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Most transactions generated in the Oracle Financial System must be approved by a person(s) with appropriate financial
authority before they are considered complete. Oracle uses workflow to manage the transaction approval process. To
facilitate this, Oracle Financials allows both vacation delegation (selecting someone to act on your behalf for a specified
period of time) and the ability to give someone access to your Worklist (typically, to allow colleagues with similar
authority to act for each other at any time, or for emergency back up). Approval workflows may be delegated to different
people by Oracle module (e.g., iBudgets, iJournals, iOU, Labor Distribution Adjustment, PCard and Requisition) or you
may delegate workflows for all Oracle modules to the same person. FYIs, end routes and Core journal approval authority
cannot be delegated.
An audit trail is maintained showing who actually approved each transaction. In addition, a Vacation Query provides a
history of vacation delegation and Worklist sharing assignments. The Vacation Query also shows active delegations and
assignments so that originators can identify who is available to act on a transaction. The Vacation Query can also provide
a list of transactions that were handled by others on the persons behalf.
It is your responsibility to select the right person to whom to delegate or share your Worklist. The person who
established your authority in Authority Manager does not do this for you. You must pick appropriate people,
communicate your expectations to them, and ensure they will be able and available to take actions in a timely manner. If
they are planning a vacation and delegate to someone else, YOUR transactions will also delegate to that person!
The individual you select must have some signature authority within Oracle Financials. This ensures they are a
current, active employee known to the system as having taken the required Cost Policy training. If you want to
delegate to someone who is not currently an Oracle approver they must first be granted some approval authority
through Authority Manager (and they must have taken Cost Policy). This data is typically updated in Oracle by the
If you have been granted a Special approval authority by a central office (DPA Screening or Tax-Exempt Alcohol) you
may only delegate approval authority (or share your Worklist) to someone who also has this special variety of
approval authority. If you have both of these authorities (DPA Screening and Tax-Exempt Alcohol) the person to whom
you delegate must also have both authorities. If selecting another DPA and/or Tax-Exempt Alcohol approver to handle
ALL of your workflows would not be appropriate during the time you will be away, you must contact the central office
that granted this authority and ask them to remove it. The Property Management Office grants DPA Screening
approval and Purchasing & Contract Services (formerly Procurement) grants Tax-Exempt Alcohol approval. After
temporarily removing these special approvals you may then delegate (or share your Worklist) to any approver. Once
your delegations have expired, you can contact the appropriate central office to request that your special approval
authority be reinstated.
This job aid provides instruction for making the Vacation Delegation or Worklist sharing actions, receiving the notices, the
audit trail generated, and the related query tool.
See the following pages for step-by-step instructions (including screen shots) to help you:
Use the Vacation Query how to tell if someone has delegated or shared their Worklist
The list of your vacation rules includes the rules that you defined. A rule's status will be either active or inactive,
depending on whether the current date falls within the rule's effective dates. From this page you can choose to create
a new rule, update an existing rule or delete a rule.
If you choose to create a new rule, the Vacation Rule: Type page appears first. Continue with step 2.
If you choose to update an existing rule, the Vacation Rule: Response page appears (step 6 below).
2. In the Vacation Rule: Type page, select the type to which this rule applies using the pull-down menu. The list of
values for the Type field displays those types for which you have previously received at least one notification.
Types are the type of workflow. These do not match one-for-one to the way approval authority is granted in Authority
Manager:
Approval authority is defined in terms of the types of transactions you can approve, within what organizations, for
what specific Projects, Tasks, and Awards, and within what dollar limits. The Approval granted through Authority
Manager dictates whether you will be selected as an approver by the Oracle Financials system. Once selected you are
added to workflow for the transaction type. Vacation Delegation allows you to delegate the ability to act on the
workflow.
If you selected "All" as the type for the rule, the Vacation Rule: Response page appears. Skip to step 6.
4. In the Vacation Rule: Notification page, leave the notification set to All (this includes all approvals and other
notifications Stanford will not support different rules within a type).
Attention: Since you can define different rules for the same workflow to be effective at different times, Oracle
Workflow allows you to define multiple rules for the same workflow(s). This allows you to set up a delegation to one
person for a period, and at the same time to set up another delegation to someone else for a different period, which
might be necessary with overlapping vacations. You should be careful to ensure that rules for the same workflow(s)
do not overlap in their effective dates. If multiple rules are effective for the same notification, Oracle Workflow picks
one rule at random to apply (you will not be able to predict who will receive the workflow).
"Delegate" - Forward the notification to a designated user. This person will then act on your behalf. (This is the only
action available when you are delegating All workflows.)
"Deliver notifications to me regardless of any general rules" This leaves the notification in your Worklist so that
only you can act on it. You can define a rule with this action to exclude a certain subset of notifications when you
have previously set a vacation rule for All. For example, suppose you have a rule that reassigns all your
notification messages to another user, but you want to exclude iOU notifications from that rule. To accomplish this,
you can define a new rule that applies only to the iOU notifications, whose action is "Deliver notifications to me...".
10. Select the person to whom you want to grant from the pick list. Select All Employees and Users: then click the
flashlight. A search window will open, allowing you to search based on name, user name (SUNet ID) or Email.
The individual must have some signature authority within Oracle Financials. This ensures they are known to the
system as having taken the required Cost Policy training.
Special approvers that are set up by central offices (DPA Screening or Tax-Exempt Alcohol) may only delegate
their approval authority to someone who also has this special approval authority
It is your responsibility to select the right person to whom to delegate your Worklist. The person who established
your authority in Authority Manager does not do this for you. You must pick an appropriate person, communicate
your expectations to them, and ensure they will be able and available to take actions in a timely manner. If they are
planning a vacation and delegate to someone else, YOUR transactions will also delegate to that person!
You will then be returned to your vacation rules page where you will see your latest delegation, along with any others
you have
2. The page will display your previous Worklist access grants, if any. The start and end dates for each user determine the
access period when the user can view and act on your Worklist. The user's active or inactive status depends on
whether the current date is within the access period.
Note: If a user has an e-mail address defined in Oracle Applications, you can select the link in the User Name column
to send e-mail to that user. It is up to you to instruct the person with whom you are sharing your Worklist about your
expectations. You may do this via the email built into the system, via a separate email or other means. When you will
be out of town and want the person with access to cover for you, you must let them know so they know that they
should check your Worklist. They will not receiver your notifications, as they would if you set up a Vacation Rule.
To grant access to another user, choose the Grant Work list Access button.
Select the user you want (using the flashlight search process as described above), and enter an optional description.
Note: someone who accesses your pending transactions via shared Worklist access will NOT be able to approve a
transaction they originated themselves. This feature is typically used with colleagues of similar levels rather than with
a subordinate who originates transactions.
Specify the start date when the user can begin accessing your Worklist. You have the option of specifying an end date
after which the user will no longer have access, or leaving the end date blank to grant access indefinitely. Click
Apply to save the changes
Note: When you delete a user, the record of the user's access no longer appears in your Worklist Access page. If you
want to keep this record for re-use, you can simply set the end date to end the user's access, rather than deleting the
user.
3. The delegate will then act on the workflow by clicking the link in the email or logging into Oracle and selecting SU
Workflow Notifications. The delegate can approve, reject or hold the transaction, entering any comments needed in
the Notes box. See the Audit Trail generated by their actions below.
2. The Switch User button will bring up a screen showing all the Worklists to which they have access. Select the
appropriate name using the Select button and click Apply.
2. However for Requisitions approved by your Vacation Delegate, the approval history will include Delegated in the
row with your name (for the original approver), and the Notes will include the message you entered when you
established the Vacation Rule. The name in the next row is the person to whom you delegated, and their actions will
appear in the status column, as illustrated in the example below from the Requisition and Purchase orders Query
(Web Inquiry):
3. To access a list of all the transactions handled by others on your behalf, use the Vacation Query.
2. The available inquiry tools appear in the right-hand panel of the home page. Click on Vacation Query.