Continia User Setup for Approvals
In order for a user to be able to approve documents in either Continia Document Capture or the Continia Web Approval Portal, the user must be configured as an approver first. This article provides details on how to do so.
Note
You configure users as approvers in the Continia User Setup, which is also relevant for Continia Expense Management. For more information, see Expense User Setup for Expense Management.
The Continia User Setup is an extension of the standard Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (BC) user setup table, and many of the fields displayed in the Continia User Setup in fact originate from this table and also appear in the Approval User Setup. Any settings you change in one of the two setups will automatically be changed accordingly in the other setup.
When you create a Continia User Setup record, a BC user setup record is also created automatically. Likewise, if you delete a Continia User Setup record, the corresponding BC user setup record may be automatically deleted for clean-up purposes, but only under certain circumstances: If you delete the Continia User Setup after a period of time but have previously populated the BC user setup record with fields that aren't visible in the Continia User Setup, the BC user setup record won't be deleted.
To set up users as approvers
In order to enable a user to approve documents, follow these steps:
- Choose the
icon, enter Continia User Setup, and then choose the related link. - Select the user who you want to set up as an approver.
- In the action bar, select Edit to open the selected user's Continia User Setup Card.
- On the General FastTab, fill in the fields as necessary. The following fields are mandatory:
- In Salesperson/Purchaser, enter the name of the selected user as registered in Business Central.
- In Approver ID (Manager), enter the ID of the selected user's manager (or any other next-level approver that can approve documents if the user's own limits are insufficient).
- Under Purchase Invoice and Credit Memo Approval, be sure to either enter a maximum approval amount for the selected user under Approval Limit or, if applicable, select Unlimited Approval.
Note
If you want to configure assigning permissions for the user or for a group that the user is a member of (see To configure individual approver permissions and To configure account and dimension permissions for a group), you must enable Can Edit Posting Lines as well.
In case you want the user to be an approval administrator, toggle the Approval Administrator switch. Note that this will also automatically enable the corresponding setting in the Approval User Setup, and that the user will be granted a number of standard approval administrator permissions in addition to the Continia-specific permissions mentioned under Approval administrator permissions below.
- On the Web Approval FastTab, select the approval client that the selected user will use to approve documents. The selected approval client will be opened whenever the user selects a link in a notification email.
Important
Once you've set up a user as an approver, you must assign this user an appropriate Business Central license in order for the user to be able to sign in and function as an approver. A Team Members license should be sufficient for this, subject to the Microsoft licensing conditions stipulated in the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Licensing Guide, which is available for download on the Business Central website. For details on how to assign licenses to users, see the Microsoft article Create Users According to Licenses.
Approval administrator permissions
Approval administrators have more permissions than ordinary approvers. When you set up a user as an approval administrator, the user will be able to:
- Forward approval requests on behalf of other users. Ordinary approvers receive an error message if they attempt to do so.
- Use the Force Approval feature.
- Delete or edit approval requests, including adding and changing approvers.
- Approve documents for which imported and assigned amounts don't match. Ordinary approvers receive an error message in such cases, whereas approval administrators can choose to continue.
- Allow automatic approval of a document during registration when the document is matched with another document that hasn't yet been fully approved. Ordinary approvers receive an error message in such cases, whereas approval administrators can choose to continue.
- Change imported amounts.
Configuring account and dimension permissions
When you've set up a user as an approver as described above, you can configure the account and dimension permissions of that user. You do this using the following two actions in the action bar of the Continia User Setup page (also available in the Continia User Setup Card):
- Approval User Groups – this enables you to assign one or more group permissions to the individual user.
- Approval Permissions – this allows you to configure the individual permissions of the user.
Important
In order for both of these actions to work, the Use Account and Dimension Approval Permissions feature on the Document Capture Setup page must be enabled first. To do this, see To set up puchase approval. Also, in order for you to be able to assign group permissions to an individual user, one or more approval user groups must be set up.
To assign group permissions to an approver
To assign one or more group permissions to a user that's been configured as an approver, follow these steps:
- Choose the icon, enter Continia User Setup, and then choose the related link.
- Select the user whose permissions you want to configure.
- In the action bar, select Approval User Groups.
- On the page that opens, add the group(s) whose permissions you want to assign to the user.
Note
If you assign group permissions to a user, these permissions will be inherited by – and impose certain restrictions on – the user's individual permissions, meaning that you may be somewhat limited if you also decide to configure individual approver permissions. However, it's perfectly fine to do both at the same time, and the system will let you know if there are any conflicts between the individual permissions of a user and any assigned group permissions.
To configure individual approver permissions
When setting up the individual permissions of an approver, you can configure the following two kinds of permissions:
- Assigning permissions – what accounts and dimensions the user can choose between when assigning accounts/dimensions to invoice lines during approval
- Approval permissions – what invoice lines the user can approve (only lines that have been assigned accounts/dimensions for which the user has permissions)
Important
Note that assigning permissions can only be used with the Web Approval Portal.
Also, in order for assigning permissions to take effect, the Can Edit Posting Lines feature must be enabled, as described above under To set up users as approvers (step 4). Otherwise the user will receive documents for approval as read-only and will only be able to approve or reject them.
To configure the individual permissions of a user that's been set up as an approver, follow these steps:
- Choose the icon, enter Continia User Setup, and then choose the related link.
- Select the user whose permissions you want to configure.
- In the action bar, select Approval Permissions.
- On the page that opens, in the Type column, select the type of permission. G/L Account, Item, Fixed Asset, Charge (Item), and Job are all types of account permissions, whereas Dimension represents dimension permissions.
- If you selected Dimension in step 4 above: In the Dimension Code column, add a dimension code. If you selected anything other than Dimension in step 4, leave the field empty.
- In the Assigning Permission column, specify how you want to set up the assigning permissions you want this user to have.
Tip
Explanatory notes on the options:
- All: The user can assign all accounts/dimensions to invoice lines during approval, and no further setup is required.
- Include Selected: The user can assign the accounts/dimensions that you select in the No. of Assigning Selections column (which is then mandatory to fill in).
- Exclude Selected: The user can assign all accounts/dimensions except the ones you select in the No. of Assigning Selections column (which is then mandatory to fill in).
- Filter: The user can assign the accounts/dimensions that you select in the Assigning Filter column (which is then mandatory to fill in).
- In the Approval Permission column, specify how you want to set up the approval permissions you want this user to have.
Tip
Explanatory notes on the options:
- All: The user can approve invoice lines with any accounts/dimensions, and no further setup is required.
- Include Selected: The user can approve invoice lines with the accounts/dimensions that you select in the No. of Approval Selections column (which is then mandatory to fill in).
- Exclude Selected: The user can approve invoice lines with any accounts/dimensions except the ones you select in the No. of Approval Selections column (which is then mandatory to fill in).
- Filter: The user can approve invoice lines with the accounts/dimensions that you select in the Approval Filter column (which is then mandatory to fill in).
- Same as Assigning: The settings configured for assigning permissions in step 6 are copied and used as the user's approval permissions as well.
- If you selected Filter in step 6 above: In the Assigning Filter column, select the accounts/dimensions that you want the user to be able to assign to invoice lines during approval.
- If you selected Filter in step 7 above: In the Approval Filter column, select the accounts/dimensions that you want the user to be able to approve invoice lines for.
Note
For both filter options (steps 8 and 9), you can enter ranges or multiple accounts/dimensions using standard filter notation – for example, 10100..10500 and 10100|10500.
- If you selected Include Selected or Exclude Selected in step 6 above: In the No. of Assigning Selections column, select the accounts/dimensions that you want the user to be (un)able to assign to invoice lines during approval.
- If you selected Include Selected or Exclude Selected in step 7 above: In the No. of Approval Selections column, select the accounts/dimensions that you want the user to be (un)able to approve invoice lines for.
See also
Enabling Purchase Approval
Approval User Groups
Email Notifications