Preparing to Create Approval Rules

Before you create an approval rule, take note of the following reminders:

You can create multiple approval rules for a record type if the combination of name, priority, and saved search condition is unique. For more information about uniqueness validation, see Approval Rule Validation.
If you want to use saved searches in approval rules, create saved searches of transaction records before you create approval rules. For guidelines and instructions for defining saved searches, see Saved Searches.

Tip:
Make sure you remember the titles of your saved searches when you define or update them. Remembering the titles will save you time when creating approval rules.

You don't have to select a saved search when creating approval rules. The workflow filters records for approval based on the transaction amount or employee limit, depending on your Approval Routing settings.
The Saved Search Condition field can load a maximum of 4,000 public saved searches for each user.
By default, an approval rule locks records that are Approved or Pending Approval. You can only edit and resubmit a record for approval if its status is Rejected. For more information, see Resubmitting Records for Approval.
If you enabled the required features for project-based approval, the Project Manager approver type is added to the approval matrix. For more information, see Enabling Prerequisite Features for SuiteApprovals.

Project-based approvals apply only to expense reports, purchase orders, or vendor bills linked to projects.

SuiteApprovals can process up to 18,000 approver records for each NetSuite account. Take note of the following record category limits:

If you exceed any of the category limits or the combined record limit, you may get an error when you create approval rules.

Make sure you know who the required approvers are for expense reports. For more information about supervisor and expense approver approvals, see Approving an Expense Report.

Approval Rule Validation

SuiteApprovals validate approval rules based on the following criteria:

The system checks for approval rule uniqueness in the following order:
1. Name
2. Priority
3. Unique combination of the following:
  - Record Name
  - Subsidiary
  - Start Date
  - End Date
  - Status: Running
Watch the following help video for information about approval rule uniqueness:
The system checks for running approval rules. If there are multiple, the rules are evaluated by priority and activates the one with the highest priority.

If the system finds an active approval rule with no assigned priority, that rule is used first by default.
The rule checks if the record meets any saved search criteria. The following list explains the possible outcomes:
- If the rule matches a record, the workflow proceeds.
- If the rule doesn't match, the system runs the rule with the next highest priority, and continues until a match is found.
- If no rule matches, the record exits the approval workflow and you must approve the record manually.