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Create Forms for Invoice Approval Process

Create the needed approval and notifications forms for the Invoice Approval Process
You will learn
  • How to leverage the result of the Decision in an approval form
  • How to create an approval form
  • How to create forms to notify process participants
SchluchterStephanStephan SchluchterJanuary 25, 2024
Created by
celineaudinsap
November 20, 2022

Prerequisites

There are different requirements and business situations when a form is needed in a business process. You have already created a form to start the process. Most often you probably need a form to maintain some input data or to approve or reject a request or even to send out some notifications. The two latter ones are your focus now.

  • Step 1
    1. Choose + at the connection flow after the decision Determine Approver to open the context menu.

      New Approval Form
    2. Then select Approval.

      New Approval Form
    3. Click on Blank Approval

      New Approval Form
    4. Maintain the Name Invoice Approval Form and also the Description Form to approve the invoice. Choose Create. The Identifier is created automatically.

      Maintain approval form name
    5. Choose the three dots on the created form’s artifact and select Open Editor to do the same. Just ignore the red frames, you will fill them later.

      Open Editor
    6. Now you are in the Form’s Editor, where you can define the layout and input fields. First add via drag and drop a new Headline 1 into the canvas. Provide this headline Invoice Approval.

      Add Headline
    7. Drag and drop a Paragraph into the canvas. Insert Invoice Details in the paragraph.

      Add paragraph
    8. Include a Text field in your form, change the name to Company Name and select Read Only, as you will display here some information from the process content.

      Maintain text field
    9. Add some further input fields to your form. Please ensure you have selected the correct type and also maintain all of them as Read Only.

      Field Type Name
      Text Invoice Number
      Number Gross Amount
      Text Employee Name
    10. You are done with the layout and input fields of the approval form. Save your work.

      Further input fields
    11. Go back to your process, you will recognize some errors, e.g. inputs are missing. No need to worry, you will provide the required details in the next steps.

      Errors
    12. Select the Invoice Approval Form and in the General tab of the form properties, move to Subject and choose Select Item.

      Select Item
    13. Enter the text Please approve the invoice and add the process content Document Number. You will find this underneath Invoice Details. This combines plain text with process-related information and serves as an unique identifier for the end user.

      Add process content
    14. In the Decision you have defined the approver of the invoice. The output of the decision has been an email address. Now add from the process content within Approver_Output the eMail in the Recipients as Users. This means only the selected approver will get this approval in the inbox.

      Approval user
    15. Switch to the Inputs tab and within Company Name, choose Select Item. The process content will open again.

      Approval Form inputs
    16. Now add the attributes from the process content to the related input fields.

      You can only assign fields with the same type, e.g. text in the process content to text input field.
      If you cannot assign, e.g. Invoice Number from the process content to the Invoice Number in the input field, the type of the input field might be wrong. If so, please correct your form.

      Process Content Input Field
      Employee Name Employee Name
      Sender Name Company Name
      Gross Amount Gross Amount
      Document Number Invoice Number
    17. As this mapping of process content and forms is quite important to ensure a proper flow of the relevant data in your process, please check them again. It should look like this.

      Check Approval Form inputs
    18. Save your work.

    Select the type of form you have created now:

  • Step 2
    1. Choose the + of the control flow for Approve coming from the Invoice Approval Form you just created.

      New Approval Notification Form
    2. In the context menu, select Form.

      New Approval Notification Form
    3. Click on Blank Form.

      New Approval Notification Form
    4. Maintain the Name Invoice Approval Notification Form and also the Description Form to notify about the approved invoice and choose Create. As always, the Identifier has been created automatically.

      Maintain Notification Form
    5. In the newly created Invoice Approval Notification Form, choose the three dots and select Open Editor.

      Open Editor
    6. In the form, add a Headline 1 Invoice Approval, a Paragraph Your invoice has been approved. and also a Text Invoice Number and select here Read Only. Save your work.

      Invoice Approval Notification Form
    7. Go back to the process, select Invoice Approval Notification Form to maintain the information in General tab.

      Approval Notification General
    8. Maintain Subject, choose Select Item and type Approved Invoice: and add the process content Document Number.

    9. Select for the Users in this case Process Started By from the process content.

      Approval Notification General Entries
    10. Select Inputs tab and assign the Invoice Number from the process content here.

      Approval Notification Input
    11. Save your work.

    Can you combine plain text and process content attributes in the subject of a form?

  • Step 3

    With this you completed designing and configuring the approval notification form. You can copy the same form to create another form to send a rejection notification to the requester.

    If copy is not available then create the form in the same way and modify the texts wherever relevant as shown below.

    To add the new rejection form, you will use the Duplicate feature.

    Duplicate feature is used to copy artifacts within the Business Process whereas Copy feature is used to copy artifacts across the business processes.

    1. Click on the Overview.

      Click Overview
    2. In the Overview screen, do the following:

      • Find Invoice Approval Notification Form under the Artifacts section and click on .
      • Choose Duplicate.
      Duplicate Form
    3. The duplicate artifact pop-up will appear. Change the name to Invoice Reject Notification Form and click Duplicate.

      Invoice Rejection Form
    4. The Invoice Reject Notification Form is automatically opened in the form builder.

      The screen shown will be the same as Invoice Approval Notification Form.

      Invoice Rejection Form
    5. Change the invoice rejection form in the form builder to reflect the data for rejection case.

    6. Change the Description to Form to notify about the rejected invoice and the following fields to:

      Form Fields Field Settings with Label
      Headline 1 Invoice Rejection
      Paragraph Your invoice has been rejected
    7. Keep the text field Invoice Number and Save your work.

      Invoice Reject Notification Form
    8. Go back to the process builder and add the invoice rejection notification form to the process. Choose the + of the control flow for Reject coming from the Invoice Approval Form.

      Add Invoice Rejection Notification
    9. Choose Form.

      Add Invoice Rejection Notification
    10. Select Invoice Reject Notification Form

      Add Invoice Rejection Notification
    11. Select Invoice Reject Notification Form to maintain the information in General tab.

      Reject Notification General
    12. Maintain Subject, choose Select Item and type Rejected Invoice: and add the process content Document Number.

    13. Select for the Users in this case Process Started By from the process content.

      Reject Notification General Entries
    14. Select Inputs tab and assign the Invoice Number from the process content here.

      Reject Notification Input
    15. Your process is ready to be released, deployed and executed. Save your work.

      Final process

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