Overview
Approval workflows exist in SAP Marketing since several years and provide the ability to set up an approval process on the business objects that enabled for approval workflows:
- Campaigns
- Target Groups
- Programs
- Marketing Plans
This blog post gives an overview of the applications and features that are provided in SAP Marketing Cloud for the approval process, which include setting up conditions and approvers as well as a notification. This is the 1
st blog post of a series of posts. Refer to the Conclusion section for the complete list.
Prerequisites
To use approval workflows in SAP Marketing Cloud, you must:
- Define which business objects should be enabled for approval workflows. This is done in Manage Your Solution > Configure Your Solution, under Marketing and General Settings using Workflow for Business Objects. For more information on this configuration, see the SAP Marketing Cloud online documentation.
- Define Receivers Email Addresses for Test Systems to make sure that you have whitelisted email addresses to test the notifications in your Q system.
Authorization
The Manage Workflows application is part of the business catalog SAP_CEC_BC_MKT_WKF_PC (Marketing – Workflows) which is included in the SAP delivered business role SAP_BR_ADMINISTRATOR_MKT (Administrator - Marketing).
The Marketing Approval application is part of the business catalog SAP_CEC_BC_MKT_APV1_PC (Marketing - Approvals) which is included in the SAP delivered business role SAP_BR_MARKETING_MANAGER (Marketing Manager).
Find more information on authorization in the
SAP Marketing Cloud online documentation.
Applications and Features
Managing Approval Workflows
The Manage Workflows application enables you to:
- Define conditions to select which business objects shall be approved.
- Define who shall approve the requests.
Find also more information in
SAP Marketing Cloud online documentation.
Submitting for Approval
Once you have set up the prerequisites and have defined the conditions as well as the approvers, the approval process is enabled. The approval process is tightly linked to the lifecycle statuses of a business object. Each business object has its own status flow. However, the
In Approval status is part of all business objects status flow if the approval process is enabled.
For more details on the status flow for marketing plans and programs, see the
SAP Marketing Cloud online documentation.
For more details on the status flow for campaigns, see the
SAP Marketing Cloud online documentation.
For more details on the status flow for target groups, see the
SAP Marketing Cloud online documentation.
When a user submits a business object for approval, the system evaluates the workflow definitions that were defined for this business objects. If conditions are satisfied and approvers are found, the system
- Creates an approval request.
- Sends email and Fiori notification to the approvers.
- Sends email notification and Fiori notifications to the requester, once the request is approved or rejected.
Managing Approval Requests
The Marketing Approvals application enables you to, for example:
- Approve or reject approval requests.
- Define substitutes for approval requests.
- Suspend or forward approval requests.
See also
SAP Marketing Cloud online documentation.
Approval Workflow Administration
There are a few administrative tasks around , for example:
- Transport workflow definitions from Q to P.
- Administer approval requests, such as canceling an approval request.
For more information on workflow administration, refer to
SAP Marketing Cloud online documentation.
Conclusion
This blog post is part of a of a series of posts on SAP Marketing Cloud approval workflows:
https://blogs.sap.com/2020/06/08/approval-workflow-in-sap-marketing-cloud-part-2-setting-up-a-simple...
https://blogs.sap.com/2020/06/08/approval-workflow-in-sap-marketing-cloud-part-3-setting-up-a-multi-...
https://blogs.sap.com/2020/06/12/approval-workflow-in-sap-marketing-cloud-part-4-using-custom-condit...
We hope that you will find them useful and informative. Give us your feedback, post your questions, follow us!
More Information
You can use Set Up Your Marketing Solution to help you on setting up planning and some of our campaign scenarios. See SAP Marketing Cloud online documentation.
SAP Marketing Cloud is using the S/4HANA Cloud Workflow Services. For more information on this service, refer to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Workflow online documentation.
