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1. Go to IMG → Materials Management → Purchasing → Purchase Order → Release Procedure for Purchase Orders → Activate Flexible Workflow for Purchase Orders
2. Activate which document type you want to have FWF
- It's based on document type for ex:- NB we can have FWF and UB we can have Classic Workflow
3. Once done save. Transport request will be generated
4. Now open “Manage Workflows for Purchase order” App
5. Choose add
6. Give Workflow name and description for understanding purpose
Even we can set timelines for PO release status
7. Go to start conditions tab
As per business requirement, we can select the precondition to start the workflow
Only if the condition met then only created PO will be coming to workflow or else it will be released automatically
We can have more conditions as per business requirements.
8. Go to step sequence and choose add to maintain more conditions like a responsible person, PO values etc.
9. By default, Step type will be set to Automatic release of PO drop down and change to release of PO
10. Go to Recipient and select Role / User as per business
- User means we can select specific user-id
- Role means, that role has to be assigned to responsible person user-id
If you selected multiple users for release, we have an option like one of the recipient approval is enough or all approvals is required, we can select as per requirement
11. Go to step condition to add conditions like Currency, PO value, Material group, Company Code etc,
If wanted we can keep or else leave blank as we already maintain precondition in the initial stage.
12. Once done click on add
13. And then save
14. And then activate
Once it's activated we can’t edit only deactivate or delete
With this, we completed all the required steps
Now, let's check we maintained all correctly or not.
Will create PO
During Workflow creation we maintained 2 conditions
- Document type = NB
- PO Value greater than 20 USD
Both conditions our PO fulfil’s
PO created
Now if I open PO in change mode will get below information
It triggered FWF.
Now let's Approve / release PO
Open My Inbox App.
As one PO is in my bucket for approval on tile only we can see notifications ?
We have the following options
- Approve
- Reject
- Show log
- Claim (initiate process)
- Forward
If you feel it must be approved by someone else, not by you, we can do it.
- Suspend (Hold)
Now let’s Approve PO
It's done
If you are going on vacation like how we keep out of office mail with backup contact person ? same, we can do hear as well
In my inbox app click me area and select manage my substitutes
By selecting planned leave or unplanned leave ? Click add new substitute
By selecting from date and to date
Save
Now whatever PO is create and triggered to FWF it will go to my substitute
If you want to see all the list of POs’ that you approved so far there is an app for that as well
My Outbox
Note:- all above content doesn’t have sensitive info so don’t waste your time for reporting
If the same My Inbox App is configured in mobile means, see the beauty of SAP Fiori
Encourage Fiori and get the most advanced features of it and make life easy and smooth.
Thanks for the informative blog. I'd like to understand more about the step conditions and how do they work. Are they different from the Pre-conditions we add on the 1st screen?
During a custom development and extensive debugging, I realized a major difference between how the Pre-conditions and step conditions are evaluated.
During evaluation of a step condition, the code doesn’t get the workflow’s or the workItem’s container at all. So as I was trying to check a “container variable = my condition parameter” condition, it always failed, even when the container has the correct value for that variable. Due to this my step was always 'Skipped'.
However, if the same condition is used as a pre-condition, this evaluation was successful, as the container is being read properly.
Have you noticed the same? Or am I doing something wrong here?
I have a question regarding information provided on the approve/reject message.. Up to 1909 version,does it exist any standard setting to provide additional information or the only way is a customisation?
Nice Documentation and This helped me during my On-Prem Implementation.
Related to the Approval process in Fiori - Do you have idea on the below;
As you know, Approve/Reject comments will be updated back in SAP GUI. What about Attachments ? Any Mechanism to bring back attachments to SAP GUI
Manage Substitutes - Any Pre-requisite setup required in HCM . I tried Maintaining Leaves for the Approver in PA30 - but couldn't setup any Substitutes for the same Approver
I have one question. How will i re-trigger a purchase order. Generally my while uploading legacy PO those PO are auto approved. Now if i want to re-trigger those Purchase Order, how i gonna do that?
I have a question, if I have created a custom Workflow Scenario and want to trigger it for any particular order type (Let's say 'NB'). So how can I configure this?
I am able to achieve all the steps following your document but once Standard PO is created I am getting "workflow instance not found". Can you please suggest.
Thank you for sharing the knowledge on the Flexible Workflow. Was wondering if you could configure the below scenario in Flexible Workflow.
Requirement:
I create a Purchase Requisition for 1000$ and it should go to Approver-1 for first-level approval and then to Approver-2 for second level approval and then be completely approved. If Approver-1 or Approver-2 rejects the PR, then it must come to me so that I can correct it, and resubmit.
In the Exception Handling of the Manage Workflow app, we have set ‘Restart Workflow’.
In the system now, when the Approver-2 rejects the PR, the system is sending the PR back to Approver-1!
I have maintained all these steps . I have created one Non stock PO document type for PO .
While selecting that document type in flexible workflow it is showing "Not Sent" under Status of workflow . Even in Header Flexible workflow tab is not appearing .