What version do you have?

In Version 9, no, there isn’t an out of the box workflow for this, but I can imagine a couple of ways to accomplish this. You could setup an event to validate against a list of buyers that they have entered their approval on a custom field on the Supplier at some point.  Restrict the access to update this field to just the list so that it has to be a Buyer in the list that updates the field.  Not really a workflow, but a validation point.

Alternately, you could setup an approval workflow with in DocMan that would require the attachment and approval of the attachment through the workflow as part of the process of setting up the supplier.  This wouldn’t prevent the supplier from being used really, but you could construct a process around it so that notifications would be sent when a new supplier is created and the attachment is started through the workflow.

In V10, not sure if there is a better way to do this….

We are on version 10.

I would like to evaluate the approval workflow with DocMan. Could you point me to any documentation on what that is and how to set it up?

I would start here:

https:///your.instance]/ifsdoc/documentation/en/default.htm?openpage=https://ifs9.instron.com/ifsdoc/documentation/en/Docman/frmApprovalTemplate.htm

Just tried it and it seems to work. Now we just have to define the rutine and the lobby elements/reports that goes with it in case any third party revision takes place. Thanks!

We have been using it for a while now and it is doing what it should. However there is a thing I do not get to work as we want to:

1. Change the user name in the approval steps after the approval has started. (if I get an approval step that is supposed to go to another user) 
   Can I change it?

If you go to the document revision > approval tab of the workflow in progress, you can cancel the existing approval, then modify the approvers.  I do not believe you can modify the approval flow while it is in progress, it has to be taken back to the Preliminary status.  Any approvers who have approved to that point will have to redo their approval as they get removed when you cancel.

I believe this is your only option if you want to make changes.

Alternately - and this is what we do, we set the approval steps with groups, rather than individual users.  If a user needs changed or added, we can make the change to the group - although this has the effect of changing all approval routings using that group.  This is also how we have parallel approvals as the first person in a group to get to the approval can do it, not just named individual users.