Payments Stuck In Workflow Step 20 Pending Approval

A payment batch is stuck at Life Cycle Step 20 - Pending Approval in PEA workflow

A payment batch is stuck at Life Cycle Step 20 - Pending Approval in PEA workflow while Approval Status is A - Approved and Approval Comment is populated

• Payment Entry

• Pending Actions (Administration Mode)

• Workflow Business Rules

• User Attributes

Various factors can result in existing pending actions becoming ineffective, including pending actions being deleted by administrators prematurely, and also pending actions not auto-approving when one approver from a group completes a step. Other potential factors may include connectivity issues, product integration/setup issues, or implementing a server migration before all workflow pending actions have been approved.

In the event that an approver is unable to approve a payment batch via the Hub Approvals card and/or via the Approve button on the Payment Entry batch header screen, the Resubmit button can be clicked to generate a new pending action.

If Resubmit fails to generate a new pending action (or if the function is unavailable), a system administrator can navigate to System Administration > Workflow Administration > Pending Actions (Administration Mode) to copy an existing pending action into the same, or another approver's username.

1. Click Search

2. Enter the Process (PEA), Approver, and/or Active (date)

3. Click Update

4. Delete data from the Active field, change Rule Type to Notify and click Accept

5. Click Copy

6. In the Copy Pending Action To... screen, select the approver. Note that if the Active data has not been deleted from the original record, user will receive message The model record is 'active.' The step number must be greater than 1. It is important not to enter a step higher than the original pending action here. As long as the the Active data has been deleted from the original record, a higher step will not be required here. Enter same or lower value. 

7. Click Accept

8. With the newly created record selected, click Update

9. Enter today's date in the Active field, adhering to MMDDYYYY format

10. Enter a time in the next field directly to the right, adhering to HH:MM:SS.FFF format

11. Change Rule Type to Approve

12. Change the Approver field to a different approver if desired (user does not have to be a PEA approver, specifically), or leave as the same approver

13. Click Accept

14. The approver should now try and approve the pending action via their Hub Approvals card, via the Approve button on the Payment Entry batch header, or just Output-Release the batch. If the approver clicks Output-Release to resubmit the batch into workflow, they should then check that the Approve button has become active on the Payment Entry batch header screen and click it. If an error message is received when approving via the Hub Approvals card, try Output-Releasing the batch directly from Payment Entry, and/or clicking Approve on the batch (if applicable).

Note that this can also be attempted for workflow processes where transaction life cycle steps are approved rather than batch life cycle steps, e.g. RVA - Payment Reversal approvals

Also note that the Resubmit button may become active/effective again if existing pending actions for the batch/transaction are first deleted from Pending Actions. However, if pending actions are deleted, the above workaround steps will no longer be applicable. For that reason, deleting all pending actions associated with a batch or transaction should be viewed as a second troubleshooting step following the above recommendation.

Payment Entry Workflow Batches Stay At 20 Pending After Approved