Delegate Rules

[cgross]

Hello,

When setting up a delegate with the ability to "can approve" is there any document that explains the rules associated with this function?  For example, i am pretty sure the delegate cannot approve their own expense reports.  What about other hierarchical issues?  Is it possible to create any rules related to how the "can approve" function will work?

Example: Employee 1 has Employee 2 as their supervisor

Employee 2 has Employee 3 as a supervisor.

If employee 3 delegates approve to Employee 1, then will Employee 1 be able to approve their supervisors (employee 2) expense reports? 

if so, would there be a way to not allow Employee 1 to approve their supervisor's expense reports?

[dlamont]

Hi @cgross , 

One of the criteria to be an approver, is the delegate must already be set up as an approver. We do not allow delegates to submit reports, they send a note to the employee that the report is ready for submittal, this way they can also review and take final responsilbity for the report.  This also prevents the delegate approver from be able to approve the report, as an approver cannot approve a report they submitted, however an Expense Processor Approver (see permissions under User Permissions) can approve their own submitted reports.

Also, your company set up could possibly override the approver requirement to be a delegate approver, but you can test this, by trying to add someone as an approver for yourself that you know does not have the approver role. You would not be able to find them in the search for approver when assigning a delegate, if your company has the requirement.

[KevinD]

@cgross hello there. With approval delegation, a user would not be able to approve their own report. This is by system design and applies to the entire system, not just with delegation. For example, if a user is set up as the Cost Object approver for Department A and they submit expenses towards that cost center, someone else would need to approve the report. 

In your example of Employee 3 delegating approval to Employee 1, this would allow Employee 1 to approve their direct manager's report. The caveat to this is if you were to use the Authorized Approver function. This would allow you to restrict Employee 1 from approving their direct manager's (Employee 2) report. The way to do this is in the Delegate Configuration, you would select the checkbox that says, "Restrict approvers to those with equal or higher authorized approver limit". This would only work if authorized approvers were set up. 

If you aren't familiar with the Authorized Approver option, it allows you to set dollar amount limits by approvers. So, in your example, Employee 1 might have a limit to approve up to $1000, Employee 2 up to $10,000 and Employee 3 up to $100,000. Employee 1 couldn't approve Employee 3's report because their limit is below Employee 3's limit. 

I just entered the amounts as examples. 

I hope this helps.