Hello,
I have been struggling with this scenario with months (on and off) and have yet to find a solution. If you have any ideas on this, please let me know. Also, note that I am a senior analyst who is not specialized in D365 F&O, but have been assigned to learn and implement solutions for the company as no other resources are competent in the area.
Request:
Implement a Vendor Invoice Approval Workflow for non-PO invoices to route to the appropriate person based on the department and signing authority table (titles and limits).
Real business scenario:
- When the AP team receives a PO from the Procurement team, it already contains an attached approval from the business owner and no approval workflow is required.
- When the AP team must create an invoice manually since no PO exists, an approval request must be sent to the appropriate business owner based on the department and signing authority table. For Example: An invoice for Vendor X $10,000 for products or services for the IT Department would route to Andy based on the table below:
- IT Manager (Fred) - $1000 approval limit
- IT Director (Andy) - $20,000 approval limit
- IT VP (John) - $100,000 approval limit
Investigation and Troubleshooting
I have investigated the following and have hit blockers with each of them.
Option 1 - By Cost Center Owner
- I can only figure out how to send it to a single approver based on the financial dimension owner. I can't find a way to get the workflow to Start at Fred but skip him and move on to Andy.
Option 2 - By managerial or configural hierarchy
- The workflow only allows me to select the Workflow Owner or the Workflow Originator as the starting point.
Option 3 - By security group
- If I configured a security group for each department, how would D365 know which group to send it to for an invoice for the IT department?
Option 4 - Custom development
- If I add a new custom field to the Vendor Invoice Header for “Approval Department” and configure/extend the workflow to see the field, when AP selects that, how can I configure the workflow to start from the correct person?
Option 5 - Requested approver
- There is a “Requested approver” field in the vendor invoice header under the Approval fast-tab. If the AP team is instructed to enter the starting point there, how can I have it move up the ladder? If the AP team is expected to review the ladder and determine the correct person, how can I get this to work? And how can I “escalate” to John if Andy doesn't reply within X days?
How would you accomplish this? This must be very common…
Thank you in advance. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
