How to implement this scenerio in the workflow - More details given Inside?

Question

We are implementing a simple PO release workflow in ECC 5.0. The workflow just has a decision step and a release step. We have implemented the workflow in our system and it seems to be working fine.
Problem Statement:
    The client has many Purchase Order Administrators or Purchasing clerks who needs to approve the PO. But the client does not have many user logins or license to have more users in SAP. So they are checking if it is possible to have the workflow in SAP but to execute the workflow from outside SAP by using one user login.
To be more specific, Here is what they are asking.
1). They want that SAP must send a work item to their lotus notes inbox with a URL link in the email.
2). The user will open the email from Lotus notes and then click on the URL link which might be something similar to the decision work item. The user will select YES or NO which is similar to clicking approve or reject
3). Once the user has made a decision by clicking on the URL in the email they want that the PO should be released in SAP with a common user ID say WF-BATCH.
4). We cannot use Extended notification as we would like to have only one user WF-BATCH for approval but send emails to all the Purchasing clerks. I believe that the extended notifications can only send emails to the id configured in the user master. Since the client wants to have only one user in SAP but many PO approvers  outside SAP.
My questions:
1). Can we configure extended notifications in workflow such that the system sends emails to different purchasing clerks in their lotus notes inbox? If yes then how can I configure that?
2). If it is not possible then how do we achieve the requirement from outside SAP but still have the workflow?
3). If we need to implement some external bespoke solutions then what all things would be involved? Any guidance on how this scenario can be achieved and what issues we may have?
4). How can we trigger a workitem from outside SAP but still make it work as if it would have been triggered from SAP. Can we call some RFC FM to trigger the workitem and force a single user id?
Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks in advance.
any idea guys?
Edited by: Workflow  learner on Jul 28, 2008 11:22 AM

Answer 1

Well, apart from the obvious licensing issues which you should definitely discuss with your account manager, that's going to fail any audit. The 'signature' on the approval is the user's login, so if approvals are done by a common userid you will need to put a new authentication mechanism in place.
The two major issues are:
Forwarding - how do you control someone forwarding it to someone else to approve?
Traceability - how can you prove who really approved it?
This is not a small project. Much of this depends on your internal infrastructure, you will need to get Basis, Security, Networks, and Mail people involved, we cannot really help you much at this point.
Sorry it's not the answer you want to hear.
Good luck,
Mike