Business Requirement:
In my recent implementation, a new requirement arose where the approver needed to receive email notifications for purchase order approvals, and the sender needed to be notified of the purchase order's approval or rejection.
To achieve this, I configured the SMTP setup, approval user setup, and enabled the workflow for Purchase Order. Check out this blog for a detailed demonstration.
Configure SMTP:
To begin, it is necessary to configure the email setup, also known as SMTP setup, as Business Central cannot send email notifications without it.
Step 1:
Search Email Accounts by using tell me icon
Step 2:
Click on NEW and add email account
Step 3:
Select SMTP in the option or you can be based on your email domain
Step 4:
In the wizard select you email address and in the server URL – smtp-mail.outlook.com, server port – 25 and Authentication – Basic
Once you have configured your email accounts, you can easily test it by sending a test email directly from the Email Accounts page. This will ensure that your email is set up correctly and that you are able to send and receive emails without any issues.
By following above steps Email Accounts (SMTP) will configured.
Configure Approval user setup:
I added the BC user as the unlimited approver for user AKASH in the approval user setup.
Both users must have their email IDs mentioned, as the absence of an email ID will result in no email notifications being sent or received.
Configure Purchase Order Workflow:
To create a Purchase Order workflow in Business Central, you can use the standard template available and make a copy of it.
When a Purchase Order or any document is sent for approval, the approver will receive an email notification to approve the order, which is a default feature of Business Central.
However, in our business scenarios, the sender should also be notified when the document is approved or rejected. To meet this requirement, an additional condition must be added in the workflow response.
Step 1:
Open the Purchase order workflow and edit the line number 2 for response.
Step 2:
Add additional two response by clicking on ellipses (…)
Step 3:
When you click on the last line the in the below you see Boolean for Notify Sender and Notification Entry type. Turn On the Boolean and Select entry type as Approval.
Note:
Please make sure to select "Approver" as the approver type and "First Qualified Approver" as the approver limit type when setting up the workflow, as we are currently using the Approval User Setup.
The configured approval setup will trigger an email notification when a Purchase order is sent for approval.
Below the email notification generate purchase order send for Approval:
Below the email notification generate when purchase order Approved:
Below the email notification generate when purchase order send for Rejected:
