Special Approval Dialog Box

The special approval dialog box appears when you click on "Approval Request" email attachment. The dialog box looks like the following:

Before describing the features found in the dialog box, let's look at the steps leading up to the appearance of the dialog box:

If you have the Level III program you can use the Electronic Approval system in conjunction with the internal email program. The program will remember the names and email addresses of one or more individuals who have approval authority. Information on setting up the Email Approval System is found: Set-up. Detailed information on how the entire process works in practice is found here.

To illustrate how it works, let's say that your secretary prepares a PO. Once the PO is prepared, he'll need to send it to you to be approved.

The secretary starts at the Main Purchase Screen. With the proper PO showing on the screen, he'll select ORDER TOOLS >> SEND EMAIL FOR APPROVAL from menu.

If there is more than one approver, a list will appear from which to select. If there's is only one approver, no list will appear, and the program will go right to the email screen.

The secretary checks the email screen to make sure the proper PO is showing, and when ready, he sends an "Approval Request" email to you. The email includes a special encoded attachment that looks something like 1002.zyz.

When you receive the email and open the attachment, the AnyPO program automatically starts on your computer. You, then, log into AnyPO and a special approval dialog box appears. You can tell the special approval dialog box from the normal approval dialog box because of its red color.

The program immediately moves to the PO that needs approval. The special approval dialog is small and is positioned in the upper right corner of the screen which allows you to view the entire PO and determine whether it should be approved or not.

Let's look at the process from a practical standpoint. It's entirely possible that you have been busy or out-of-town, and you may end up accumulating a number of "Approval Requests" in your inbox. If you find several "Approval Requests" in your inbox, it's only necessary to open one of the emails. AnyPO will combine the information from all emails, and create an internal list of PO's that need your approval. The internal list is your "to-do" list.

For example, in the dialog box, shown below, the approver has two (2) PO's that require approval. Once the first PO has been approved, the program will automatically move to the next PO.

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Approved. This will approve the PO. The PO will be removed from the list of PO's to be approved. (Note, however, if you have things set-up so that final approval requires two or more individuals, the program will enter your initials, but final approval won't occur until the other individuals have enter their approval.)

•	No Approval - Keep. You would use this when you need more time to think about the PO. As long as you don't open any new "approval requested" email attachments, AnyPO will remember the PO on a list. You can return to it later by selecting ORDER TOOLS >> TOOLS FOR APPROVERS. More information.

•	No Approval. Use this when you've looked at the PO and you've decided not to approve it. The PO is not approved and it is removed from your list. You may wish to follow things up by calling or sending an email to the originator explaining your reasons.

When you have more than one PO to approve, AnyPO automatically moves from PO to PO. If, after viewing all of the PO's, you decide to go back to re-look at one or more PO's, you can do so by clicking on the "Start Over" button. As long as you don't open any more "Approval Request" emails, you can completely leave the special approval dialog and still re-visit the original list of PO's. That's done by selecting ORDER TOOLS >> TOOLS FOR APPROVERS. More information.

The maximum number of PO's on any one approver's to-do list is 35. The program won't allow originators to send any more requests to an approver once this limit is reached. When the approver has caught up with their to-list, originators can once again send more requests.

If desired, you can configure the program to send notification to the originator that the PO has been approved. The originator is the person that originally created the purchase order and sent it off to be approved. When the program is configured in this manner, the "Originator Notification" dialog box will appear upon completion of the approval process. More information this feature is found here: Originator Notification.

The special approval dialog box is one of two dialog boxes that are used to approve PO's. For the differences between the dialog boxes and under what circumstances each appear, see: Email Notification & Approval Dialog Boxes