Set up approval users

When you work with approvals, it's always a specific user (or a hierarchy of users) that has to approve documents. Users can be set up in different ways – for example, the user setup can specify the users’ different approval limits, whether they're allowed to approve at all, and who their managers are in case a document exceeds a user's approval limit. You must set up and customize all of these features before the approval workflow is operational.

Salespeople/Purchaser

The approval module uses the standard Business Central Salespeople/Purchaser codes to identify approval users. You can therefore start by creating a Salespeople/Purchaser code for every user that will be involved in the approval workflow. Choose the search icon, enter Salespeople/Purchasers, and then choose the related link. Create a code for each user who'll be approving documents or managing approvals. Choose a code that makes it obvious to others who exactly the code is referring to, for example, their initials.

Continia User Setup

Next, you must define the roles, approval limits, and relations between users. Choose the search icon, enter Continia User Setup, and then choose the related link.

To create a new user, select New from the Continia User Setup page, and then fill in the fields. We recommend that you start by filling in the User ID and then the Purchaser Code, as Document Capture will automatically fill in several of the other fields once these two values have been entered.

You'll see that setting up the most senior of the approvers is the easiest, as you can only select an Approver ID (Manager) that has already been set up. The rest of the fields, which aren't filled automatically, are quite self-explanatory if you select or hover over the field titles to view the tooltips. Some of the tooltips refer to the Web Approval Portal, which is Continia's custom-made approval portal that's tailored for approvals.

The data from the new records in the Continia User Setup will be automatically populated to and synchronized with the User Setup (a standard Business Central table) and the Continia User List (a global table whose data is shared across companies).

Video

This video demonstrates how to set up approvers in preparation for the approval module.