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Dynamics 365 Community / Blogs / Dynamics GP Support and Services Blog / Workflow 2.0's Workflow...

Workflow 2.0's Workflow User Setup window options: part 1: People and Groups

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Derek Albaugh Profile Picture Derek Albaugh Microsoft Employee

The scenario is that you're setting up the new Workflow 2.0 functionality in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 R2, whether it be a Purchase Order Approval, Purchase Requisition Approval, Payroll Timecard Approval or Project Timesheet Approval workflow type.

WorkflowUserSelection_5F00_PNG.JPG

In the workflow step window, when you attempt to select a user as an approver / Assign To, the Workflow User Setup window shows with the following options:

WFUserSelection_5F00_PNG_5F00_USERA.JPG

Selection Type:

A. People and Groups

B. Hierarchy

C. Workflow Role

What exactly do these selection types mean/offer?

In this blog, we'll start with the easiest of the options: People and Groups

 

With this option, you can use it to browse your Active Directory users and groups, to select to be the approver for the specific step in the workflow.

In the 'Find' field, you'll enter a Windows user or group that you have setup in Active Directory, then click the magnifying glass/check button which will verify that the user or group selected exists in the Active Directory.

Once you've selected the user or group you want as the workflow approver and verified it, you can then click the 'Add' button which will add it as that workflow's approver.

In this example, I'm on the CONTOSO domain and I have a USER_A user account setup in my Active Directory that I want to make the approver for the Purchase Requisition Approval workflow step 1 that I have setup.

In the Workflow Maintenance window, on this step's window, I click the lookup button next to the 'Assign to:' field, which opens the Workflow User Selection window as mentioned.

In the Workflow User Selection window, I choose 'People and Groups' for the Selection Type field, then in the 'Find' field, I enter my USER_A user account and click the verify button, which pulls the domain\userid for that user account from the Active Directory.

WFUS_5F00_USERA_5F00_Selected.JPG

When I click the 'Add' button, it will add this user account to the 'Selected Users' field.

WFM_5F00_PNG_5F00_USERA.JPG

Once I have my selected user account that I want to make the approver for the workflow step, I then click the OK button which will add this user account as the approver, in the workflow step window.

Once this is completed, in this example, since I have the condition that 'Action is always required for this step', and this is the first step in the Purchase Requisition Approval workflow, each time a requisition is submitted from the Purchase Requisition Entry window, it will be assigned to USER_A for approval.

As it shows in the bottom right-hand corner of the Workflow Maintenance's step window, you can add multiple users and/or groups as approvers for a step, then use the options under 'Completion Policy' for:

--Only one response needed

--Majority must approve

--All must approve

In parts 2 and 3 of this Workflow User Setup window options blog series, I'll also be going through the other two selection types of 'Hierarchy' and 'Workflow Roles'.

Hopefully these blogs will help make sense of the options that are presented to you in the new Workflow 2.0 functionality when setting up approvers for workflow types.

Comments

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  • Rob Klaproth Profile Picture Rob Klaproth 1,730
    Posted at

    Hi Derek, quick question about routing by people.

    I get the part about "Requested by" and using that so that it can go to the department manager, if you don't have hierarchy correctly configured in AD.  After the direct manager, we also need to insert the CFO if over 25k and then the CEO if over 50K.

    So, would I have to add the CFO and CEO to every single department, or would i do all the department processing and then insert the CFO if over 25k and then insert the CEO if over 50?

    What I have found is that you have to add them to every single department.  If you try to add a step outside of this, it goes to them at the same time as it goes to the manager, because it's meeting the conditions of both steps. So, to prevent this I have to add them after the manager step, but this is obviously a royal pain I have to add the CFO 10x one for each department and same with CEO 10x, one for each dept.

    So it kind of looks like this

    Path 1:

    1. If Request By RKLAPROTH go to JSMITH (if condition not met, go to next step)

       2.  If Request By RKLAPROTH AND amount >= 25k go to CFO (if condition not met go to next step)

           3.  If Request BY RKLAPROTH AND amount >= 50k go to CEO (if condition not met go to next step)

    Path 2:

    1.  If Request By JDOE go to BSLIDELL (if condition not met, go to next step)

       2.   If Request BY JDOE and amount >= 25k go to CFO (if condition not met, go to next step)

            3.  If Request by JDOE and amount >= 50k go to CEO (if condition not met, go to next step)

    There has to be an easier  way.. something I'm missing.

  • weiching Profile Picture weiching 247
    Posted at

    Hi, I tried to setup the requisitions to go to different departments and/or approvers. I follow the step to setup the workflow steps for the Purchasing Requisition Approval workflow.

    1st Step to have a condition such as 'Where Purchasing Requisition Line.Requested By is IT', then have it go to approver Manager.

    2nd Step to have a condition such as 'Where Purchasing Requisition Line.Requested By is AC', then have it go to approver CFO.

    The PR with 1st Step condition it successfully route to Manager approval. Unfortunately, when I created the PR with 2nd Step condition the PR show [No Action Needed].

    With above setting am I missing something? Thank you.

  • Derek Albaugh Profile Picture Derek Albaugh Microsoft Employee
    Posted at

    Remembering that the originator and approver is the Windows AD user accounts used to submit the transactions for approval and assigned as the approver via the Workflow steps. If you have it set so the originator cannot be the approver, and the approver / Windows user account submits a transaction for approval, instead of that transaction going to that approver for approval, it will first look for a alternate approver, and if there isn't one, it will go to the overall Workflow Manager, as long as it isn't the same Windows user account as the originator and approver.

    There isn't any way to setup a workflow step to look at who the originator of the transaction/document/batch/etc is, as it is a Windows user account.

    There are some workflows, such as a Purchase Requisition, for example, that has a 'Requested By' field, which inserts the GP user ID that was used when the requisition was submitted for approval. You could potentially use something like that to differentiate between who the originator and approver is, but that is about it.

  • Community Member Profile Picture Community Member
    Posted at

    Hi, I have a scenario where User A will need to approve all transactions except for those he entered himself.  Any transactions entered by User A will need to bypass him and be approved by User B.  On the workflow maintenance, I have unchecked the 'allow originator to be an approver', but will this bypass User A as an approver when he submits transactions? How can I set up conditional steps by originator?

  • Derek Albaugh Profile Picture Derek Albaugh Microsoft Employee
    Posted at

    What we've seen some customers do, when they want the requisitions to go to different departments and/or approvers, is to setup the workflow steps so that depending on the user account submitting the requisitions and/or department on the requisition, it will go to specific users or groups for approval.

    For example, looking at the Purchase Requisition Entry window, you could use the 'Comment ID' field or even the 'Requested By' field which populates with the GP user account logged in at the time.

    With this, you could setup the workflow steps for the Purchasing Requisition Approval workflow to have a condition such as 'Where Purchasing Requisition Line.Requested By is xxxxxx', then have it go to approver A.  You could have a first step like this for each department as needed.

    If the same GP user may submit requisitions for different departments, then you may need to use a different field, something you could use to help Workflow determine what department the requisition is for, and thus get it to the right approver(s) depending on that workflow.

    Hope this helps!!

  • Community Member Profile Picture Community Member
    Posted at

    This process works when 1 have 1 approver for allrequisitions. How about in the case where I have 3 departments and 3 approvers (1 for each department). Since I can only have 1 workflow active, how can i setup the workflow to allow user from each department to submit requisiton and the manager from each respective dept approve?

  • Derek Albaugh Profile Picture Derek Albaugh Microsoft Employee
    Posted at

    Hello Peter,

    We actually have a known issue with adding domain groups to a Workflow step as an Approver or Manager of the Workflow type. This issue is scheduled to be fixed in R2 for Dynamics GP 2015. We haven't heard for sure what build of Dynamics GP 2013 this will be fixed in, but hopefully it'll be around the same timeframe, which is around June of this year.

    Thanks

  • Peter Muchira Profile Picture Peter Muchira 1,912
    Posted at

    Hello there,

    Thanks for the detailed and clear guide. I did try to assign a workflow step to an AD group unsuccessfully ? Am I missing something, some setup perhaps ?