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About Approval Groups

Use the Approval Groups link to define the approval groups used to create request approval chains or hierarchies. An approval group identifies the location, jobs, and approval departments of the users that may be included in an approval hierarchy. Each approval group is associated with a specific type of request, e.g., Benefit, Demographic, Leave, and so on. A user must belong to an administrator user role with permission for Approval Groups/Chains to define approval groups.

You must define at least one approval group for each type of request that requires approval. You can define approval groups for a specific location or for all locations in your organization. Optionally, you can also assign one or more approval departments and/or job records to each approval group. The approval group associated with an employee's job and/or approval department is automatically assigned to that employee.

Approval groups must be unique. For example, you can create only one approval group for all locations, job codes, and approval departments. You must assign at least one qualifying parameter (location, job code, or department) to other approval groups required by your organization for the same request type.

Create approval groups based on your organization's business rules for approving employees' request. Here are some common scenarios:

• Requests are processed through the same group of approvers regardless of employee job, primary work location, and approver department. In this scenario, create only one approval group for each request type for all locations, jobs, and approval departments. You should create these approval groups by selecting "All" for location and without any assigned job codes or approval departments.   

• Requests are processed through the same group of approvers associated with a location that matches the employee job and primary work location. In this scenario, you need to create approval groups for each type of request and location. You should create these approval groups without any assigned job codes or approval departments.  

• Requests are processed for all locations through the same group of approvers associated with the same approval department. In this scenario, create approval groups for each type of request for all locations and an approval department that matches the approval department assigned to the employee job.   

• Requests are processed through the same group of approvers associated with a location that matches the employee job and primary work location and the approval department that matches the approval department assigned to the employee job. In this scenario, create approval groups for each type of request for each location and approval department that matches the approval department assigned to the employee job.

• Requests are processed for all locations through the same group of approvers associated with a job that matches the employees' job. In this scenario, create approval groups for each type of request for all locations and a job code that matches the employee's job.

• Requests are processed through the same group of approvers associated with a location that matches the employee job and primary work location and the job code that matches the job code assigned to the employee job. In this scenario, create approval groups for each type of request for each location and job code that matches the job code assigned to the employee job.

The approval groups assigned to an approval hierarchy will determine if a request needs to follow more than one approval hierarchy, possibly one for each job that an employee currently holds.  You must assign an approval group to an approval hierarchy of each request type for the approval group to be used in the employee request approval process.

Links to the other System Setting options display at the top of the page. Click here to display a table describing each link.

Approval Group Determination Process

LINQ EP uses the following workflow to determine the approval group that will approve an employee's request.

If jobs are assigned to an approval group, the job must have a primary job flag that matches a primary job flag listed in the Primary Job Codes Available list on the Payroll Preferences form.

1. Get the approval group that has a location that matches the employee job's primary pay work location and an approval department code that matches the employee's job approval department code. Use this approval group if found; if not found, go to step 2.

2. Get the approval group that has no associated location (All locations) and an approval department code that matches the employee's job approval department code. Use this approval group if found; if not found, go to step 3.

3. Get the approval group that has a location that matches the employee job's primary pay work location and a job that matches the employee's job. Use this approval group if found; if not found, go to step 4.

4. Get the approval group that has a job that matches the employee's job with no associated location (All locations). Use this approval group if found; if not found, go to step 5.

5. Get the approval group that has a location that matches the employee job's primary work location with no approval department of job codes associated to the approval group. Use this approval group if found; if not found, go to step 6.

6. Get the approval group with no location (All locations), no approval department codes, and no job codes associated to the approval group.

Touring the Approval Groups Listing

Use the Approval Groups Listing page to create and maintain approval groups, edit approval groups, and, optionally, assign jobs and departments to an approval group. You can access this page from the Admin Home page:

• Click the Approval Group link Click a link to display the corresponding page. Links display with blue text. in the Navigation Menu.

• Click the Approval Group link on the Admin Home page or the System Settings page.

The Approval Group grid A grid is a table that may display in the Center Pane. The grid will list records that apply to the selected link. lists all current approval groups.

Your assigned user role will determine if you can access the Approval Groups link. Your user account must belong to a user role with permission for Approval Groups/Chains to define approval groups.

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Approval Groups Page Links

The following links display on the Approval Groups page.

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Filtering the Approval Group Grid

In the Request Type field, click to select the type of request approval groups to display in the Approval Groups grid, e.g., Leave Approval Groups or Time Entry Approval Groups.

Click the Filter button to display the filter criteria boxes used to search for approval group records at the top of each column. Enter values in the filter criteria boxes to filter the approval groups displayed in the grid. Use multiple filter criteria to narrow your search. For example:

• Type a specific Location to list all approval groups that pertain to that location.

• If applicable to the approval group, type a location code and job code to list approval groups that pertain to a specific job in a specific location.

Click the Filter button again to hide the filter criteria boxes.

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Approval Group Grid Field Definitions

The Approval Group Listing grid shows the following information for each approval group. You can click any column heading to sort the approval group records in the grid in ascending order. You can click the column heading a second time to sort the records in descending order. For example, you can click the Location column heading once to sort the approval groups by location in ascending order.

An Up (ascending) arrow or Down (descending) arrow displays as a visual indicator in the column used to sort the approval group records.

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