Hello @Joe-OMB ,

I hope all is well with you over there ;o)

Thank you for your new post into the PeopleSoft ESA Community!!

Having reviewed the scenario presented, please, find here below my feedback:

1. The current delivered functionality only allows to define current approvers in the Approver Assignment set up page. There is no way to define back-up approvers in this page, that become automatically active should a primary approver be out of the office.
2. The Fluid Delegations feature, while thought to enable a more transaction specific re-routings in case of absence, it does not go deep enough as to be able to configure at the routing chartfield level.
3. I would definitely suggest you raise a new Enhancement Request in the PeopleSoft Enterprise FIN Expenses Ideas Lab site for this topic.
4. I noticed you mentioned the Monitor Approvals page in your explanation. Please, note that in the FIN Expenses module, the Monitor Approvals page should be used in Display Only mode, and never used to formally take any approval actions (Approve, Deny, Pushback, or Reassign). Those actions are not supported in this page. Instead, the Reassign Approval Work page should be used. (Navigation Path: Travel and Expenses >Manage Expenses Security > Reassign Approval Work)

As a workaround, I would suggest that the company develops a custom query where the User ID of the Approver being absent is being input, and the query returns the list of Expense Transactions currently in their queue, outstanding fr review/approval, returning also the routing chartfield being used, and the User ID of the new back-up Approver. With the report in hand, the Reassign Approval Work delivered page can be used to re-assign the transactions to the respective identified back-up approvers. The Monitor Approvals page, while non-supported in FIN Expenses, it forces the User to re-assign each transaction individually, while the Reassign Approval Work, several transactions can be re-assigned to the selected back-up approver.

While an idea, it is not perfect, and would still require manual intervention in the Reassign Approval Work page.

Let's see if other customers have had to deal with similar situations, and maybe they can share their experiences.

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Have an excellent day!

Pere Taulé

Looking for input on how to handle the following scenarios using delivered functionality:

1. We have a Dept supervisor who wants to delegate their approval authority for their direct reports to another person. Delegation will not work because if they’re also setup as an Expense Approver, it would auto-reassign those transactions as well. And we cannot override the Supervisor on their T&E Profile because the Employee Sync overrides this.

2. Somewhat similar to #1, an agency wants a specific person approving the HR Supervisor stop for a list of 10 people. This specific example is they want the CFO approving all Section Director’s travel, and when the CFO submits an ER it goes to a specific person to approve. Again, we cannot just update the Supervisor on their T&E profile because the Employee Sync overrides this setup, and Delegation will not work because we do not want it all-encompassing for that person in the module.

3. Similar to #2 but for when the Expense Manager submits an ER, when it gets to the Expense Manager stop they want their ER’s being approved by a specific person. We do not want to set this user up in general because then they’ll get all ER’s for that stop assigned to them, and Delegation/Alternate User doesn’t work because it would be all-encompassing for that user—it needs to only be for when that specific user (who is the primary Expense Manager for the agency) submits an ER, when it gets to the Expense Manager stop it needs to be assigned to a specific person to approve.

We need the ability to assign backup approvers for specific routings but do not want them enabled/active until they’re actually needed, and many of them are already setup in other routings for the same step. If we assign the route controls they are backups for to their User Profile, there is no way for them to know when they need to step in and approve the applicable transactions because both their primary and backup transactions would all be assigned to them.

Delegation will not work either because it will auto-reassign every transaction for a specific user per module. We do not want it all-encompassing for a specific user, but rather for a specific routing. For example, within an agency’s section Approver A is set up to approve Routings 1, 2 and 3 based on a combination of Dept ID, Project or SpeedChart (Dept/Proj/Activity combo) used. They have specific people qualified to back them up in certain areas, so when they are out of office, Routing 1 needs to go to Approver B, Routing 2 needs to go to Approver C, and routing 3 needs to go to Approver D. Delegation doesn’t allow for this level of detail—it would reassign all transactions for Approver A to either Approver B, C or D. Because of the sensitivity of the data/transactions, this cannot happen.

How can we set up backup approvers for specific routings when they are also currently an active approver for a different routing, but only assign the backup transactions to them when needed? We do NOT want to have to go into Monitor Approvals and manually reassign these transactions every time someone is out of the office/inaccessible. This wouldn't work anyways because you're not able to filter on specific chartfields in Monitor Approvals. We want the functionality of Delegation but for specific routings within a module rather than all-encompassing for the module for that user. Going in and assigning the Route Control Profile to the backup's User Profile is not ideal because it doesn't take into account transactions currently assigned to the primary—this is where have the Delegation functionality would be nice so items currently assigned are also reassigned.

Thoughts on how we can handle this?