Structuring Your Approval Process

The approval process in LINQ Employee Portal consists of two components, Approval Groups and Approval Hierarchies. This topic explains how to use each component to customize the approval process for your organization.

After reviewing this topic, refer to the following topics for assistance in creating and maintaining your approval groups and hierarchies (chains).

• Approval Group Setup

• About Approval Groups

• Creating an Approval Group

• Copying an Approval Group

• Assigning Job Codes to an Approval Group

• Assigning Approval Departments to an Approval Group

• Approval Hierarchy Setup

• About Approval Hierarchies

• Creating Approval Chains

• Copying an Approval Chain

 

Approval Groups (Parent)

Approval groups are basically groupings of like employees based on jobs.

An employee may fall into multiple approval groups (maximum 1 per job).  An employee’s job may technically qualify (i.e., be-a-match) for more than 1 approval group; however, the best possible choice/match will be selected.

When an employee’s job falls into multiple approval groups, LINQ EP will use the following logic to select the best possible approval group for that job:

1. Approval department, which is the most important because the approval department is the most detailed level in Alio
2. Job code
3. Location

To provide additional flexibility, LINQ EP combines the location with either the department or job code. The following list reflects each combination's level of importance; the lower the number, the higher the importance.

1. Location with department
2. All Locations with department
3. Location with Job
4. All Locations with Job
5. Location
6. All Locations

Note: If your organization sets up an approval group that contains both job codes and departments, LINQ ERP looks at this setup as an "OR" condition, i.e., an employee will fall into that group if the employee matches the location and and job code OR matches he location and department code. Remember that the department takes higher priority.

 

Approval Hierarchies (Children of Approval Groups)

Approval hierarchies define the approval process for each approval group.

Each approval hierarchy is tied to a specific approval group and is made up of employee groups based on job roles. Once assigned, LINQ EP uses the hierarchy to route approval requests for that group.

If an approval group doesn’t have a hierarchy assigned, its employees won’t go through an approval process, and LINQ EP won’t know which steps to follow.

Within a hierarchy, each level can include multiple approvers. When one approver at a level approves a request, it moves to the next level. Approval from all approvers at the same level is not required.

Approval Groups and Hierarchies Example

Refer to the following example when setting up your organization's approval groups and hierarchies.

Locations, Jobs, and Departments

Locations	Jobs	Departments
0001 = High School 0002 = Middle School 0003 = Elementary School	6100 = Art Teacher 6200 = Math Teacher 6300 = Algebra Teacher 6400 = Trig Teacher 6500 = Music Teacher 6600 = Custodian 6700 = Bus Driver 6800 = Principal 6900 = Secretary	5 = Activities 10 = Math 15 = Administration 20 = Staff

Approval Groups

No	Location	Job	Department	Ranking
1	ALL	ALL	ALL	6
2	0001	ALL	ALL	5
3	0002	ALL	ALL	5
4	0003	ALL	ALL	5
5	ALL	ALL	20	2
6	0001	ALL	10	1
7	ALL	ALL	10	2
8	0001	ALL	5	1
9	0002	6100	ALL	3
10	0002	6500	ALL	3

 

Employees

Employee No	Location	Job	Department	Possible Approval Group	Chosen Approval Group
000001	0001	6100	5	1, 2, 8	8
	0001	6500	5	1, 2, 8	8
000002	0001	6600	20	1, 2, 5	5
	0002	6600	20	1, 3, 5	5
	0003	6600	20	1, 4, 5	5
000003	0002	6200	10	1, 3, 7	7
000004	0003	6200	10	1, 4, 7	7
000005	0001	6300	10	1, 2, 6, 7	6
	0001	6400	10	1, 2, 6, 7	6
000006	0001	6300	10	1, 2, 6, 7	6
	0001	6400	10	1, 2, 6, 7	6
000007	0001	6700	N/A	1, 2	2
000008	0002	6700	N/A	1, 3	3
	0003	6700	N/A	1, 4	4
000009	0005	6800	15	1	1
000010	0001	6900	15	1, 2	2
000011	0002	6900	15	1, 3	3
	0003	6900	15	1, 4	4
000012	0001	6500	N/A	1, 2	2
000013	0002	6200	20	1, 3	3
000014	0003	6800	N/A	1, 4	4
000015	0002	6100	N/A	1, 3, 9	9
000016	0002	6500	N/A	1, 3, 10	10

Note: Employees 000008 and 000011 are in groups 3 and 4 because they both have multiple jobs and their jobs are linked to different “BEST CHOICE” approval groups.  Therefore, requests for these two employees will flow through hierarchies linked to those two approval groups.

 

 

Final Approval Groups — this is the proper way to view an approval group

Approval Group	Employee Number
1	000009
2	000007 000010 000012
3	000008 000011 000013
4	000008 000011 000014
5	000002
6	000005 000006
7	000003 000004
8	000001
9	000015
10	000016

 

Final Approval Hierarchies — this is the proper way to view an approval hierarchy

Approval Group	Approval Hierarchies	Approver
1	10	Joe, John
	20	Jan, Jess
	30	Pete
2	10	Ben, Barry, Bob
	20	Butch
	30	Karen
3	10	Kathy
4	10	Doug
	20	Rich, Ron
	30	Eric
5	10	Bob
	20	Kate, Kat, Kirk, Tom
	30	Mike
	40	Nick, John

 

 

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