About Sale Order Approval Check Lists


Sale Order Check List and Approval Process is an Odoo app, which provides a checklist for each sale order state to control requirements' fulfillment and to make sure that each action is fully approved by responsible users. Choose states to assign various checklists and prepare any number of checkpoints for each stage. Check the fulfillment progress on sale order and quotation kanban and form views.

To move a sale order forward to the next state, its checklist should be fully confirmed. Or don't add checklist points to some states, to avoid moving restrictions (e.g. moving from 'Won' to the further stages as 'Won Archived' might not require approving any statements).

Checklist actions are saved in history. If a sale order is moved between stages, already done check items would be recovered. If you want to avoid this behavior, enable the setting 'Not Saved'. The option is assigned for each checklist point separately.

The app lets assign security groups for each checklist point and only users from those groups would be able to confirm a related item. You can also assign a person to be a 'Sale Order Checklists Super User'.

Stage and team-specific Sale Order checklist

Multiply Sale Order checklist roles

Checklist fulfillment process

Approval history



Configuring Sale Order Approval Check Lists


Checklists are defined for each sales team in order to let you reflect various workflows depending on applied sales typology. Sales managers by themselves specify what and in which order state should be done and approved. The number of checkpoints is unlimited, might reflect custom stages, and is as unique as you want. A checklist is automatically prepared when a sale order has an assigned team and gets its state updated.

The checklist is added for each team separately. To add a checklist to a particular sales team:

1. Go to the Sales app

2. Click Configuration > Sales Teams

3. Chose a team

4. Click on the tab 'Checklist'

5. Click 'Add a line' and choose an order's state

6. In the next column write what should be done on its stage

7. Add some notes to the checkpoint. The note will be shown as a user hovers over the checklist point

8. Choose responsible user groups or leave the field empty, so all users with access to a sale order will be able to confirm the checklist point (see User Roles)

9. Put a tick in the box 'Not saved', to avoid saving the done checklist points, if the order stage was changed and then returned back to this state

10. Choose the point's color

11. Choose the stages, transferring to which doesn't require a checklist.




Approving process



Each checklist represents a set of checkpoints, which should be ticked in order to move a sale order to the next stage. A checklist is formed automatically as the sale order is created. In the checklist tab of a sale order, you see only the checkpoints that relate to the current stage.

A checkpoint - is a written task on the checklist, that should be marked done at a particular stage in order to move the sale order to the next state. For example, in the 'New' stage of a sale order, there might be checkpoints 'Check client's details' and 'Call to confirm the purchase' which should be completed by the responsible for that person. The responsible for the checkpoint completion may be all employees or particular user groups.

You can move a sale order forward to the next state and back to a prior one. For example, the quotation was created, the checklist filled and after that, the quotation was sent to a client. Therefore the sale order moved from the stage 'Quotation' to the stage 'Quotation sent' and a new checklist was assigned.

As for moving to a prior stage, for example, the quotation was sent and the order moved to the stage 'Sale order', but the sale order was canceled as a client asked to make some changes and the order returned to the stage 'Quotation'. Therefore, the checklist was recovered. However, there might be a need to revise some of the checklist points, to make sure everything is up-to-date. In this case, it might be useful to avoid saving some of the checklist points. For that, enable the setting 'Not Saved' (see Approval history).

In order to move a sale order to a new stage, a salesperson needs to enter all confirmation points and should get approval for those he/she doesn't have a right to confirm. As you mark checkpoints on the order's form you will see the progress in percent above the checklist.

To mark a checkpoint as done:

1. Open a sale order

2. In the 'Checklist' tab put a tick by a completed checkpoint


If the checklist is not done, a user can't move the sale order forward to the next stage. To move a sale order forward, its checklist should be fully confirmed. Otherwise, you would see the 'Validation error', which states that not all the checklist points are confirmed.

It is impossible to mark a checkpoint done if it is assigned to other user groups. In this case, a warning appears. The warning states the checkpoint, that cannot be confirmed (see User Roles).


You can determine some stages, to which a sale order may be moved without completing the checklist. For that find the section 'Determine the states moving to which does not require approving checkpoints' below the checklist as you edit the sales team. For example, you can let employees move a sale order to the 'Cancelled' stage, as there is no need to complete checklist points when the sale order is no longer active.


Interfaces

You can track the checklist progress of all sale orders from the quotations and orders list view.

To see the checklist in the sale order's form:

1. Open any sale order 

2. Click on the tab 'Checklist'

There you can see all the checkpoints for this stage and the completion progress. The completion progress is automatically calculated. Also, you can see how much is already done in percentages. 

In order to mark a checkpoint done, just tick the box near the required item. The done checkpoints are marked in green color.

Not yet done checkpoints are shown right on the tree of sale orders and quotations. You may distinguish those by colors and may always search them by keywords. To search among the checklist choose the option 'Checklist To-Do:' as you type in the search bar.


Approval history

See the history of approval on the sale order form. There you can find out who and when marked a particular checklist point, did or reset any of such approvals. In such a way it is always possible to control user actions and, if needed, ask for an explanation. For example, if a checkpoint 'Pass the documents to the accountant' is marked done, but the accountant didn't receive anything. You can open the history and see who and when marked it done to understand the situation.



It is particularly useful as sometimes there are things that should be checked regularly and also something that should be changed only once. If a sale order is moved between stages, already done check items by default should be marked done again. To avoid this behavior, disable the setting 'Not Saved'. The option is assigned for each checklist point separately. 

For example, a client's purchase details might be checked regularly, and signing the terms of the agreement or confirming the payment method should be done only once.

To turn on the recovery of a checklist point:

1. Go to Configuration > Sales Teams

2. Chose a Sales Team

3. Open the tab 'Checklist'

4. Make sure that the option 'Not Saved' in the related column is disabled (isn't ticked) by the checkpoints you want to save.




User Roles


Access to mark the checkpoints can be given to various user groups. 

To choose the responsible-for-a-checkpoint groups of users:

1. Start editing a Sales Team

2. In the field 'User groups' choose all user groups that will have a right to mark the point done

Each point can be available for more than one user group. If the field is left empty, then any user with access to the sale order can mark the checkpoint.

Here are some examples of the assigned-per-checkpoint user groups:

1. 'Approve linked contract'  User groups: Sales manager 

2. 'Check the details'  User groups: Sales/User: all documents and Sales/User: Own Documents only

3. 'Create invoice'  User groups: Accountant

4. 'Confirm receiving the documents'  User groups: Accountant

5. 'Send confirmation to the client'  User groups: empty

Simultaneously, there is the special role 'Sale Order Checklists Super User' which allows overcoming the restrictions. It is possible to assign the super checklist access level for any responsible employee. A user with such rights would be able both to change a sale order state without approving the checklist and confirm any checkpoint disregarding security restrictions.

To assign a user the 'Sale Order Checklists Super User':

1. Go to General Settings > Manage users

2. Choose a user

4. Scroll down to the section 'Sales' and find the field 'Sale Checklist'

5. Choose the option 'Sale Order Checklists Super User'.