The Acumens Document Approval is a robust solution integrated into Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, enhancing the document approval process across various key granules. This application aims to streamline and optimize approval workflows for critical business transactions across sales, purchasing, inventory, general journals, master data, customer credit applications and service documents. It also supports configurable approval levels, notifications, mandatory comments/attachments and selected receipt/shipping controls.
For purposes of illustrating this functionality, the Purchase Order workflow will be used as the primary scenario to demonstrate the configuration, submission, approval levels, notifications, and resulting document status throughout the approval lifecycle.
Implementing Acumens Document Approvals delivers immediate visibility and control across your organization:
Setting up this extension requires configuring global rules, dynamic levels, dimension rules and notification channels.
The main setup is used to activate the application and set up the dynamic captions for each level of approval. The setup also activates the default configurations of approval documents.
Custom approval levels page will automatically be enabled when main setup page is launched.
This allows the user to edit how many levels a document goes through during the approval process.
Configure standard dimensions (such as CONSTRUCTION, ENGINEERING, or OPERATIONS etc.) to drive conditional approval logic based on the originating department.
Allow you to set up the preferred notification method for users and the setup is done in the Approval User Setup.
Set up the required approval levels in Workflow User Groups and assign the appropriate users to each approval level according to the defined approval hierarchy.
The sample workflow user group below defines the users responsible for approving Purchase Orders at Construction Level. Defines front-line reviewers for Construction POs.
The sample workflow user group below defines the users responsible for approving Purchase Orders at Engineering Level. Defines mid-tier management approvers for Engineering transactions.
The sample workflow user group below defines the users responsible for approving Purchase Orders at Operations Level. Defines executive approvers for high-value Operations transactions.
With user groups established, create specific Business Central workflows matching your company’s authorization limits.
Define Purchase Order separate workflows for example Construction, Engineering and Operations each with multiple levels (L1–L3) and enable the workflow.
For illustration, we set up three monetary thresholds for the CONSTRUCTION department:
Level I Workflow.
The conditions: Department -> CONSTRUCTION and the Purchase Order Amount <= $7,500.
Create an approval request for the record using approver type Workflow User Group and Workflow User Group Code CONSTRUCTION LEVEL 1.
Level II Workflow.
The conditions: Department -> CONSTRUCTION and the Purchase Order Amount $7,500 to $15,000.
Create an approval request for the record using approver type Workflow User Group and workflow user group code CONSTRUCTION LEVEL 2.
Level III Workflow.
The conditions: Department -> CONSTRUCTION and the Purchase Order Amount > $15,000.
Create an approval request for the record using approver type Workflow User Group and workflow user group code CONSTRUCTION LEVEL 3.
When a user creates a Purchase Order, the document status starts as Open with an Approval Status of New. The user attaches required documents or comments and clicks Send Approval Request.
When the document is sent for approval, the status will change to Pending approval and the Approval Status will change to "Level 1". The next available approval level.
An automated notification is dispatched directly to the designated approver's inbox.
Approvers can monitor pending tasks from the Approval Entries page or their Requests to Approve screen. Here, they can review mandatory attachments and choose to Approve, Reject, or Delegate.
Once fully approved, the Purchase Order transitions to Released status with an Approval Status of Approved, and the originator is notified.
The functionality allows the users in the system to ship or receive goods in the warehouse before the approval process can be finalized in the system. This applies to;
The functionality can be activated from the Document Approval Setup.
Before the setup is activated.
Without this setting enabled, attempting to post a receipt on an unapproved PO triggers a system validation error: "This document can only be released when the approval process is complete."
Create a New Purchase Order and Populate.
Release the document. The user will get an error. “This document can only be released when the approval process is complete”.
Enable the toggle Unapproved PO-Allow Receive in the main setup to activate the Workflow.
Release and approve the document.
You noticed that the record sits in Pending Approval under Level II status, matching the Construction Level II workflow condition for purchase amounts falling between $7,501 and $15,000.
After Approval the goods can now be received as shown below.
A dedicated dashboard showcasing the number of pending and approved purchase orders and other types of documents, offering insights into the procurement process.
The Acumens Document Approvals Management extension transforms standard Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central workflows by offering multi-tiered approval levels, automated notification schedules and dynamic user assignment across departments. Therefore, by incorporating features like validation controls on unapproved transactions alongside important flexibilities such as allowing item receipt before final approval, organizations can maintain rigorous compliance without causing operational bottlenecks in the warehouse.
