Enhanced interface

Set up delegation for purchasing approvals

Make sure approval responsibilities are handled even when an approver is out-of-office by turning on approval delegation. As a best practice, every Purchasing transaction approver should have a delegate.

Set up approval delegation

Enable delegation within your Purchasing application and then assign approval delegates. For example, a peer in the department or a manager might be an appropriate delegate. Delegates must have permissions to approve purchase transactions.

If you use value-based approval policies, the delegate must have the same or higher purchase value permission level as the original approver.

Learn how an approval request is handled when a delegate is not available in About purchasing approval delegation.

Subscription	Administration, Purchasing
User type	Business user with admin privileges
Permissions	Application subscriptions: List, View, and Configure

Enable delegation and assign delegates on the Configure Purchasing page. In a multi-entity shared environment do this at the top level.

Go to Purchasing > Setup > Configuration.
In the Enable functionality section, in the Approvals subsection select Enable delegation.
Select Manage beneath Enable delegation.
Select either a user or user group as the Default delegate type.
Only users or group members with permissions to approve purchase transactions appear in the list.
Select the Default delegate.
The default delegate is used to pre-populate the Manage delegates table.
Verify that a delegate is selected for each approver in the table.
If the default delegate is the same as the approver, select a different delegate.
Select Save.

If a user is given purchasing approval permission after you assign delegates, the new approver is automatically assigned the default delegate. Return to the Manage Delegates page to assign the new approver a different delegate.

Turn off approval delegation

Turning off approval delegation has no effect on purchasing transactions that are currently in the approval cycle. Any new transactions that are submitted will no longer be rerouted for approval if an approver is out-of-office.Your default delegate and delegate approvers remain the same and are used if you re-enable approval delegation.

Subscription	Administration, Purchasing
User type	Business user with admin privileges
Permissions	Application subscriptions: List, View, and Configure

Go to Purchasing > Setup > Configuration.
In the Enable functionality section, in the Approvals subsection turn off Enable delegation.
Select Save.

Field descriptions

The following table describes each field on the Manage delegates page.

Manage delegates page field descriptions
Field	Description
Default delegate type	Select either a specific user or a user group to be the default delegate. If you select a user group, only the members of the group with the required approve purchase transaction permissions are able to approve.
Default delegate	Only users or user groups with approve purchase transaction permission appear in the list. The default delegate that you select is used to: Automatically be used as the default delegate for each approver in the table. If you change the default delegate, all approvers previously assigned the default delegate are updated with the new delegate. If an approver is assigned a non-default delegate, there is no change when a new default delegate is selected. Assign as the delegate for any new approver. This is a user who is subsequently given permissions to approve purchase transactions after delegates have been assigned. You can always change the delegate for an approver.
Approver	Read-only. Users with permissions to approve purchase transactions appears in the table.
Delegate type	The default or selected delegate type for the approver.
User or user group	A user or user group who can approve on behalf of the approver. Only users or group members with permissions to approve purchase transactions appear in the list. Users restricted to specific entities can be selected as delegate approvers. However, a restricted delegate approver cannot approve a transaction that contains any line-items assigned to restricted entities. When the approver turns on out-of-office approval delegation, any new approval requests are rerouted to the delegate. The delegate remains the approver of the transaction even after the approver turns off out-of-office approval delegation. If you use value-based approval policies, the delegate must have the same or higher purchase value permission level as the original approver. To view a delegate's value permission level, see Value approval rules.