Strength and Weakness of Approval Hierarchies in Oracle Purchasing

Using the Employee/Supervisor Relationship

Strengths
Allows flexibility of establishing approval groups around either jobs or positions.
Assuming Oracle Human Resources (HR) is installed and the data is being maintained, Purchasing uses the supervisor name on the employee which should be entered and maintained for HR purposes already.

Weaknesses
Documents may not travel by the employee/supervisor relationship for approval purposes, but take a different path in part or entirely. Documents can get hung up more frequently due to the volume of personnel changes that typically occur in companies. Higher volumes of documents need to be re-routed using the Forward-To settings. Recall that the first name alphabetically appears as the default.

Using Position Approval Hierarchies

Strengths
Allows approval paths to be set up that follow the actual flow of documents for approval. Assuming Human Resources is installed and the data is being maintained, Purchasing can make an employee representation of the position approval hierarchy by simply running the Fill Employee Hierarchy process. This will allow changes occurring in personnel assignments to be updated in the position approval hierarchy. Documents can get hung up less frequently due to the lower volume of structural hierarchy changes compared to the higher volume of personnel changes that typically occur in companies. Lower volumes of documents need to be re-routed using the Forward To settings, especially when there are multiple holders in a particular job or position. Recall that the first name alphabetically appears as the default when there are multiple holders.

Weaknesses
Cannot be used with jobs, but must be used with positions.