When selecting a backup person or a processing limit substitute for a user in InvoiceReady, one of the options is 'supervisor'. If supervisor is selected as backup person, InvoiceReady will attempt to determine the backup person based on the organization structure memberships and the information of the transaction (such as a purchase invoice) being processed.

 

Supervisors are set in the organization structure for companies and organization units. When viewing the organization structure, the name of the supervisor is displayed in parentheses after the name of a company or unit.

 

How does InvoiceReady detemine the supervisor?

 

If the current user is member of only one part of the organization, such as an organization unit, the supervisor of that organization segment is the supervisor.

 

For example 1: if Adam is only a member of the unit "Sales & Marketing" in the organization, then Adam's supervisor is the supervisor of the "Sales & Marketing" unit.

Image:  Supervisor Detemination in Organization Structure view.

 

If the unit does not have a supervisor, or if the current user is the supervisor of the current unit, InvoiceReady will move one level up in the organization tree and attempt to apply the supervisor from that level instead.

 

For example 2: if Joe is the supervisor of the unit "Customer Support" and his processing limit is exceeded, InvoiceReady will move up one level in the organization tree and attempt to apply the supervisor as a replacement processor for Adam's workflow step.

 

If the current user is a member of more than one unit under the same company, InvoiceReady cannot determine the users supervisor based on the organization structure alone, as the different units might have different supervisors. In this situation InvoiceReady will use the information on the transaction being processed to determine a suitable supervisor.

 

If the transaction is associated with an organization unit, that units supervisor is applied first. However, as in a previous example, if that supervisor is the same as the current processor, then InvoiceReady will attempt to retrieve a supervisor from the next level up in the organization tree.

 

If the transaction is not associated with an organization unit, the supervisor of the company the transaction is associated with will be used instead.

 

The supervisor of the company is always the last supervisor -type backup person that can be applied. If the supervisor of the company requires a backup person, a named backup person should be used instead of the supervisor option, since the supervisor of the company cannot have a higher supervisor above them.

 

If InvoiceReady finds itself in a situation where it is not possible to determine any single user as the correct supervisor based on the rules described above, then one of two things will happen.

 

In case the backup person is being retrieved as part of the scheduled task handling processing time limits and absences, no backup person will be applied and a manual intervention is required as part of the workflow control process.

 

If the backup person is being retrieved due to the current users processing limit being exceeded, InvoiceReady will instead prompt the current user to select a backup person for the current workflow step. The user can select any other user with sufficient permissions to process that workflow step.

 

For example 3: Adam is the supervisor of the entire company, but has been erroneously set with a processing limit substitute set to the 'supervisor' option. When Adam attempts to process an invoice and his processing limit is exceeded, InvoiceReady cannot assign a supervisor as a backup to him, since he is the supervisor. InvoiceReady will prompt Adam to manually select a backup person to process the workflow step.