Purchase order workflow PO Creator - Workflow Part 2 - Dynamics 365

Hi,

Purchase order workflow  PO Creator - Workflow Part 2

This document discusses the steps about working around the D365 PO workflow process. It has been made specifically for supply chain process.

It is assumed that the audience is familiar with PO process till the creation of the PO.

Before we begin we first look after at The Purchase Order Approval Process.

Reference

Reference

• Draft – The purchase order requester creates and makes changes to the purchase order when in Draft state.
• In review – The requester submits the purchase order or the request for change to an approval workflow, which will change the state to In review. The policies and processes configured within the workflow will assign and execute tasks, decisions, and approvals needed for the specific purchase order or change request. If budget control is enabled, a budget check will be performed based on budget control policies, providing real-time analytics related to budget funds available.
• Rejected – A purchase order that has been rejected by a workflow reviewer has the state of Rejected. The purchase order can be changed and resubmitted to workflow if desired.
• Approved – A purchase order that has completed the approval process is considered Approved and can now be issued to the vendor. Expected receipt transactions may be created when the order reaches Approved status.
• Confirmed – Confirming the purchase order generates a purchase order confirmation document, which is an external document that may be provided to the vendor to notify them of the order. If budget control is enabled, the budget check is performed based on the budget control policies and budget reservations are established ensuring that planned expenditures do not exceed budget funds available. If encumbrance processing has been enabled, subledger journal entries are created for a purchase order when the purchase order is confirmed to reflect the consumption of budget funds on the balance sheet.
• Finalized – Finalizing the purchase order requires all lines to be either canceled or invoiced. After a purchase order has been finalized, you can no longer change the purchase order. Finalize the purchase order to liquidate budget reservations and any encumbrance that is not yet relieved in general ledger.

The tasks that are associated with the workflow process are:

A. Submitting a PO for approval
B. Recall a PO already submitted for approval
C. Changing an already approved PO
D. Tracking a PO

A. Submitting PO for approval

Once a PO is created in system, PO header indicates that the PO workflow enabled.

Click on the Workflow button, you will see a button ‘Submit’. Click this button to submit the PO for approval.

A message box will pop up. You can write any comment on the message box which can be referred by the immediate approver. Click ‘Submit’.

Once PO approved by approver and refresh the screen. In the PO, observe that the ‘Confirm’ button is now enabled under the purchase tab and approval status changed to approved. User can go ahead do the normal process.

B. Recalling a workflow

After a PO is submitted for approval, you might want to recall it for any modification.  To do this, click ‘Action --> Recall’ on the PO header. Once this is done, the PO will be open for editing and the approval request to the approver will be reverted.

Kindly note that if the workflow is recalled, all the previous approvals, if any, are cancelled and the PO will be routed through all the approver again. As such, it is advised to recall a workflow only if the change is critical (change is quantity, price, delivery warehouse etc.) or it has not been approved by anyone yet. If the change is non-critical, it can be updated through a ‘request change’ once all the approval is completed.

C. Changing an already approved PO 

It might be required to update any information on an approved PO.  In order to do that, click button ‘Request change’. Once it is done, the status of the PO will revert to ‘draft’ and the fields in the PO will become editable.

Once you are done with the changes, you need to submit the PO workflow again.

Once the PO is resubmitted, system will evaluate the change done on the PO. If the changes were done on,

1.       Items, i.e. items got added or removed from the PO

2.       Unit price

3.       Quantity

4.       Currency,

5.       Any other change impacting the amount

System will forward the PO for approval again.

If the changes were not done on the above fields, the PO will get approved automatically.

D. Tracking a PO workflow

Once the PO is submitted for approval, it can be tracked through workflow history.  To track the PO, click ‘Actions-->View history’.  On this window you will be able to see the details of the workflow by expanding the workflow activities nodes.

OR

Go to Common --> Inquiries --> Workflow --> Workflow history.