Patent ID: 7379931

Claim:
A method for searching for a selected role within a hierarchical organizational structure comprising: (a) identifying a selected role by providing an approval matrix associated with the business process, wherein the approval matrix includes one or more rows and one or more columns, wherein each entry in the approval matrix is defined by a corresponding row and a corresponding column, wherein each column in the approval matrix defines a potential condition and each row defines an approval role, wherein each entry in the approval matrix defines whether the approval role in the corresponding row is required for the business process when the potential condition in the corresponding column is met, determining a set of conditions that apply to the business process, determining a set of entries in the approval matrix which are in columns defining potential conditions that are met by the conditions that apply to the business process, identifying the approval roles defined by the set of entries in the approval matrix as roles required to authorize the business process, and identifying one of the roles which is required to authorize the business process as the selected role; (b) identifying a first position within the organizational structure; (c) identifying a second position which is immediately above the first position in the organizational structure; (d) making a determination whether the second position is associated with the selected role and terminating the search when the second position is associated with the selected role and searching positions below the second position in the organizational structure if when the second position is not associated with the selected role; (e) repeating (d) from the second position when the selected role is not found among the positions below the second position in the organizational; and (f) when the selected role is found, saving and/or displaying the selected role.