Lease Contract approvals allow you to set up an approval process for releasing and terminating Lease Contracts. The approvers and the order of approval can be set up according to your company’s needs. The Lease Contract is released or terminated only after all approvers have approved it. This guide describes a 2-level approval: the first approver reviews the Lease Contract, and the second approver gives the final approval. More levels can be set up if needed, e.g. 4 levels for termination.

To start using Lease Contract approvals:

1. Go to Real Estate Setup, go to the System Feature Configuration section and turn on Use Lease Contract Approval Workflow, so the related actions can be found on the Lease Contract.

2. Go to Workflows and create new approval workflows for Lease Contracts with the Lease Contracts category: one for release (Lease Contract Approval 2 level Workflow) and one for termination (Lease Contract Termination Approval 2 level Workflow). Turn on Enabled for each workflow. Examples of how the workflows are set up are provided at the end of this guide, see Setup example.

When to use this

Use Lease Contract approvals in the following situations:

• A new Lease Contract has to be approved by two people before it is released.
• A released Lease Contract has to be approved by two people before it is terminated.
• You need to cancel an approval request, correct the Lease Contract and send it again.

Approver types

Lease Contract approvals use standard Business Central approval workflows. Approvers are defined by the Approver Type in the workflow: Salesperson/Purchaser, Approver or Workflow User Group. For more information, see the Microsoft documentation: Create approval workflows to connect tasks, Set up approval users and Set up workflow users.

The scenarios in this guide use Approver Type Workflow User Group with Workflow User Group Code ‘MULTILEVEL’.

Status and Approval Status values

The Status and Approval Status fields on the Lease Contract Card show where the Lease Contract is in the approval process.

Scenario 1. Send Lease Contract for release approval

A new Lease Contract with status New has to be approved before it is released.

To send the Lease Contract for approval:

1. Open the Lease Contract Card and check that all details are correct.
2. Go to Request Approval and click Send Release Approval Request.

3. The system checks the Lease Contract for errors and sends it for approval. The message ‘An approval request has been sent.’ is shown.

The Approval Status changes to Created. Send Release Approval Request is no longer available and Cancel Approval Request becomes available. The request is sent to the first approver.

Scenario 2. Approve or reject a request

After the Lease Contract is sent for approval, the first approver can find it on the Requests to Approve page.

To approve or reject the request:

1. Go to Requests to Approve.
2. Select the request. The Approval Code column shows which workflow the request comes from, e.g. ‘LEASE-APPROVE-2’ for release.

3. Click Open Record if you want to review the Lease Contract.
4. Click Comments if you want to add a comment, e.g. the reason for rejection, before approving or rejecting the request.
5. Click Approve, or click Reject if the Lease Contract cannot be approved or rejected.

When the first approver approves, the request is sent to the second approver. The second approver follows the same steps. When the second approver approves the release request, the Lease Contract is released automatically: its status changes to Released and the Approval Status changes to Approved.

When an approver rejects the request, the approval process stops. The Lease Contract status stays New and the Approval Status changes to Rejected.

Scenario 3. Send Lease Contract for termination approval

A Lease Contract with status Released has to be terminated, and the termination has to be approved.

To send the Lease Contract for termination approval:

1. Open the Lease Contract Card.
2. Go to Request Approval and click Send Termination Approval Request.

3. In the S4RE Terminate Lease Contract window, enter the Termination Date and the reason for termination in the Termination Notes field, and click OK.

4. The system termination request for approval. The message ‘An approval request has been sent’ is shown.

The approvers approve or reject the request the same way as in Scenario 2. When the second approver approves, the Lease Contract is terminated automatically: its status changes to Terminated and the Approval Status changes to Termination Approved.

Scenario 4. Cancel an approval request

The Lease Contract was sent for approval, but it has to be corrected before it is approved.

To cancel the approval request:

1. Open the Lease Contract Card.
2. Go to Request Approval and click Cancel Approval Request.

3. The approval request is canceled and a message is shown.

The Approval Status changes to Canceled and the request disappears from the approvers Requests to Approve list. Make the changes and click Send Release Approval Request again. The approval process starts again from the first approver.

Tracking approvals

To see who has approved the Lease Contract and which approver has the request now, open the Lease Contract Card, go to Contract and click Approvals. 

The Approval Entries page opens.

Each approver has a separate line. Entries of earlier requests stay on the page, e.g. with status Canceled, so you can see the full approval history of the Lease Contract. The main fields are described below:

Setup example

This section describes how the 2-level release and termination workflows are set up.

Step 1. Turn on approval workflows for Lease Contracts

Go to Real Estate Setup, go to the System Feature Configuration section and turn on Use Lease Contract Approval Workflow.

Step 2. Set up the approval levels

Go to Workflow User Groups and create a group, e.g. ‘MULTILEVEL’. Add the approvers and enter Sequence No. for each of them. The approvers have to be set up in Approval User Setup first. For more information, see the Microsoft documentation: Set up approval users and Set up workflow users.

Step 3. Set up the release workflow

Go to Workflows. Lease Contract workflows are listed under the Lease Contracts category, e.g. Lease Contract Approval 2 level Workflow and Lease Contract Termination Approval 2 level Workflow.

Open Lease Contract Approval 2 level Workflow (code ‘LEASE-APPROVE-2’, Category ‘LEASE’). It has the following steps:

The last two steps define the approval levels. When the first approver approves and approvals are still pending, the request is sent to the second approver. When the second approver approves, the Lease Contract is released.

(+) before a response means that the step has more than one response, e.g. the approval request is created, the Approval Status is set and the request is sent to the first approver. To see all responses of a step, click the Then Response field.

Check that the correct Workflow User Group is selected in the first step and turn on Enabled.

Step 4. Set up the termination workflow

Open Lease Contract Termination Approval 2 level Workflow (code ‘LEASE-TERMINATE-2’). It is set up the same way, with these differences:

• The first event is Approval Request for Lease Contract Termination is requested, with the condition Status: Released.
• After the request is sent, the message ‘Lease contract termination request sent for approval’ is shown.
• The last approval step uses Terminate Lease Contract instead of Release Lease Contract.

(+) before a response means that the step has more than one response, e.g. the approval request is created, the Approval Status is set and the request is sent to the first approver. To see all responses of a step, click the Then Response field.

Adding more approval levels

To add an approval level:

1. Go to Workflow User Groups and add a user with the next Sequence No.
2. Open the workflow and add a new An approval request is approved step with the condition Sequence No. of the new level and the response Send approval request for the record and create a notification.
3. Change the condition of the Release Lease Contract or Terminate Lease Contract step to the last Sequence No., so the Lease Contract is released or terminated only after the last approver approves.

E.g. a 4-level termination workflow sends the request to the next approver after Sequence No. 1, 2 and 3, and terminates the Lease Contract after Sequence No. 4.

Email notifications

Email notifications about approval requests and their results are set up in the standard Business Central way. For more information, see the Microsoft documentation: Set up workflow notifications, Specify when and how to receive workflow notifications and Set up email in Business Central.