. This includes workflows received through job relationships, dynamic roles, dynamic groups, and positions.
• Start and end times are optional. If left blank, auto-delegation runs indefinitely until switched off.
• With Allow delegatees to accept or reject a workflow delegation request (Company System and Logo Settings), delegates can accept or reject. They see delegations under Delegation Requests for Me.

Auto-delegation by groups: administrators group request types in Manage Data > Auto Delegate Group. The system creates ALL OTHERS automatically once one group exists, as a catch-all. Users pick one delegate for all requests or delegates per group, up to three delegates. Administrators can configure auto-delegation for employees in Manage Data > Auto Delegate Config.

Future-Dated Alternate Workflow

An alternate workflow handles conflicts with future-dated records by adding approvers. Example: an address change normally goes to Talent Approval. If the employee already has a future-dated address (for example effective December 15, 2099), the alternate workflow Data Change runs instead. A business rule could achieve the same.

Reminders for Stalled Workflows

Remind the current approver after a number of days:

1. Create a Workflow Action Reminder job in Scheduled Job Manager.
2. Either enter Remind in Days in the job (the same for all workflows), or leave it blank and set remind-indays on each workflow record (after enabling the field in the Corporate Data Model).

If the job has a number of days, the values on the workflow records are ignored. The reminder reuses the approver's original notification with "Reminder:" in the subject, so no extra template is needed.

Auto Escalation

If an approver takes no action, the workflow stalls. Escalation moves it to a specified user after a set number of days. The new approver can decline the escalation, returning it to the previous approver, and the previous approver can revoke it. After declining or revoking, escalation continues with the next step after the defined days.

1. Enable the escalation field under wfConfig in the Corporate Data Model.
2. Create the escalation path in Manage Data.
3. Assign workflows to the escalation records.
4. Create and run the Workflow Auto Escalation job in Scheduled Job Manager.

Escalation does not happen when auto-approval is enabled.

Auto-Approval

Normally a step blocks all later approvers until it is processed. Auto-approval approves steps that stay unanswered for a set time:

1. Enable autoApproveInDays (Days until Auto Approval) under wfStepApprover in the Corporate Data Model.
2. Create a recurring Workflow Auto Approval job in Provisioning > Managing Job Scheduler > Manage Scheduled Jobs. SAP recommends running it daily, with an active period or an open-ended date.
3. Enter Days Until Auto Approval on the approval step of the workflow record.

Administrator Tools

Administrators handle stalled workflows in Manage Workflow Requests, where they can move requests forward or reassign them. Admin Alerts list stalled workflows (Section 2.4), and the Diagnostic Tool traces workflow details (Section 10.2).