Approvals

Fabasoft Contracts allows you to define members as decision makers for approval processes. These decision makers can also be granted a certain financial scope.

Once the necessary settings have been made, processes can be executed for contracts or legal files in order to obtain approval. The settings involve the definition of approval levels, limits and roles. Approval levels and limits can be defined globally in the settings of the Contract Manager Configuration as well as within the settings of a specific contract folder (see chapter “Creating an Approval Level” – “Defining Approval Definitions in a Contract Manager List”). Note that the settings in the contract folder override the global ones, which means that for all contracts belonging to the specific contract folder, the contract folder settings will be applied instead of the global ones.

Based on the defined approval levels and limits, the required approval levels for a contract are automatically generated and displayed in the field Required Approval Levels of the “Roles” tab in the properties of the specific contract.

If no levels and limits have been defined either in the Contract Manager Configuration or in the contract folder settings, you can define approval levels directly on a contract level (see chapter “Defining an Approval Level in a Contract”).

Approval Levels

Approval levels form a hierarchy that organizes numerous levels for granting approval based on the contract amount. For example, the approval level L1 might be lower in the hierarchy than level L4. The approval process starts from the lowest level (i.e. L1 in our example) and continues sequentially to higher levels based on the defined limits.

Number of Approvers

The number of approvers can be used to determine how many approvers are required. Thus, for high sums and many approval levels, not all approvers always have to approve. If, for example, there are approval levels L1, L2 and L3 with limits of 1,000, 2,000 and 3,000 euros, but only two approvers are required, only the approvers of levels L2 and L3 need to approve a contract sum of 5000 euros. In the same example, if only one approver is required, only the L3 level approver must approve.

Limits

Limits define the maximum contract amount about which the holder of a certain approval level can decide by him/herself. Let us assume three levels L1, L2 and L3 with limits 1000, 2000 and 3000 Euros respectively. If the contract amount is for example 2500 Euros, the approval process will start at the L1 level and continue up to the L3 level, because L3 is the first level with a limit greater than the contract amount. If we consider a contract amount of 1500 Euros, then the approval process will start at the L1 level and continue up to the L2 level, as L2 is in this case the first level with a limit greater than the contract amount. If there is no level with a limit greater than the contract amount (if the contract amount was for instance 5000 Euros in our example), then all levels need to grant approval, starting from the lowest one.

Roles

Roles define which member holds a certain approval level. Roles are defined in the contract manager configuration. In contract folders or legal areas, said roles are assigned concrete, individual members.

Creating an Approval Level

To create a new global approval level, proceed as follows:

1. Navigate in the contract manager configuration.
2. Click “Settings”.
3. Switch to the tab “Administration”.
4. In the field Approval Levels, enter the name of the desired level.
5. Select “Click here to create the entered term”.
6. Repeat this procedure to create all desired terms for approval levels.
7. Click “Next”.

Note: If you want to define an approval level within a contract folder and not globally, navigate to the contract folder and click “Settings”. Then in the “Administration” tab, activate “Override Approval Levels of the Configuration”. Follow the steps defined in chapter “Creating an Approval Level” (steps 4 onwards) and “Creating a Limit” (step 4 onwards) to define levels, number of approvers and limits in the fields Approval Levels, Number of Approvers and Default Limits for Approval Levels respectively, which appear once you activate the aforementioned option.

Creating a Limit

In order to create a new global limit, proceed as follows:

1. Navigate in the contract manager configuration.
2. Click “Settings”.
3. Switch to the tab “Administration”.
4. In the field Default Limits for Approval Levels, click “Add Entry”.
5. In the column Approval Level, select the desired level from the dropdown menu.
6. In column Limit, enter the desired maximum contract amount that this approval level can decide on.
7. In the next dropdown menu, select the desired currency.
8. Repeat this procedure to create and define all desired limits.
9. Click “Next”.

Note:

• The limits defined in this way are the default limits. It is possible however to define special cases for approval levels and limits (see chapter “Creating a Special Case for Approval Levels”).
• If you want to define a limit within a contract folder and not globally, navigate to the contract folder and click “Settings”. Then in the “Administration” tab, activate “Override Approval Levels of the Configuration”. Follow the steps defined in chapter “Creating an Approval Level” (steps 4 onwards) and “Creating a Limit” (step 4 onwards) to define levels and limits in the fields Approval Levels and Default Limits for Approval Levels respectively, which appear once you activate the aforementioned option.  

Creating a Special Case for Approval Levels

To create a special case for approval levels, proceed as follows:

1. Navigate in the contract manager configuration.
2. Click “Settings”.
3. Switch to the tab “Administration”.
4. In the field Special Cases for Approval Levels, click “Add Entry” and then “New”.
5. In the dialog that opens, set the conditions of the special case regarding the contract type and the duration.
   Note: In the “Period” field, you can specify a contract duration. For a contract to match the defined duration criteria, you need to ensure that:
   • for “Indefinite” duration, the “Permanent Contract” option in the “Dates” tab of the contract properties has been activated.
   • for “Up to” a specific duration, the corresponding end date (based on the contract start date) has been explicitly defined in the “End” field in the “Dates” tab of the contract properties.
   • for “From” a specific duration, the corresponding end date (based on the contract start date) has been explicitly defined in the “End” field in the “Dates” tab of the contract properties.
6. In the field Contract Amount Limits you can set the minimum Contract Amount (Min) and maximum Contract Amount (Max), so that the special case could be used for contracts where the contract amount meets these limits.
7. In the field Number of Approvers, specify how many approvers are relevant in the approval process.
8. Adapt the existing limits in the field Limits as you wish or create new ones.
9. Note: for each limit, the approval level and (From-Up to) limit is defined for contracts whose contract amount is in the (From-Up to) interval, or only From-Limit for contracts whose contract amount is greater than From-Limit, or only Up to-Limit for contracts whose contract amount is less than Up to-Limit.
10. In the field Name provide a name for the special case.
11. Click “Next” to close this dialog.
12. Click “Next”.

Note: If you want to define a special case within a contract folder and not globally, navigate to the contract folder and click “Settings”. Then in the “Administration” tab, activate “Override Approval Levels of the Configuration”. Follow the steps defined in chapter “Creating a Special Case for Approval Levels” (steps 4 onwards) to define special cases for approval levels in the field Special Cases for Approval Levels, which appears once you activate the aforementioned option.    

Defining Approval Definitions in a Contract Manager List

To define approval definitions, proceed as follows:

1. Navigate into the desired contract folder or legal area.
2. Click “Properties”.
3. Switch to the tab “Roles”.
4. In the field Approval Definitions, click “Add Entry”.
5. In the column Approval Level, define the desired approval level.
6. In the column Approver, define the desired member.
7. Repeat this procedure to create and define all desired approval definitions.
8. Click “Next”.

Defining an Approval Level in a Contract

If no levels and limits have been defined either in the Contract Manager Configuration or in the contract folder settings, you can define approval levels directly on a contract level. To define an approval level in a contract, proceed as follows:

1. Navigate into the desired contract.
2. Click “Properties”.
3. Switch to the tab “Roles”.
4. In the field Required Approval Levels, enter the desired approval levels.
   Note: You can only select approval levels that have been defined in the superordinate contract folder.
5. In the field Approver Selection, you can specify the approver for each level.
6. Click “Next”.

Note: Approval levels can also be defined for contracts without an explicit contract amount.

Executing an Approval Process

This set of instructions requires a released BPMN process that is configured according the needs of your organization and contains the “Approve” activity. Further information can be found in the White Paper “Model-Based Customizing: new window“.

In order to execute an approval process, proceed as follows:

1. Navigate into the desired contract.
2. In the context menu, click on “Tools“ > “Start New Process“.
3. In the field Predefined Processes, select the desired process.
4. Click on “Star Process”.

Depending on the concrete definition of the process, the following steps can be optional:

1. Navigate to “Home” and then into the worklist.
2. Execute the activity belonging to the approval process in order to send your request for approval to the next participant.
3. After all mandatory participants of the process have completed their respective activities, you are notified in the worklist.

Further information can be found in chapter “Workflow: new window“ in the document “User Help Fabasoft Cloud“.