(USF) Setting Up Approvals

This chapter provides an overview of approvals and discusses how to:

• Define steps and workflow notification details.

• Define Personnel Action Request (PAR) tracking data.

• Identify self-service administrators and define notification details.

Understanding Approvals

eProfile delivers a three-step approval process: Request, 1st-Authorization, and 2nd-Authorization, for the following eProfile transactions:

• Address changes

• Marital status

• Name change

• Phone number change

Step 1 – Request

Requests are submitted by an originator. An originator can be an employee or manager. When the originator submits the request, the system triggers workflow that sends a confirmation email to the originator and a notification to the person or role that is to review the transaction.

Step 2 – First Approval Level

The reviewer reviews the change request information. The reviewer has two possible actions to take, approve or deny.

If the reviewer approves the request, the system triggers workflow that sends a notification to the person or role that is identified as the next reviewer.

If the reviewer denies the request, the system triggers workflow that sends an email to the originator informing them that the request was denied and closes the request.

Step 3 – Second Approval Level

Step 3 is the final self-service approval step in the delivered federal self-service approval process. Just as in step 2, the reviewer has two possible action, approve or deny.

If the reviewer approves the request, the system updates the federal Personnel Action Request (PAR) tables and triggers workflow that sends a notification to the person assigned to the Personnelist role that informs him or her of the request.

If the reviewer denies the request, the system triggers workflow that sends an email to the originator informing him or her that the request was denied and the system closes the request.

When approval is given, the system processes the request and triggers workflow that notifies the Personnelist of the request.

Transaction Processing

Processing is automatically triggered when the reviewer, in the final step of the self-service approval process, clicks the Approve button. Data is pulled from the self-service transaction tables and uses it to populate the federal PAR tables: the Federal Job, Federal Personal Data, and the employee tracking tables.

Workflow is triggered and a notification is sent to the federal self-service administrator:

• Automatically when an error occurs.

• When set up to recognize successful completions or warnings.

Note. The Request Leave of Absence and Request Termination transactions use the USFED Approval Transactions definitions that write directly to the PAR tables.

See (USF) Setting Up the Work-in-Progress Management System.

Note. The Full/Part-time Status Change, Location Change, and Reporting Change transactions are not processed by the component interface. When final approval is submitted for these transactions, a notification is sent to the self-service administrator for processing. The self-service administrator determines whether the employee’s position data or the position-level data is to be updated using the HR Processing component. If position-level data is updated, then multiple incumbents could be affected.

The Change Phone Number transaction does not use the approval process either. When the request is submitted, it automatically updates the PeopleSoft Human Resources tables.

Defining Steps and Workflow Notification Details

This section provides an overview of approval steps and discusses how to:

• Define status and status types.

• Define approval steps.

• Define workflow notification details.

• Add an approval step.

• Delete one approval step.

• Delete all approval steps.

Understanding Approval Steps

Approval steps define the self-service approval process that a self-service transaction must go through. As delivered, the federal self-service transactions use a three-step self-service approval process: Request, 1st-Authorization, and 2nd-Authorization.

However, you can configure the system so that the requests made using the federal self-service transactions:

• Go directly to the personnelist for processing.

• Go through one level of approval before being routed to the personnelist for processing.

• Go through three or more levels of approval before being sent to the personnelist for processing.

There are no limits to the number of steps you define for the self-service approval process.

For each step, you define:

• The number of the step in the sequence of steps.

• Actions available at that step.

• The person or role that is to receive workflow notifications for a specific step and action combination.

• The WIP status resulting from the action.

• Detailed information for workflow notifications.

Pages Used to Define Steps and Workflow Notification Details

Defining Statuses and Status Types

Access the Transaction Setup page.

Avail to Manager Self-Service

Select to indicate that this is a self-service transaction. It is recommended that you not change this field for the delivered self-service transactions.

Valid WIP Statuses

Status Type

Defining Approval Steps

Access the Define Steps page.

Approval Process Steps

Actions For Step

Defining Workflow Notification Details

Access the Workflow Notification Details page.

It is recommended that you not change the information on this page for the delivered self-service transactions.

Adding an Approval Step

Here is an example of how to add an approval step between step 2 and 3 of the delivered three-step approval process for the transaction FE_ADDRESS:

1. Access the Define Steps page for the transaction FE_ADDRESS.

2. Change the following information for step 3:

   Field	New Value
   Step Number	4
   Step Name	FINAL
   Description	Final Authorization
   Short Description	Final Auth

3. Add a new row to the Approval Process Steps group box on the Define Steps page.

4. Enter the following information:

   Field	New Value
   Step Number	3
   Step Name	2nd AUTH
   Description	2nd Authorization
   Short Description	2nd Auth

5. In the Actions For Step group box, enter the following:

   Field	New Value
   On Action Of	Approve
   Set Status To	1st
   Route To	Supervisor

6. Click the Workflow Notification Details link.

7. Enter the following information:

   Field	New Value
   Business Process	FE_SS_WORK_EVENTS
   Activity	FE_EE_ADDR_CHG
   Email Msg Set	1645
   Email Msg Nbr	92
   Worklist Event	Address Change
   Worklist Name	FE_ADDR_CHG_WL

8. Click OK.

9. Add a new row in the Actions For Step group box.

10. Enter the following information:

    Field	New Value
    On Action Of	Deny
    Set Status To	DNY

11. Click the Workflow Notification Details link.

12. Enter the following information:

    Field	New Value
    Business Process	FE_SS_WORK_EVENTS
    Activity	FE_EE_ADDR_CHG
    Email Event	Email Notification
    Email Msg Set	1645
    Email Msg Nbr	71

13. Click OK.

14. Click Save.

Deleting One Approval Step

Here is an example of how to delete an approval step between step 2 and 3 of the delivered three-step approval process for the transaction FE_ADDRESS:

Note. You may want to take a screen capture of the data you are deleting, in case you want to add it back later.

1. Access the Define Steps page for the transaction FE_ADDRESS.

2. Delete step 2 – 1st Authorization.

3. Change the Step Number field for step 3 – 2nd Authorization to 2.

4. Click Save.

Deleting All Approval Steps

Here is an example of how to delete all the approval steps of the delivered three-step approval process for the transaction FE_ADDRESS:

Note. You may want to take a screen capture of the data you are deleting, just in case you want to add it back later.

1. Access the Define Steps page for the transaction FE_ADDRESS.

2. Delete step 1 – Request.

3. Delete step 2 – 1st Authorization.

4. Modify step 3 – 2nd Authorization as follows:

   Field	New Value
   Step Number	1
   Step Name	REQUEST
   Description	Request
   Short Description	Request

5. Click Save.

Defining PAR Tracking Data

This section provides an overview of default PAR data and describes how to enter the PAR tracking data for federal self-service transactions.

Understanding PAR Tracking Data

Self-service transactions are designed so that employees can easily enter requests to change their own personal data and managers can enter requests to change their direct reports’ job data. The government requires that certain information be included with each personnel action request. However, this data would not ordinarily be known by the self-service user.

To ensure that this information is recorded accurately, the system enables you to define the appropriate action/reason codes, Notice of Action (NOA) codes, legal authorities, and PAR remarks for each transaction. This default information is automatically written to the government PAR records when the federal component interface is run at the completion of the final self-service step for the transaction.

Note. Full/Part-time Status Change, Location Change, and Reporting Change do not automatically update the federal PAR tables.

See Also

(USF) Administering Personnel Action Requests

Page Used to Define PAR Tracking Data

Defining PAR Tracking Data

Access the Defaults/Admin page.

PAR Defaults

Identifying Self-Service Administrators and Defining Notification Details

This section provides an overview of the self-service administrator’s role and discusses how to:

• Identify the self-service administrator.

• Define notification details.

Understanding the Self-Service Administrator’s Role

Problems may occur when the federal component interface updates the federal PAR tables. The system is designed to recognize:

• Errors

• Warnings

• Successful completions

You use the Defaults/Admin page to define the role of the person that you want to receive the notification when any of these conditions occur.

See Also

Setting Up and Working with Self-Service Transactions

Pages Used to Identify the Self-Service Administrator and Define Notification Details

Identifying the Self-Service Administrator

Access the Defaults/Admin page.

Self-Service Administrator

Defining Notification Details

Access the CI/Notification Details page.

Note. It is recommended that you not change the information on this page for the delivered federal self-service transactions.

Component Interface

SS Administrator Notification