Walkthrough: Approving Documents
With document approvals, customers can define limitations, such as purchase, request, and credit limits or salesperson/purchaser approval requirements. Each user is assigned an approver who can approve documents from that user. After the approval has been sent within Microsoft Dynamics NAV, SMTP email can be used to notify approvers that a document is waiting for their approval. Upon receiving the document, approvers can approve, reject, or delegate the approval. Delegating sends the approval to another predetermined substitute approver. Administrators can also delegate to the substitute approver if the initial approver is out of the office.
Overall, the document approvals functionality makes sure that:
The most qualified approver approves documents.
Costly mistakes are minimized.
Customers can trust that approvals are being performed through an official approval flow.
Bottlenecks in the approval flow are avoided.
About This Walkthrough
This walkthrough demonstrates the basic approvals flow, which is relatively simple and easy to customize. This walkthrough illustrates the following tasks:
Sending a document for approval and receive an approval in return.
Rejecting an approval and add a comment to explain.
Roles
This walkthrough demonstrates tasks that are performed by the following user roles:
Sales Order Processor
Senior Salesperson
Purchasing Agent
Purchasing Manager
To simplify the setup for this walkthrough, you will work with two users instead of the four user roles listed here. They are referred to as User 1 and User 2 in the procedures.
Prerequisites
To complete this walkthrough, you will need:
The CRONUS International Ltd. demonstration database company.
To set up two users who have permission to work in the CRONUS International Ltd. database. For more information, see How to: Create Microsoft Dynamics NAV Users.
To complete the steps in the “Setting Up Document Approvals” walkthrough. For more information, see Walkthrough: Setting Up Document Approvals. The setup walkthrough describes how to set approvals for the two users. Assign them the following information.
Approval settings User 1 – Salesperson/Purchasing Manager User 2 – Order Processor/Purchasing Agent User ID
Provide the user ID you assigned this user.
Provide the user ID you assigned this user.
Salespers./Purch. Code
User 2
Approver ID
User 2
Sales Amount Approval Limit
Select the Unlimited check box.
5000
Purchase Amount Approval Limit
Select the Unlimited check box.
5000
Request Amount Approval Limit
Select the Unlimited check box.
5000
Email
User 1 email address
User 2 email address
On the P-Quote and S-ORDER lines, select the Enabled check box.
Create some sample data by using the steps in the "Set Up the Sample Data" section in this walkthrough.
Save a sample Microsoft Office Word document to your desktop or another available location. This document is used to demonstrate linking from records, and does not have to contain any specific information.
Story
The sales order processor routinely uses document approvals to confirm information with the relevant salespeople and for orders that might exceed her limits. In the first scenario, the order processor creates a sales order that requires salesperson/purchaser and limit approval. She sends the order to a senior salesperson at CRONUS, for her approval, and then the salesperson reviews and approves the request.
In the second approvals scenario, the purchasing agent has negotiated a purchase with the vendor CoolWood Technologies. In her negotiations, she has received a 5 percent discount. She creates a purchase quote and uses the Record Links feature to attach a document that contains the quote from the vendor. The document is then sent to her manager for approval. Her manager reviews the quote, decides that CRONUS should negotiate a higher discount, and rejects the approval. Her manager adds a comment to the rejected approval request, which the purchaser reviews. Based on the information from her manager, the purchaser can then renegotiate the deal with CoolWood Technologies.
Set up Sample Data
Add User 1 as a salesperson, make User 1 the salesperson contact for The Cannon Group, and then save a sample Word document to your desktop.
To set up sample data
In the Search box, enter Salespeople, and then choose the related link.
On the Home tab, in the New group, choose New to create a new card with the following information:
Code: (User ID for User 1)
Name: (Name of User 1)
Commission%: 5
Choose the OK button to close the window.
In the Search box, enter Customers, and then choose the related link.
Select customer 10000, The Cannon Group, and on the Home tab, in the Manage group, choose Edit.
In the Salesperson Code field, select User 1, and then choose the OK button.
Create a Word document and place it on the desktop. It does not have to contain any specific information.
Now you can perform the actual document approval steps.
Performing a Simple Approval
The sales order processor takes an order for 10 Athens Desks from The Canon Group. The sales order processor creates a sales order that requires salesperson/purchaser approval in addition to limit approval. She sends the document for approval. The salesperson reviews and then approves the sales order.
To create a sales order and send an approval request
Log in to Microsoft Dynamics NAV as User 2.
In the Search box, enter Sales Orders, and then choose the related link.
On the Home tab, in the New group, and then choose New to create a new order. In the No. field, press Enter to create a new record.
In the Sell-to Customer No. field, choose customer 10000.
In the Lines FastTab, create a line with the following information:
Type: Item
Item: 1896-S
Quantity: 10
On the Home tab, in the Process group, choose Post.
A message box opens, stating that the document must be approved and released before it can be posted. Choose the OK button.
On the Actions tab, in the Request group, choose Send Approval Request.
The request is sent. A message indicating success is displayed.
The status of the sales order changes to Pending Approval.
Note
This walkthrough does not demonstrate how to open a document approval notification email message. When you receive a document approval notification email message, it contains a link that enables you to view your documents awaiting your approval. If you choose this link, it opens the Approval Entries window. In this walkthrough, you open the Approval Entries window manually from Microsoft Dynamics NAV.
To approve a request and view an approval
Log in as User 1.
In the Search box, enter Approval Entries, and then choose the related link.
The Approval Entries window opens. There is an entry for the sales order that the order processor created.
The order status is set to Open and the Approver ID is set to that of the user.
Select the entry. On the Actions tab, in the General group, choose Approve.
Log in as the order processor, User 2, again.
In the Search box, enter Approval Request Entries, and then choose the related link.
There are two entries listed for the sales order. The Status is set to Approved.
Creating a Purchase Quote and Requesting Approval
The purchasing agent has negotiated a purchase with the vendor CoolWood Technologies with a 5 percent discount. The purchasing agent creates a purchase quote and attaches a Word document that contains the quote from the vendor using the Record Links feature. The document is then sent to her manager for approval.
To create a purchase quote with a document attached
The following task begins from the purchasing agent role. Log in as User 2 to complete the task.
In the Search box, enter Purchase Quotes, and then choose the related link.
On the Home tab, in the New group, choose New.
In the No. field, press Enter to create a new record.
In the Buy-from Vendor number field, choose vendor 30000.
In the Lines FastTab, create a line with the following information:
Type: Item
No.: 1896-S
Quantity: 15
Line Discount %: 5
On the Home tab, in the Show Attached group, choose Links.
Choose the Actions button, and then choose New. Browse to the Word document that you saved to your desktop during the setup, and then choose the Save button to attach it. Close the Links window.
On the Actions tab, in the Request group, choose Send Approval Request. Choose the OK button to confirm the message that the approval has been sent.
Rejecting Approvals
The purchasing manager receives the approval request from the purchasing agent, reviews the document attached to the purchase quote, and then rejects the request, adding a comment to explain the decision.
To review the approval request
Log in as User 1.
In the Search box, enter Approval Entries, and then choose the related link
Select the approval request for the purchase quote.
On the Home tab, in the Process group, choose Document.
The purchase quote opens. Review the quote and notice the line discount of five percent.
On the Home tab, in the Show Attached group, choose Links.
Select the link for the Word document that you have attached. The Word document opens, and you can review its content. Close the Word document.
Close the Links window.
Close the purchase quote card.
To reject an approval request
With the approval request entry selected, on the Actions tab, in the Functions group, choose Reject.
The Approval Comments window opens automatically, as it was set up to open when an approval is rejected.
Type this comment: Try for a 10% discount. Choose the OK button to close the Approval Comments window.
The request for approval has been rejected.
Log in as User 2. In the Search box, enter Approval Request Entries, and then choose the related link.
You can see that the approval request has a Status of Rejected, and the Comment field contains the value Yes.
On the Navigate tab, in the Show group, choose Comment to open the Approval Comments window.
The comment to try for a larger discount is displayed. This way, User 2 knows to renegotiate the quote with CoolWood.
After you have renegotiated the discount, you can resubmit the quote for approval.
Next Steps
You have completed the basic scenarios for using document approvals to manage the workflow of approving sales and purchasing within an organization. Now you have approved and rejected an approval request.
To learn more about the customizations you can implement to tailor the document approvals workflow to your needs, see Define an Approval Workflow.