Approvals Setup in Oracle Quoting.

The approvals functionality involves three main setups:

1. Setting up the conditons and rules in Oracle Approvals Management
2. Setting up the heirarchy for employees
3. Creating a quote and submitting it for approval

Setting up the conditons and rules in Oracle Approvals Management

Login to Responsibility AME Application Administrator. This is a self-service
application. The user who is going to setup rules and conditions should have this
responsibility.
There are three main components in AME
1. Attributes: Attributes are used to create conditions. ASO has seeded a number of
attributes. For example: Quote Total, Manual Price Adjustment Percent.The
attributes can be at header level and also at line level. Customers can also create
their own attributes. Please note that if the user will be asked to select the
transaction type when one logs into AME responsibility. Make sure you select the

Oracle Quoting Transaction Type. This is shown below in the screenshot

2. Conditions: Conditions are created using attributes

3. Rules: Rules are created using conditions and approval type. Approval Types are
seeded by AME Development group. Approval Types point to which heirarchy is
to be used. For example: HR Heirarchy
For example purposes, we will be using the attributes Quote Total and Manual
Adjustment Percent to setup the conditions and rules.
Note that Manual Adjustment Percent does not take into account the automatic
adjustments. It will add up only the manual adjustments at header as well as line level. So
while setting up the manual adjustments, only those will be considered where the
automatic flag has not been checked ( Forms UI)

To create Conditions:
Click on the conditions Tab. Click on create condition.
Choose the Condition Type. The condition type should be chosen based upon the attribute
to be used for the condition. For example, if the condition is going to use a header level
attribute, then choose ordinary header as condition type. If condition is going to use a line
level attribute, then choose ordinary line item as the condition type.
For our example, we will first create a condition for attribute Manual Adjustment Percent.
So choose ordinary line item as the condition type as shown below

Click continue and choose Manual Adjustment Percent from the list of attribute names as
shown below. Then click Continue

Next give the lower limit and the upper limit for the condition. The lower and upper
limits are required if the attribute is a number. Please note that discount values are stored
as negative numbers in the database. So give the proper upper and lower limits
considering the negative digits. For our example, we have given 15 as lower limit and 1
as upper limit as shown below. Then click next to complete the creation of the condition.
This should take you to the main condition page and show the condition that was just
created. This completes the first condition.

After creating a condition for Manual Adjustment Percent, we will create a condition for
Quote Total. As Quote Total is a header level attribute, choose ordinary header as
condition type.
Choose Quote Total as the attribute name from the drop-down list as shown below.

Choose proper currency and give the appropriate upper and lower limits. For our
example, we have chosen USD and upper limit is 10000 and lower limit is 5000.
Then click on continue. This completes the creation of second condtion.

The screen below shows the two conditions that we have just created.

Now that we have created the conditions, click on rules tab to create rules. Click on create
a rule. Give a Rule Name and Description. Choose rule type as list creation type. The start
date and end dates will be defaulted as shown below.

Next, chose the approval type for the rule. For our example, we will choose the absolute
job level as the approval type. This approval type uses the HR heirarchy. These approval
types are seeded by AME group.

Then chose the proper approval level from the drop down list. This approval level
corresponds to the approval aurhoruty given to HR employees. Setting up the approval
authority for HR employess is discussed in the next section. For our example we will
choose atleast level 4 as shown below.

Choose no constraints for the rule as shown in the screen shot below.

Then choose the attribute/condition to be used for the rule. For our example, we will
choose manual adjustment percent as shown below.

Then choose the condition for the attribute as shown below.

Click on continue to complete the creation of the rule.

Similarly, we will create another rule for the Quote Total conditon. Chose the same
approval type and level as we did for the previous rule. Choose Quote Total as the
attribute and the corresponding condition for the quote total.

Creating a new attribute Item Category

We will create a new attribute called as Item Category. This is a line level attribute.
Only those categories that are defined in the default category set for functional area
Order Management (defined in Inventory Responsibility -> Default Category set
assignment) will be selected in this attribute. Click on Attributes tab and choose Oracle
Quoting as the Transaction Type ( if more than one transaction types are seeded )
Click on create an attribute. Choose Line level and give name as Item category.
The static usage of this attribute will be NO as we will define a SQL query for this
attribute.
The SQL Query for getting the item attribute is :
select c.CATEGORY_CONCAT_SEGS
from aso_quote_lines_all qla, mtl_item_categories
a,MTL_DEFAULT_CATEGORY_SETS_FK_V b,
mtl_categories_v c
where a.inventory_item_id = qla.inventory_item_id
and qla.organization_id = a.organization_id
and a.category_id = c.category_id
AND a.category_set_id = b.category_set_id
and b.functional_area_desc = 'Order Management'

and qla.quote_header_id = :transactionId

and qla.quote_line_id in :lineItemIdList
order by quote_line_id;
This is shown in the screen shot below

Next, we will create a condition for this attribute. Click on attributes tab. Choose Oracle
Quoting as the transaction Type. Click on create a condition. Choose Item Category as
the attribute. Click on Add Text Value.

Give attribute value as MISC.MISC. Thus this condition will be satisfied if the item
category is MISC.MISC. For example item AS54999 belongs to this category. Please
note that the value entered here is case sensitive, so add values in proper case. Click Quit
to save the changes. This is shown in the screen shot below. More values can be added
later on by choosing the condition and clicking on Add Text Value.

We will create a rule based upon this condition. Click on Rules tab. Give the name test
for category and approval type. Choose the condition that was defined in the previous
step. This is shown in the screen shot below.

This completes the creation of rules and conditions

Employee hierarchy set up.

(Accessible through Oracle Forms Applications).

Create Employee Hierarchy.

US HRMS Manager.
People Enter and Maintain
Create an employee:
Enter Name, Gender, Type: Employee, Social Security, Address (optional). Save.
Office Details (tab):
Enter Email address used in notification mail.
Assignment (button):
Organization example: Vision Corporation
Enter Job (i.e. SAL600.SALES REPRESENTATIVE- this is arbitrary and has to
be decided in advance for your employee hierarchy), Grade (select from the
applicable list of grades),
Enter Supervisor Name/Number. This is required for approval heirarchy.

Work Structure Job Description

Query for the Job Name (in this example SAL600.SALES REPRESENTATIVE). Enter
Approval Authority level (integer between 1 and 10 values has to be decided in advance
the higher the more authority power is associated with the given job)

Create user(s).
System Administrator.
Security User Define
Create user name and associate it with the employee. Add Responsibilities for Oracle
HTML Quoting and/or Forms Quoting, Approvals Management Application (AME
Appllicaion Admin) and Workflow Admin.

For our example we will setup the following heirarchy

Lisa Jones (ljones) reports to Jane Adams ( jadams) who reports to Bob Jones (bjones)

Create quote and submit it for approval.

Login to Quoting Application as ljones. Create a quote, add an item and then click price
adjustments.

Give a manual price adjustment less than 15% so that the quote satisfies the manual
adjustment rule. As shown below, we have given a manual adjustment of 10%. Note that
the automatic flag is not checked, indicating that it is a manual adjustment.

Submit the quote for approval.

Login to Workflow Administartor Web Applications Responsibility as jadams and select

worklist.

Click on the notification and approve it.

Repeat the same after logging in as bjones. If you do not see the notifications, make sure
that the Notification Mailer is up and running.

Inorder to test the Item category Rule:

Login to Quoting Application as ljones. Create a quote, add item AS54999. This item
belongs to category MISC.MISC and hence satisfies the rule. Submit the quote for
approval. This is shown below.

Some common setup issues that have been noticed

1. The notification message mapping should be setup properly. If it is not setup,
the FYI and request for approval notifications are not sent. Please see bug
2254443 for more details
2. The notification setup or configuration file is not proper. In this case, even if
an approver, approvers a notification, his response does not reflect in the
database (table does not get updated). Please contact DBA team for
notification configuration file. Please see bug # 2284949 for more details.
3. Notification Mailer is not up and running or has errored out or more than one
mailer are running. Please check with DBA team for Notofication Mailer
Concurrent program issues
4. The approver does not have the proper authority level.
5. The approver heirarchy is not properly setup in HR
6. Quote Status Transition Rules have not been setup properly.
7. Timout does not work properly. First please check if the notification mailer is
working or not. Then check the timout setting in the workflow. Please see bug
2276421 for more details. Make sure that the Wokflow Background process is
running