Why does this happen in Oracle Fusion: Purchase order stuck in Pending Approval, nobody has the task?

The order says Pending Approval, but no approver can find it in their worklist. The approval task behind the order is gone, so there is nothing for anyone to approve.

Open the order and look at its approval history. Note who, if anyone, it is waiting on. If it is waiting on a real person who is away or has left, reassign the task to a new approver from the BPM Worklist. If there is no task at all, withdraw the order and submit it again. That starts approval from the beginning and creates a new task. If many orders are affected at once, raise a service request: Oracle has a support note on automating the withdraw and resubmit for this case.

Purchase order stuck in Pending Approval, nobody has the task in Oracle Fusion: Cause and Fix

Root cause

Oracle has documented orders that stay in Pending Approval after the approval task is no longer available. The status still says waiting, but the workflow that should be waiting has stopped.

How to fix it

Open the order and look at its approval history. Note who, if anyone, it is waiting on.
If it is waiting on a real person who is away or has left, reassign the task to a new approver from the BPM Worklist.
If there is no task at all, withdraw the order and submit it again. That starts approval from the beginning and creates a new task.
If many orders are affected at once, raise a service request: Oracle has a support note on automating the withdraw and resubmit for this case.

Where to go in Fusion

Purchase Orders, Manage Orders (approval history, Withdraw, Submit)
BPM Worklist (reassign a pending task)

Sources

Oracle Help Center: How you reassign pending purchase order approvals to a new approver

My Oracle Support notes, for readers with access. We do not reproduce their content.

2534081.1: Several Purchase Orders Are In Pending Approval Status, But Workflow/Task Is No Longer Available
2786633.1: Purchase Order Stuck in Rejected/Pending Approval Status Due to Document Partially Renumbered Using SOAP Service

Sources Written in plain words from Oracle’s public documentation and the support notes and forum reports listed above. Not yet checked against a live instance by our reviewer. Navigation and behavior vary by configuration; verify in your own instance and test before acting.

Solve it, then prevent it

This page covers one issue. These help with the rest:

🗂️Browse every error fixCosting, orders, procurement and inventory, one page each.→🧾The setup behind itPurchase order approvals, in the purchasing guide.→🧭Learn the whole flowThe P2P learning path, twenty short stops.→

More Procurement issues

Purchase order stuck in Pending Approval, and nobody has the task

Solve it, then prevent it