Setting Up Approval Roles

Admin users have the ability to enable or disable various permissions based on the responsibilities of the user on the approval role setup page. These permissions include the ability to Edit Scenario, Enable Workforce User Access Tab, Enable Template Snapshot, Create and Manage Views, and also permissions for Budget entity permissions and Approval roles.

To assign or edit an approval role for a user: 

1. Navigate to  Maintenance > Administration > User & Role Management.
2. From the Users list, search for the required user to assign or edit the approval role, and click the security icon next to them.
3. Click Approval Role Setup from the list.
4. On the Approval Role Setup page, you can enable/disable the permissions to Edit Scenario, Enable Workforce User Access Tab, Enable Template Snapshot, Create and Manage Views, and also you can set Budget entity permissions and Approval role.
5. Once the permissions are set, click Save.
        
   Tip: Click the Reload icon to refresh the page.

Edit Scenario

Enabling the Edit Scenario feature allows you to make copies of Global Entity templates for budget entities, and to edit the global entity copy of the template for the budget entities during budget input.

Enable Workforce User Access Tab

You can control who can manage the User Access page from the Approval Role Setup page. Only users with Enable Workforce User Access Tab permissions can view and manage the compensation items mapped to employees. Admin users can hide sensitive information from the User Access page, such as salary or benefits. This option allows you to hide the required compensation item from the Employees tab (Admin and End users), Employee Add/Edit pages, Employee report, all Views, Dynamic reports, Report sets, Standard reports, and the Customize Roster page.

By default, the Enable Workforce User Access Tab is disabled for all users. Users will only see the User Access tab when they access the Workforce planning setup page once it is enabled.

Learn more about the Workforce user access feature here.

Enable Template Snapshot

This feature allows the finance team to take a backup of a template for the selected budget entity and restore the version of the template if needed. Enabling this option allows you to access the Snapshot feature in the Planning control panel’s template and it is available only for GSTC templates. By default, the snapshot feature is enabled for all users. If you wish to disable this feature, you can deselect the Enable Template Snapshot checkbox in your user profile's Approval Role Setup screen.

Learn more about the Views Snapshot feature here.

Create and Manage Views

You can control who creates and manages template views from the Approval Role page. Only users with the Create and Manage Views permission enabled in their approval role can create a new View and manage Views for templates. Enabling this option in your approval role allows you to access the Create a New View and Manage Views options in the View drop-down in the template.

The Create and Manage Views checkbox is selected by default for all users. If you deselect the Create and Manage Views checkbox, the respective user will not see the Create and Manage options in the Views drop-down.

Learn more about the Views here.

Edit Subline Summary Line

This feature allows administrators to control who can edit the summary lines in Subline templates, preventing users from accidentally overwriting or deleting formulas. This helps save time and effort when reviewing the formulas.

The Edit Subline Summary Line checkbox is selected by default for all users. If you deselect the checkbox, the respective user will not be able to make modifications to the summary lines.

Budget Entity Permissions and Approval Role

TheLeveland Role help you to set the budget entity for the user you wish to assign an approval role to, and also select a role for the chosen budget entity. Adding levels to the associate users helps in limiting access to the necessary budget entities.

Users can have varying levels of responsibility for budget entities. Assigning different approval roles for different entities provides a user with different levels of privileges.

For example, when a user has access to two entities A and B, but has HR responsibility for entity B only, the user can be restricted to view only specific data based on HR access for the approval role assigned for the entity. Or, an Admin role might provide Workforce template access, but an Admin with no HR role might not have Workforce template access.

Using any of the three ways you can set user Level and Role:

• • Add/Edit Budget entity permissions and Approval role on the Approval Role Setup page
  • Import Approval Role
  • Export Approval Role
    Note:

    Add rows - To add rows, enter the number of rows you want to add and click the Plus icon

    Delete rows - To delete the row(s), select the required row(s) by clicking checkboxes and click the Delete icon

Add/Edit Budget entity permissions and Approval role on the Approval Role Setup page

1. Click the cell under Level 1, then select the budget entity you want to give the user an approval role for.
2. (Optional) Click the cells under columns Level 2, Level 3, and so forth, to add drill-down capabilities to associate with role privileges. For example, Level 1 might be associated with a worldwide organization, Level 2 with the American branch of the organization, Level 3 with the organization’s California offices.
3. Click the cell under the Role column, then select a role for the user for the budget entity chosen.  Note that roles are defined on the Approval Role page.

Import Approval Role

Approval roles can be imported to the respective user using the following steps.

1. Click the Upload File icon.
2. Approval Role Upload dialog box appears.
   Note:

   The uploading file should follow the format specified by Planful. The Sample Excel template instructs you to organize the data and load it back into the application.
   1. To obtain a sample format, click Download Sample Template.

   2. Open the downloaded template. The template displays the required fields and also provides information about how you can enter the correct data in all the fields.

   3. Enter the relevant details in the User ID, Approval Role, Member Type, Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 columns according to the instructions provided in the sample template. Ensure that you delete all the instructions in the sample file before uploading it. The following table contains sample data for the columns in the sample template.

   User ID	Approval Role	Member Type	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3
   benbradle@planful.com	Reviewer	Rollup	Budget Hierarchy	Denver - Denver HQ
   benpage@planful.com	Budget Approver	Leaf	Budget Hierarchy	Denver - Denver HQ	Australia
   ben@planful.com	Simple Budget Approver	Leaf	Budget Hierarchy	Denver - Denver HQ	Australia

   • In the required levels, every rollup member must have the details in the “Member Code - Member Name” format.
   • You can have more levels depending on the hierarchy that you have defined in the application.
   • Ensure that you delete all the instructions in the sample file before uploading it.

   4. Save the XLSX file to your computer.

3. Click Choose File and upload the template from your computer.
4. Click any one of the following options from the Upload Actions field:
   • Overwrite: To overwrite all the existing levels and approval roles. Or, to overwrite a specific level or overwrite specific approval roles. To do so, you can download the file for a specific user and update the required levels/approval role, and then upload the file to replace the existing data for this user with the data in the uploaded file.
     Note:

     If you want to overwrite specific levels or overwrite specific approval roles, it is important that you download the ApprovalRoleExport excel file by using the required option from the Export drop-down list.
   • Append: To update the existing approval roles and to add additional levels with approval roles.
     
5. Click Upload.
6.  After the file has been uploaded, a confirmation message is displayed. Click through to the Detail View dialog box (as shown here) to view the status of the upload action. Additionally, a process called ApprovalRolesUpload is created on the Job Manager page (as shown here).
7. If the upload process failed or was completed with errors, select the Click Here link under the Status column of the Detail View dialog box. This action downloads an Excel file with detailed information about why the failure occurred.
   An example of a failed upload process is shown here. Fix the errors and upload the file again.
   After the approval roles have been uploaded successfully, a confirmation message is displayed. The uploaded approval roles are displayed on the Approval Role Setup page, as shown here.

Best Practices

• To make permission management easier, you can use the user export options. If you use this feature, you do not have to worry about the format; you can just make the necessary changes to the exported information and quickly reload the file.
• You can use the Overwrite functionality to replace data. If you want to completely remove the existing data and replace it with new data, use the Overwrite option; otherwise, you can just use the Append option.
• If you are a bit hesitant to use this functionality, you should try out this new feature in your sandbox environment. After you are familiar with the functionality, you can make any changes to the Approval Roles or Permissions on your production environment.

Export Approval Role

You have the ability to export the Level and Role details of the user from our application. Once exported, you can make modifications or add additional information, and then import the updated data.

1. Click the Export drop-down list. A list of options appears.
2. You can perform any one of the following actions:
   1. Click Export All Users to export the approval roles and budget entity permissions of all the users in the application.
   2. Click Export Current User to export the approval roles and budget entity permissions of the user currently selected in the User list box.
   3. Click Export Selected Users to export the approval roles and budget entity permissions of the users selected in the Export Selected Users window.
3. Click Ok.
4. The ApprovalRoleExport excel file is downloaded with the required approval roles.
5. Make the required changes, and then import the uploaded file.