Overview

The New Vendor Request Approval feature allows organisation administrators to configure a structured, multi-step approval workflow that must be completed before a vendor invitation is sent. This article guides organisation administrators through assigning user permissions, configuring approval groups and routes specifically for New Vendor Request approvals, enabling the organisation-level Optional Business Number setting where available, and confirming the workflow is ready for requesters and approvers to use.

Who this article is for: This article is for Felix Organisation Administrators who are responsible for configuring approval workflows and managing user permissions within their organisation.

 

Prerequisites & Permissions

The New Vendor Request Approval feature is a subsetting of the Approval Workflows feature. Before organisation administrators can configure approval groups, routes, permissions, or organisation-level vendor settings, the required feature settings must already be enabled for the organisation by an internal Felix team member. Please reach out to your Customer Success Manager to enable this functionality.

Before beginning configuration, confirm the following:

• You have administrator access to the Felix organisation settings.
• The Approval Workflows feature is already enabled for your organisation. Contact your Customer Success Manager if you are unsure whether this feature has been enabled.
• The New Vendor Request Approval feature is already enabled for your organisation. Contact your Customer Success Manager if you are unsure whether this feature has been enabled.
• You have the names or email addresses of the users who will be assigned as approvers in the New Vendor Request approval chain.

 

Assign the "Request New Vendor" Permission to a Security Group

Assign the Request new vendor permission to the security group(s) whose members should be able to submit New Vendor Requests. Without this permission, the Request new vendor button will not appear in the vendor list for those users.

1. In the Felix organisation application, navigate to Settings > Security Groups.
2. Click on the security group you want to update, or click New to create a new security group or open an existing security group and select Actions > Edit.
3. In the security group configuration, locate the Vendor section of the permissions list.
4. Enable the Request new vendor permission checkbox.
5. Save the security group.
6. Confirm that the users who should be able to submit New Vendor Requests are members of the security group that has the Request new vendor permission enabled.

NOTE: The Request new vendor permission will already be assigned to default roles when the feature is enabled. Review your custom security groups to determine whether additional groups should also receive this permission.

 

Assign the "Approval" Permissions to a Security Group

1. Assign the Approval reports permission to the security group(s) whose members should be able to oversee all New Vendor Requests. Without this permission, only requesters and approvers can view individual approval instances.
2. Assign the Action Approval On-Behalf-Of Another User permission to users who should intervene in approvals in case an approval is stalled or a user is away.
3. Assign the Manage Approval Workflows permission to users who will be configuring and maintaining approval groups and routes.

NOTE: These permissions will already be assigned to default roles when the feature is enabled. Review your custom security groups to determine whether additional groups should also receive these permissions.

 

Configure Approval Groups for New Vendor Request Approvals

Approval groups for New Vendor Request approvals are separate from sourcing approval groups used for RFQ, RFA, and Variation approvals. You must configure at least one approval group with the New vendor request approvals toggle enabled before the workflow can be used.

 

Step 1: Navigate to Approval Group Settings

1. In the Felix organisation application, navigate to Tools > Approval Workflows > Approval Groups.
2. Click New to create a new approval group, or click on an existing group to edit it.

 

Step 2: Configure the Approval Type Toggles

On the Add or Edit Approval Group page, two approval type toggles control which workflows the group is available for:

• New vendor request approvals — When this toggle is ON, the approval group is available in the approval group selector in the New Vendor Request form.
• Sourcing approvals — When this toggle is ON, the approval group is available for sourcing approval workflows, such as RFQ, RFA, or Variation approvals.

IMPORTANT: An approval group cannot be saved with both the New vendor request approvals and Sourcing approvals toggles set to OFF. At least one toggle must be enabled before the group can be saved.

NOTE: If the New vendor request approvals toggle displays a lock icon and is inactive, the New Vendor Request Approval feature may not be enabled for your organisation. Contact Felix Support or your Felix Customer Success Manager to request feature enablement. If the Sourcing approvals toggle displays a lock icon and is inactive, sourcing approval features may not be enabled for your organisation.

1. Set the New vendor request approvals toggle to ON to make this group available for New Vendor Request approvals.
2. If the group should also be used for sourcing approvals, set the Sourcing approvals toggle to ON. If the Sourcing approvals toggle is ON, the Projects selector appears. Select All projects to make the group available across all projects for sourcing approvals, or select a specific project to restrict the group to that project. The Projects selector cannot be left empty — if nothing is selected, the system defaults to All projects.
3. Enter the approval group name and any other required fields.
4. Save the approval group.

 

Step 3: Add Approvers and Create an Approval Route

1. Within the approval group, create at least one approval route. An approval route defines the specific chain of approvers that will be presented to requesters when they select this group in the New Vendor Request form.
2. When creating or editing a route within an approval group that is enabled for New Vendor Request approvals only, the Use this route for approval of selector is not displayed — all routes in a New-Vendor-Request-only group apply to New Vendor Requests by default.
3. Setting the route as Default will automatically assign all requests to this route. Requesters will be able to change the route in the selector if required.
4. If the approval group is enabled for both New Vendor Request approvals and Sourcing approvals, configure each route to specify which entity type it applies to. Only routes configured for New Vendor Requests will appear in the requester's route selector when submitting a New Vendor Request.
5. Add the approvers to the route, assigning each approver to the correct approval level. Approvers at the same level will have their turns activated simultaneously. The last approver in the sequence — or the only approver if only one is configured — is treated as the final approver who triggers the vendor invitation send upon approval.
6. Save the route.

 

Step 4: Verify the Approval Group in the Approval Groups List

1. Return to the Approval Groups list view.
2. Confirm that the newly configured approval group displays the correct value in the Approval type column:
   • Groups enabled for New Vendor Request approvals only display New vendor request.
   • Groups enabled for Sourcing approvals only display Sourcing.
   • Groups enabled for both display New vendor request, Sourcing.
3. Use the Approval type filter to filter the list by approval type to confirm only the intended groups are shown.

 

Part 4: Enable the Optional Business Number Setting (if required)

The Optional Business Number setting allows requesters to submit a New Vendor Request without providing a business number, deferring business number collection to the vendor onboarding stage. This setting is disabled by default and only appears in organisation Vendor Settings after the required internal feature setting has been enabled for the organisation.

1. In the Felix organisation application, navigate to Settings > Vendor Settings.
2. Locate the New vendor request section within Vendor settings.
3. Enable the Optional business number checkbox within the New vendor request section.
4. Click Save.

NOTE: When the Optional business number setting is enabled, requesters see a checkbox labelled Optional business number after the email address is validated. Checking this checkbox in the request form removes the mandatory requirement for the business number field and allows the request to be submitted without it. The business number will be collected during the vendor's onboarding process instead. When a request is submitted without a business number, the Approver Experience Business Details section displays an empty state for the business number field.

 

Troubleshooting

Issue	Likely cause	Resolution
The New vendor request approvals toggle on the Approval Group page is locked or inactive	The New Vendor Request Approval feature may not be enabled for the organisation	Contact Felix Support or your Felix customer contact to confirm whether the feature has been enabled for your organisation
No approval groups appear in the requester's Approval group dropdown when completing a New Vendor Request	No approval groups have the New vendor request approvals toggle set to ON, or the configured groups have no routes enabled for New Vendor Requests	Review all approval groups in Tools > Approval Workflows > Approval Groups and confirm at least one group has the New vendor request approvals toggle enabled and contains at least one configured route
An approval group that should appear for New Vendor Requests does not appear in the requester's dropdown	The approval group's New vendor request approvals toggle is OFF, or the routes within the group are not configured for New Vendor Requests	Edit the approval group and confirm the New vendor request approvals toggle is ON. For groups enabled for both types, confirm that individual routes are also configured for the New Vendor Request entity type
A sourcing-only approval group is appearing in the New Vendor Request approval group selector	The approval group may have the New vendor request approvals toggle incorrectly set to ON	Edit the approval group and set the New vendor request approvals toggle to OFF if the group should be used for sourcing approvals only

 

Related Resources

• How to Submit a New Vendor Request
• How to Review and Action a New Vendor Request (Approver Experience)
• How to Track the Progress of a New Vendor Request
• Sourcing Approvals vs New Vendor Request Approvals: What's the Difference?
• How to Create and Modify Approval Workflows
• What is an Approval Workflow