Oracle Approvals Management (AME) Frequently asked Questions (FAQ)

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PURPOSE

Frequently asked Questions on AME Requirements

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Do I need to license AME?

No, AME is bundled with the Oracle eBusiness Suite, it is not necessary to license it.

Do I need to run the license manager for AME?

No, you do not need to run the license manager to use AME.

What platforms is it available on?

AME is released on major UNIX and Windows NT platforms. This includes Compaq Tru64, Sun Solaris, Sun Sparc Solaris, HP-UX and IBM AIX

How is AME delivered?

The latest version is 11i AME.B RUP 2, and is delivered via Patch 5708576
For R12 Customers, AME is delivered in each of the R12 patch you are applying.

Is there a User Guide available?

Yes, the user details are available within the following note:

    • Note 336901.1 The Oracle Approvals Management Implementation Guide

What responsibility need to be used to access AME?

AME has implemented Role Based Access Model (RBAC) from AME.B onwards. Now AME has 5 seeded roles:

    • Approvals Management Administrator
      • Approvals Management Analyst
      • Approvals Management System Viewer
      • Approvals Management System Administrator
      • Approvals Management Process Owner

Please refer to Note 390500.1 for further details on the configuration steps required

How are Terminations Handled?

  • All the users/approvers used in AME should have a valid WF Role. Therefore terminated employee is not valid for the transaction. As the initiator is  key to build the approval list, we have a enhancement request logged for the issue requesting for the functionality of being able to reassign approval
    • Bug 4552553 – REASSIGN APPROVAL ASSIGNMENT FROM INACTIVE FND/PER ACCOUNT
  • Any approver in prebuilt list if terminated – AME rebuilds the approver list starting from the requester. If the employee supervisory hierarchy has some modifications, AME re-builds the approver list with current hierarchy.
  • When the approval list has adhoc/inserted/added approver, and if that person happens to be terminated during the workflow process, it again expects a valid WF Role. The enhancement request <> can be tracked via metalink and once it is released you will be able to reassign the approval.

When a transaction is approved the status still remains as ‘Pending Approval’

You need to set the profile option ‘HR:Defer Update After Approval’ to No, so that the transactions do not remain in pending status. This profile ONLY applies to Self Service HR Transactions.

Unable to access approvals function after AME.B

AME uses RBAC method to control the access from AME.B onwards. Please do not assign AME responsibilities directly to a user, this will not work. For the responsibilities to work, AME Roles need to be assigned to the user. This is documented in AME.B implementation Guide Note 336901.1 . Please follow How to Access Oracle Approvals Management? HRMS Approvals Management (AME) Responsibilities and Setups in AME.B (Doc ID 434567.1)

The following information would help you in setting up AME
1) AME has 5 seeded roles

    • Approvals Management Administrator
      • Approvals Management Business Analyst
      • Approvals Management System Viewer
      • Approvals Management System Administrator
      • A Approvals Management Process Owner

The description of each of the roles can be found in AME.B implementation guide Note 336901.1

2) AME can be accessed if sufficient functional grants are available. Each of the above 5 roles has specific set of functional grants. By assigning the roles to user, the functional grants will be available to user and hence he can access those functions/pages.

3) Role can be assigned to user as follows:

    • Login as Sysadmin user
    • Select the responsibility “User Management”
    • Select “Users” screen
    • Search for the user to whom you wish to grant AME roles.
    • In the results table, click on update icon.
    • In the update user page, user details can be seen along with a
    • list of roles available to user
    • Click on “Assign Roles”
    • Select the “Approvals Management Administrator” from the resulting LOV and click on Apply.

4) Each of the 5 seeded AME roles, when assigned to a user, result in “Indirect” assignment of AME responsibilities to the user.

5) Now the functional access to user has been successfully setup.

Able to successfully setup the roles to access the new Approvals Management Responsibilities, but unable to query any of the seeded Transaction Types

You need to create Grants for that.

    • Login as the Sysadmin user
    • Select Functional Administrator responsibility
    • Select Grants Tab
    • Click on Create Grant
    • Select “Specific User” as grantee type
    • Select the User as grantee key
    • Select “AME Transaction Types” as object
    • In the next page select
    • All rows: This grants access to all AME Transaction Types to the User
    • Use the seeded instance set “AME Transaction Type Instance Set” – AME Calling Applications
    • In the next page, select “AME Calling Applications” as the permission set Review and Finish.

Approval groups are supposed to be common to multiple transaction types. We use purchasing requisition approval and Payable Invoice approval. Looks like it is not common anymore from AME.B onwards

AME.B onwards, AME allows to add the existing groups in Approvers group tab, using ‘Use Existing Approver Group’ button. Using this you can search and add the existing groups.

List creation rules are setup to add Approvers of at least level 6. Next, a series of Pre-Approver Groups are setup to add approvers based on the Natural Segments. In this scenario, how do we prevent the approval from certain rules which uses the approval group as pre list approval group when the natural account segment value matches the particular accounts?

This requirement can be achieved using AME boolean attribute with appropriate usages. The conditions based on this attribute can be used in appropriate ‘Pre List Approver Group’ rules to selectively enable/disable rule to avoid the pre list approval groups under situation described.
AME boolean attribute can be setup like any other attributes. Boolean attribute can have only true or false values. For more details please refer the AME implementation guide

Unable to delete Approval Group, getting error “You cannot delete the predefined AME_APPROVAL_GROUP_CONFIG”

This issue  has been fixed in AME B Rup2. You need to apply AME B RUP2
Patch 5708576 ensuring all the pre-requisites, to resolve the issue OR apply Patch 5337777 Human Resources Suite 11i.HR_PF.K.delta.2 Family Pack.

When the approval times out it goes up the approval tree and eventually gets to the Top Manager, who has no supervisor and the workflow errors with:
Activity: Is Final Approver
Error: ORA-20001: No surrogate approver exists for

When time outs are used AME finds the surrogate of the unresponsive approver. In case the last approver also times out AME cannot find the surrogate and hence throws the error. This is the intended behavior when a surrogate does not exist. And we have a enhancement request Bug 3092952  for the issue.

In the current situation if the requirement is to get the approval from the last approver or send a notification to the requester. This must be achieved by customizing the workflow, not through AME. AME does not handle workflow activities, such as time outs and notifications.

Can FNDLOAD be utilized in AME? If yes, which lct file is needed for each of the AME objects?

FNDLOAD can be utilized from AME.A onwards. It can be used for download and upload. You can only download the standard objects in AME (like attributes, conditions, rules etc) but cannot download those entities which are specific to an instance. For eg, Static Approval Groups, List Modification Conditions etc. Regarding the lct files, as AME uses different entities for migration purposes and each entity uses different configuration(lct) files. The lct file that need to be extracted depends on the
entities. These lct files can be found out $PER_TOP/patch/115/import

While trying to duplicate a rule, getting error “A rule usage already exists which overlaps the lifespan specified”

AME allows the rule duplication in order to enable a rule in different time span. It does not allow to rename the rule or to use the same rule with overlapping time span. This is the intended functionality.
AME does not allows to copy the rules. To have similar rule customers can create new rules.

When using dynamic approvals, the user is allowed to insert any approver into any part of the list. This can break the requirement of always want a specific person to be the last approver.

There is a profile option AME: Append to List option on Approvers region. When this profile value is set to “no” the “Append to List” option would not be available

What are the patch requirements in Release 12(R12) in order to have the same features as AME.B?

Answer: The level of AME in R12 is equivalent to 11i.AME.B, therefore you do not have to apply any other patch. And also all the documents for 11i.AME.B would be applicable for AME R12 too

Getting error ORA-06553: PLS-382: expression is of wrong type

The error ‘ORA-06553:PLS-382:expression is of wrong type’ occurs when a boolean function is used in select statement. In AME for boolean attribute, sql usage should return value true or false as varchar2 values.

I am unable to select any action type when I go to create the Rule

In order to create actual actions for a particular action type, the action type for which you want to create actions need to be selected first (through a radio button). You will see that when you select a different action type (by selecting the radio button in front of it), the list of actions at the bottom part of the screen will also change. Not only the list changes, but whether or not a Create button appears may change as well, depending on which action type is selected.

Can you create rules within a transaction type and which should be different for each of the operating units?

This can be achieved in two ways:

1) Based on a attribute for operating unit and having different rule with conditions such that different rules will be applicable for different operating units
2) Using a dynamic group in rules: The group used returns appropriate user based on operating unit

Can we utilize custom responsibilities for AME?

AME is different from other products as there are lot of different integrating products(example HR, A/P, A/R etc.), the intended functionality of AME is that you cannot customize the responsibility. Moreover, AME now utilizes RBAC method from AME.B onwards wherein after the roles are assigned to the users, ‘indirect’ Approvals Management responsibilities are automatically created where it is also not feasible to customize them.

What is AME Approver Migration Report for Integration to WF Directory Services?

From 11.5.10 onwards, AME is integrated with Workflow Directory Services (WFDS).
The process will perform the migration. During the migration, if there is an approver stored in AME that does not have a corresponding role in WFDS, then AME will create a new role name using format “AME_MIGRATION_XXX” (where XXX is person_id)

Can you setup FYI Notifications using AME?

Yes, AME can generate approvers belonging to either of two approver categories: action and informational (for-your-information or FYI) approvers. Action approvers must approve a transaction. FYI approvers merely receive a notification describing the transaction. The exact content of all notifications depends on the application that generates the notification.

The configuration variable to use is: allowFyiNotifications

Please refer to AME Implementation Guide and Developer’s guide available in Note 336901.1 and Note 289927.1

How do you configure a Role to receive FYI notifications?

(a)You would utilize Roles from

    • US Super HRMS Manager >
    • Transaction Maintenance >
    • Roles

(b)You would assign a Role Type to the Role, for example, HR Manager, and will attach a person, to the role, who would get the notifications
(c)You would utilize the Role you have setup within AME to setup the FYI Notifications