Results for “so_order_approvals”

AI-generated from documented ETRM metadata — verify critical details on the linked pages.

Overview

SO_ORDER_APPROVALS is an Order Entry (OE) table owned by the OE schema in Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.1 and 12.2.2. It stores order-level approval records, capturing the outcome of approval processing performed against sales orders in the Order Management module. Each row represents an approval event or decision associated with a specific order header, recording who approved (or acted upon) the order, the action taken, the result of that action, and related context such as customer and order type.

In Order Management, approvals are driven by the order approval workflow and governed by approval rules and limits. When an order requires authorization, the workflow evaluates conditions and routes the order to an approver or approver group. SO_ORDER_APPROVALS persists the audit trail of these decisions, enabling users to view approval history directly from the Sales Orders form and supporting downstream processing that depends on approval status.

From a data modeling perspective, the ETRM metadata classifies this object heuristically as a link table. This is a modeling suggestion rather than a physical mandate: the table primarily records relationships and events — associating an approver (FND_USER), an order (SO_HEADERS_ALL), an action (SO_ACTIONS), and a result (SO_RESULTS_B). It functions as an associative or transactional record bridging these entities rather than as a standalone reference hub.

Key Information Stored

The table contains 30 documented columns. The most significant are described below.

• ORDER_APPROVAL_ID — Surrogate primary key for the approval record. It is the sole column of unique index SO_ORDER_APPROVALS_U1 and the defining column of primary key constraint SO_ORDER_APROVALS_PK.
• HEADER_ID — Foreign key to SO_HEADERS_ALL, identifying the sales order to which the approval pertains. Together with ORDER_APPROVAL_ID it forms the business-key candidate unique index SO_ORDER_APPROVALS_UK1 / SO_ORDER_APPROVALS_U2 (HEADER_ID, ORDER_APPROVAL_ID).
• APPROVER_ID — Foreign key to FND_USER, identifying the user who performed the approval action.
• DATE_APPROVED — Timestamp of the approval decision, central to approval history and cycle-time reporting.
• ACTION_ID — Foreign key to SO_ACTIONS, recording the approval action taken.
• RESULT_ID — Foreign key to SO_RESULTS_B, capturing the outcome or result associated with the action.
• CUSTOMER_ID — Foreign key to RA_CUSTOMERS, denormalizing the customer on the order at approval time.
• ORDER_TYPE_ID — Foreign key to SO_ORDER_TYPES_115_ALL, identifying the order type under which approval occurred.
• APPROVAL_COMMENT — Free-text comment entered by the approver, frequently used to justify a rejection or conditional approval.
• WHO columns — CREATION_DATE, CREATED_BY, LAST_UPDATE_DATE, LAST_UPDATED_BY, and LAST_UPDATE_LOGIN provide standard Oracle Applications audit information.
• CONTEXT and ATTRIBUTE1–ATTRIBUTE15 — Descriptive flexfield columns reserved for customer-specific configuration and extensions.

Common Use Cases and Queries

Typical scenarios include retrieving the full approval history for an order, identifying orders awaiting action, measuring approval cycle times, and auditing approver activity.

• Approval history for an order: select rows from SO_ORDER_APPROVALS where HEADER_ID equals a given order header, ordered by DATE_APPROVED.
• Join to FND_USER to resolve APPROVER_ID into a user name, and to SO_ACTIONS and SO_RESULTS_B to translate ACTION_ID and RESULT_ID into descriptive labels.
• Join to SO_HEADERS_ALL on HEADER_ID to include order number, customer, and order status in reports.
• Cycle-time analysis: compare DATE_APPROVED against CREATION_DATE of the order or approval record to derive approval duration.
• Approver workload reporting: group by APPROVER_ID over a date range for compliance and monitoring purposes.

A representative pattern joins the approval table to the order and user tables, filtering on HEADER_ID, to present an approval audit listing within a custom report or concurrent program.

Related Objects

• SO_HEADERS_ALL — Joined on SO_ORDER_APPROVALS.HEADER_ID; the parent sales order header.
• FND_USER — Joined on APPROVER_ID; resolves the approving user.
• SO_ACTIONS — Joined on ACTION_ID; describes the approval action.
• SO_RESULTS_B — Joined on RESULT_ID; describes the action result.
• RA_CUSTOMERS — Joined on CUSTOMER_ID; supplies customer context.
• SO_ORDER_TYPES_115_ALL — Joined on ORDER_TYPE_ID; identifies the order type.

These relationships confirm the table's role as an order-level approval link, connecting order, customer, approver, action, and result entities within the Order Management data model.