Supplier Approvals
Approval Workflow for Supplier Requests
Supplier Requests can pass through an approval workflow before they can be approved and subsequently converted into supplier records. The system determines the appropriate approval path based on whether an approval process has been configured for the request.
Users can define approval steps to auto-approve, making manual approval optional. However, at least one approval rule, either an auto-approval or a standard manual approval rule, must be defined; otherwise, the request cannot be submitted.
You can configure approval rules on the SupplierRequest object to control how approvals are decided in a flow. Instead of a single-step approval, rules support advanced options like Unanimous, Majority, Percent, or Quorum. Once created, rules can be reused across flows. Add rule entries to define approvers (users, queues, or related users), their sequence, and any conditions. You can also set up auto-reapproval, reminders, and escalation to make the process more efficient.
Supplier Request approvals can follow sequential or parallel processing:
- Sequential Approval (Dependencies): Later approvers cannot act until preceding approvers have completed their steps. Dependencies are configured within the rule entry setup to enforce the correct order.
- Parallel Approval: Multiple approvers can act simultaneously; the workflow evaluates completion based on the configured approval policy (Majority, Percent, Quorum, Unanimous).
For more information, see Approval Rules.
You can create an approval flow on the SupplierRequest object to manage supplier request approvals based on business rules. A flow defines the sequence of reviewers and approval rules that run when the request meets entry criteria. For Supplier Requests, you can customize the flow by defining actions such as submit, approve, reject, withdraw, and cancel and by setting the corresponding approval results (for example, Pending Approval, Approved, or Rejected).
Configure the initial submission, final approval, and final rejection actions to ensure the workflow correctly tracks the status of Supplier Requests:
- Initial Submission Action: Sets the request status to Pending Approval when it is submitted.
- Final Approval Action: Sets the status to Approved once the request has successfully passed all approvals.
- Final Rejection Action: Sets the status to Rejected if any approver rejects the request.
You can also configure auto-approval for low-risk scenarios, link the flow to approval rules created specifically for supplier requests, activate or deactivate flows as needed, choose which fields are displayed in approval requests, and define approval search filters to make managing supplier requests more efficient. For more information, see Approval Flows.
Approval Workflow for Suppliers
Supplier approvals are designed to maintain governance and quality in supplier data management. Instead of allowing all supplier records to be created and activated directly, the approval process enforces organizational review and authorization steps. This helps organizations prevent duplicate, incomplete, or non-compliant supplier entries from entering the system.
The Supplier approval process provides a structured mechanism to control how supplier records are reviewed and validated before becoming active in the system. It ensures that all supplier information passes through predefined approval flows based on business rules, ownership, and compliance requirements.
- Approval flows determine how a supplier record moves through different stages of review — from submission to approval or rejection.
- Approval rules determine when an approval flow is triggered, based on entry criteria such as supplier type, spend category, or other field values.
If approvers take action from Approval Center, then you must add an additional step in the approval flow. In the Final Approval Actions, select Approval Indicator as Approved, and Supplier Status as Active. This update is done automatically by CLM when actions are taken from the Supplier page, but not when taken from Approval Center.
Best Practice: Conga recommends taking approval actions from the Supplier page, as it ensures automatic status updates, full CLM logic execution, and correct triggering of supplier-specific notifications.
When a supplier record meets the defined entry conditions, it automatically enters the corresponding approval flow. Approvers receive notifications and can take actions such as Approve or Reject. Once all approval steps are complete, the supplier record's status changes accordingly (for example, from Pending Approval to Active).
Each stage of the process triggers a status change on the supplier record.
- Send for Approval → Status is set to Pending Approval
- Approved → Status is set to Active
- Rejected → Status is set to Rejected
Once the approval process is linked to the supplier form, every new supplier record follows the defined approval flow automatically. This ensures that no supplier becomes active without completing the configured approval cycle.