1. The strongly recommended best practice is to define only one main time approver per unit/organization (Timesheet Org).
   1. When there is more than one time approver defined per org, payroll crises are more likely to occur as additional settings are needed, and, with more "moving parts", more can go wrong.
   2. If there is a strong reason why there has to be more than one time approver for an org, make sure all requirements below are met.
2. For any person defined as a time approver in either NTRRQUE (the main time approver queue) or NBAJQUE (the override approver queue), the Superuser must verify with his/her organization’s Unit Security Contact (USC) that ALL of the following security profiles, along with appropriate “Settings”, have been requested for the time approver through the Security Application.

a. HR Org Access profile.

Settings for this profile should include any Timesheet Orgs the time approver is expected to approve time for.

b. Employee Class Access profile.

Settings for this profile should include all e-classes of all employees whose time sheets the time approver is expected to approve. The "MASTER" setting for this profile enables the time approver to approve all employee classes.

c. **At least one of three additional profiles**, depending on which one of the three is appropriate based on the time approver's role in the time approval process:

i. “Web and/or Department Time Entry Approver” profile.

ii. “Time Entry Approver Proxy” profile.

iii. “Web and/or Department Time Entry Superuser” profile, or its equivalent under “Central Payroll”, which is “Time Entry Superuser”.

1.Never choose a time approver who occupies a pooled position.

Banner defines time approval routing queues based strictly on the approver’s position number. So, if a given position number happens to be a “pooled” position, meaning more than one employee occupies that same position, Banner does not know who the approver should be in that case. When this mistake has been made, where the approver’s name would normally appear in NTRRQUE, in the “Current Incumbent” field, you will instead see the word “**MULTIPLE**” to indicate there is an issue that Banner sees multiple potential time approvers occupying the provided position, therefore does not know whom should be the approver. 

In this case, the time approval routing queue will be broken, and no one will be able to enter or approve time until this problem is fixed. So, Superusers need to be careful not to create this problem, and in case of issues, should double-check that no time approver occupies a pooled position.

2. Never choose a vacant position as the time approver position.

Because positions can become vacant over time, Superusers must remain watchful for time approvers who have vacated their positions and must modify the time approval security settings accordingly. If this is the problem, the word “Vacant” will appear in NTRRQUE, in the “Current Incumbent” field, in place of the time approver’s name.

3.Avoid changing time approval routing queues in the middle of a pay period.

While there is no rule against this, once all time sheets are approved for a given payroll period and before time sheets are started for the next payroll period is the ideal time to perform maintenance on an existing time approval routing queue. The routing queue is built for each employee's time sheet at the moment of timesheet submission based on how the routing queue was configured at the moment of timesheet submission. So if the Superuser changes the timesheet approval routing queue during the time frame in which timesheets are in the process of being submitted and approved, it needs to be understood that some timesheets might end up routing a certain way, while other timesheets within that same org might have ended up routing a different way.

4.Avoid setting up NTRRQUE in such a way that time approval is based on position, rather than on chart/COA and org code.

NTRRQUE allows Superusers to skip entering “COA” and “Organization” in the key block, and enter only “Position” in the key block instead. However, doing so is strongly advised against. The accepted practice is to set up time approval routing queues by COA and org, and NOT by position. Time approval setups by position tend to be forgotten about over time, and therefore tend not to be reviewed or maintained. Employees can also vacate their positions over time, which makes time approval routing queues based on position a misguided practice.

5. Watch out for entries in NBAJQUE that trump entries in NTRRQUE.

Banner's NTRRQUE page is where main time approval routing queues are defined. NBAJQUE contains time approver override settings. The NBAJQUE settings trump those in effect per NTRRQUE. If a small subset of employees is experiencing a time approval issue but other employees inside the same Timesheet Org are experiencing no issues with approval of time sheets, check out tips 4 and 5 first.