Food Manufacturer Automates PO Approvals

The Problem

A mid-market food manufacturer with 2,000+ employees and multiple purchasing organizations was struggling with purchase order approvals. Their process relied on email-based routing and paper signatures through a multi-level approval hierarchy — plant manager, procurement lead, and CFO approval for orders over $50K.

The result:

• 3-5 day approval cycles — approvers were rarely at their desks, and emails got lost
• Zero visibility — finance had no idea which POs were pending or where they were stuck
• Paper audit trail — approvers printed, signed, and scanned documents. A compliance nightmare.
• Stalled IT project — the company's internal team spent 4+ months on a custom integration before shelving it
• Business impact — supply chain couldn't schedule deliveries, vendors complained about delays, working capital was tied up

The Solution

Forged Integrations delivered a complete SAP-DocuSign integration in approximately 80 billable hours across 5 weeks.

Release Strategy Mapping

Analyzed existing multi-level approval hierarchies in SAP and mapped each rule to a DocuSign envelope template with conditional routing.

Custom SmartForm

Built a custom SmartForm that triggers DocuSign on PO creation. The form displays PO details — line items, vendor, amount — and pre-populates the DocuSign envelope based on PO amount and purchasing organization.

Automatic Release & Callback Handler

DocuSign webhook callbacks are received by an ABAP-based handler that validates the signature, confirms approver identity, and programmatically releases the PO in SAP. No manual intervention required.

Safety Blocks & Resilience

Goods Receipt safety block prevents GR posting until the PO is formally released. Idempotent processing ensures duplicate callbacks don't create duplicate releases. A polling fallback checks DocuSign for envelope status every 15 minutes if webhooks fail.

Monitoring Dashboard

Real-time visibility into approval status, pending signers, and completed approvals. Email alerts when POs are signed or rejected.

Implementation Timeline

1. Week 1: Kick-off & Requirements — Release strategy workshop, DocuSign environment setup
2. Weeks 2-3: Design & Development — SmartForm, callback handler, monitoring dashboard
3. Week 4: UAT & Tuning — Business testing, email template refinement, safety block validation
4. Week 5: Production Go-Live — Cutover, knowledge transfer, on-call support

Technical Approach

• Pure ABAP — no middleware, no external APIs beyond DocuSign
• Application registry pattern for callback routing
• Clean separation of concerns — SmartForm logic, callback handler, and polling service are independent
• Comprehensive testing — unit and integration tests for all critical paths
• Zero external dependencies — no enterprise service bus, no integration platform, no extra licenses