How to add sequential approval inside each branch of parallel approval in SRM workflow?

[ashis_lohia]

Hi,

Please find the requirement as below.

• After creation of shopping cart in SRM, one workflow to be triggered.
• This workflow will create two workitems for approval to be sent to two departments (say A and B) for parallel approval.
• Department A has 3 approvers say A1, A2 and A3 and Department B has 3 approvers say B1, B2 and B3.
• In both the department, the approvers need to approve the workitem sequentially i.e. first A1 will approver the workitem then only the workitem will go to A2 for approval and so on. Similarly in case of department B.
• Approval process in both the department are independent to each other.
• If all the approver in any of the department has approved the workitem and decision of workitem is pending the other department then status of the workflow will be ‘Pending’ or ‘In Process’.
• Once all the approver of both the department have approved the workitem then only the shopping cart is approved and workflow is completed.

Please find the image for your reference.

I found one useful link but need some more information as above.

https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/SRM/Creating+and+using+Multiple+Decision+Sets

Also please let me know if this scenario is feasible or not in SRM?

Thanks in Advance.

Ashis

[former_member314400]

Hello Ashis,

actually you can do the followings:

if the sequence of the approvers is important for the procurement department, then you can just create 4 levels of approval. The first 3 are the 3 managers from the procurement, then in the 4th level you can have the Financial approvers in a paralell step. This way you are eliminating the waiting time from the financial approvers but not from the procurement.

Unfortunately you can not do that, that there are two levels started together where the procurement users in a sequence, while the financials in a parallel step. (Since that would just add up the times again by waiting for the procurement approvers).

Based on your required scenario this seems to be most feasible: just create 3 levels for the 3 different proc. approvers, then a 4th for the financials but this time in a parallel way.

Best Regards

Zoltán

[ashis_lohia]

Hi zoltan.paulinyi

Thanks for your reply.

Actually, currently client is having sequential workflow where first 3 approvers from procurement department are in sequential and then comes last 3 approvers from finance department in sequence.

Client want to eliminate the waiting time for the approvers from finance department. That's why they want to send workitem parallelly to both the department to eliminate the waiting time.

I hope the reason behind this requirement is clear now.

Please let me know if you need more information.

Thanks,

Ashis

[former_member314400]

Hello Ashis,

actually as the name suggests, the parallel approval was designed to send the workitems parallel and not sequential. The linked Wikis are also describing the setup of this scenario, where the users are getting the Workitems at the same time.

The design concept of the parallel approval is to eliminate waiting times, by removing the waiting times presented in the sequential approval process.

The linked approval flow is actually putting back the waiting times, thus taking away the meaning of the parallel approval.

Hope this clarifies the scenario.

Best Regards

Zoltán