Requisition Approval

We have a project to review how we will do approval at our site, and I was asked to get info from other Lawson Clients on how they are handled.

Question:
- Do you have requisitions originating from Inventory Systems, Par Excel, Omni, or MSCM routing for approvals? Req's created with source of IC83, RQ500) . If you have approvals what is the level?
- RQC entered requisitions, we want to focus approvals on these manually entered transactions. Do you require approvals on "I" items? Do you handle "N" items differently. We want to route "X and S" item through strick approval chains. How are most evauating requisitions for approval?
- When we redo the approvals we want to include AU owner and authorized approver for each of the levels in the approval chain. Have you done this and if so how? Where have you stored info, and how is it maintained. We have a concern on maintenance.

Any information or documentation you care to share on approvals would be greatly appreciated.

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Legacy Contributor

We use RQC, but customized it. Our business model is to allow people to create a requisition, but not create the commitment until a department head approved it. After that approval, the requisition would enter into a heavily customized rqc_approval.xml. This Process Flow would check for a variety of factors such as GL assignment, AC, assignment, total requisition value, etc. in order to route and reroute to multiple departments due to budgetary concerns.

For the departmental approval hierarchy, we used Lawson Security groups and roles.

For the Inbasket hierarchy, we used Process Flow tasks and profiles. Assigning functional roles to people.

Feel free to contact me, flores@cshl.edu, for any specific questions.

Legacy Contributor

Hi Barb:
We have used RQC as of 2001, when it was called RSS.
For inventory supplies, from MSCM, or IC83, or RQ500, we do not have approvals, as these are supply technicians restocking the nursing units, etc.

For RQC requisitions, we do require approvals, no matter what item type. The rationale was that if a requester was asking for an inventory item (not the supply technician who restocks the unit) then their management wanted to see what was requested and give approval.

For the inbasket, we use ProcessFlow profile setups, not tasks. Our processflow for approvals is based on our hospital matrix, which lists a maximum dollar level that a management level is authorized to approve. We use requesting locations for routing the requisition to the appropriate management level. If you look at the Process Flow Administration Tool, it is designed to work that way - using req loc. An approver is assigned the dollar level. Then there are dollar level filters - which are the requesting locations. So if I use rq01 location 1234A - it routes to Supervisor for that cost center 1234, up to $2000, then to Manager for cost center 1234 if over $2000 up to $5000, and so forth. If the requisition dollar amount was $2002.00 then it would go to the Supervisor then the Manager, and then finish. If it was $5001.00 it would go up the chain.

I also would be willing to share data and information. vkovacs@choc.org

0712131256598360.doc

Legacy Contributor

- Do you have requisitions originating from Inventory Systems, Par Excel, Omni, or MSCM routing for approvals? Req's created with source of IC83, RQ500) . If you have approvals what is the level?
A: We interface from Pyxis and MSCM. Lawson IC142, RQ10 and RQC - the central supply main location (the "four walls") does not need approval. All other replenishment locations do. It's not the method - it's the req loc. If I wanted it to be the method - I would give it a separate req loc and use process flow to bypass the approvals.

- RQC entered requisitions, we want to focus approvals on these manually entered transactions. Do you require approvals on "I" items? Do you handle "N" items differently. We want to route "X and S" item through strick approval chains. How are most evauating requisitions for approval?

A: All reqs for a dollar amount require approval by the department head. In process flow this is "Level 1". If the req contains X or S, it is routed to "Level 2" - the buyer for review. They can approve, reject or unrelase.

- When we redo the approvals we want to include AU owner and authorized approver for each of the levels in the approval chain. Have you done this and if so how? Where have you stored info, and how is it maintained. We have a concern on maintenance.

A; We require security tickets for access - Finance generated a hierarchy on the network based on supervisor codes. Approvers must be on that or approved by the CFO.

Yes, maintenance is a concern. Terminations are easy, but transfers are killing us at the moment - there's a team forming to analyze.

jon-athey

We use ProcessFlow (profiles/tasks/categories) to approve all requisitions. But we require approval by a person only if the requisition has an X or S type line and is over a certain $ threshold. Requisitions that only have I or N type lines, which would include anything that came through MSCM or IC83, are automatically approved in the flow. Our reasoning was that we didn't want to bottleneck supply requests for stock and nonstock. The Requesting Location drives who should approve the req based on a matrix/hierarchy (Excel spreadsheet) developed by myself and the CFOs at the time we implemented Lawson. We basically have 5 flows. All reqs go through the first flow which first determines if there are any X or S lines, if so the flow then determines which of the other 4 flows to pass the workunit onto based on the req location. We have separate flows for (medical centers/home care/corporate; nursing homes/physician's offices/clinics; building management; and ORs/Cath Labs/Pharmacy/Radiology.

We have 5 approval levels (tasks) at the medical centers, home care, and corporate. Anything over $500 is routed to Level 1 (Manager/Supervisor), over $2500 routed to Level 2 (Director/Manager), over $12,500 routed to Level 3 (CFO/Director/Other VP), routed to Level 4 (CFO) if approved at Level 3- we wanted to be sure the CFO at each affiliate was in the loop for anything over $12,500, finally routed to Level 5 (CEO/President) for anything over $35,000.

The $ threshold for our nursing homes and physician's offices are more strict. All requisitions with X or S lines regardless of amount are routed to Level 1 ($0 threshold) but the other levels are the same except no special CFO level because the CFOs are already at Level 3 for those affiliates.

The $ threshold for our ORs/Cath Labs etc. are less strict - over $12,000 for Level 1, $15,000 for Level 2, $20,000 for Level 3 because of the high cost of supplies for these areas and again we didn't want to bottleneck the supply chain.

Again all $ levels were approved by the CFOs.

All approvers have the ability to Approve, Reject or Unrelease the req. We strongly encourage approvers to add a message prior to approving explaining in more detail the purpose of the req if it needs to go as high as the CEO or President. They will reject it if they can't see clearly what it's for.

As far as managing the matrix that's pretty much all me but I consult with the department manager and CFOs if it's not obvious who should be approving. Our Lawson Security Officer has a Workflow group/class created and I just send her an email with the user's name and ID when I need that user to have access to the inbasket. Maintenance was certainly easier prior to 9.0. Used to be you could use Addins to make changes to the users and category assignments in the WF tables but that went away when they brought in ProcessFlow Admin. My main problem now is when finance adds a new department (AU) and I build the req loc I don't know who the manager is to find out how to set up approvals.

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