For workflow requests - is it possible to add specific approvers designated by the initiator?

[Alex_Dinca_01]

We have a requirement to enable Time Off requesters to indicate a substitute colleague during their absence. The user indicated as "substitute" needs to be involved in the approval workflow. 

The current workflow configuration options do not offer this possibility, but I was wondering if anybody had a similar requirement for which they were able to come up with a suitable workaround.

Thanks!

SAP Workflow Management, workflow capability 

[davidhsanchez]

Hi,

Delegation is the answer as posted above but it has the downside that the delegation must be granted in advance so if the employee forgets or goes on leave unexpectedly, no delegation will happen. For such cases you can alsi implement workflow escalation which would reroute the workflow to another role after a number of pre-set days have passed without apprvoal. For example after 7 days without approval, the workflow is automatically esclated to HR, then HR could delegate to the appropiate person instead.

Hope it helps.

[k_SuccessFC]

Hi @Alex_Dinca_01 please check KBA: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2080882
Does this not cater your requirement?

Thanks and Regards,
Kat

[Alex_Dinca_01]

Hi Kat, thanks for your reply! No, it does not, unfortunately.

The requirement is that the requester of Time Off would indicate a specific user/colleague before submitting the request for approval. This colleague would need to be part of the approval workflow. So, the additional approver would be decided by the requester at the moment of initiating the absence request. The purpose is that the colleague "approves"/confirms that they are available to act as the back-up of the employee requesting the absence.

As I know, this is currently not possible, but nevertheless I was curious to see if others had similar requirements.

I was thinking to implement workflows with one of the approver steps being dynamic role or dynamic group or maybe HR manager, and the respective users would then need to delegate the workflows to the colleague designated by the absence requesters (this can be easily achieved by adding a User-data type custom field to the object definition).

If you have any ideas or suggestions, they are welcomed. 🙂 Thanks again for your time!

Alex