Forward and Substitutes

This section explains how the Promenta Forward and Substitute functionality interacts with SAP Workflow

What is Workflow Forwarding?

Workflow forwarding is the act of “reassigning” an individual approval task from one user to another in the workflow system. For example if an approver is unavailable temporarily then an approval item can be forwarded to another approver for review.

 The forwarding must be done using SAP forwarding functionality – merely forwarding an email from one user to another does NOT forward the task itself. 

What is a workflow Substitute?

A workflow substitute is a user who is set up as a substitute for another workflow user and receives the same approval tasks as the original user. For example a manager may set up another manager as their substitute so that the approval tasks can be reviewed in the managers absence.

Effectively the substitute is added as an extra user in the workflow routing.

Relationship to SAP workflow

As explained previously – Promenta runs on top of SAP workflow. Both forwarding and substitution are SAP functionalities that is made use of in Promenta.

Authorisation and validity checks

SAP forward functionality does not check that the user who is forwarded to is authorised to process a task *. However the person performing the forward must have the correct SAP workflow authorisations.

SAP substitution does not check that the substitute user is authorised to process a task **

To prevent an incorrect forwarding or substitution Promenta has included a user exit in our Inbox to apply additional custom rules. This user exit is not present in the Analyser admin tool and is not present in any SAP tools (ie SAP SBWP, SAP Fiori inbox, SAP portal UWL)

Substitute Emails

Users who are substitutes can receive the approval emails that are sent to the original approval – however this function must be activated.

NOTE :By default the substitute email switch is delivered OFF. Please contact Promenta to activate the switch.

After switch activation – users will receive emails at the same time as the original approvers.