Who this is for. Anyone who works AP invoices, and the SuperAdmins who set the rules. Access. Document distribution must be enabled for the tenant. See the Roles and Access Reference.
Document distribution gives an invoice an owner at the moment it is created. This article covers what that changes on the AP Invoices list once the rules are in place. For the rules themselves, see Build Assignment Rules.
Assignee values and where they appear
An Assignee column is available on the documents list, and the assignee also appears on the document itself. The value is a person’s name, [None] where nothing is assigned, or AI Agent for a document the agent processed and wrote on its own.
Documents created before document distribution was switched on show [None]. They are not broken, and anyone eligible can pick them up.
On the list, show or hide the column with Edit Columns. It filters with In and Not In, choosing from the eligible users plus [None] and AI Agent, and it is included in the Download report.
What each tab shows by default
So that your queue reflects your own work, each tab opens with a filter already applied.
Table 1. The default view on each tab
Tab |
Opens showing |
|---|---|
Active Data |
Documents assigned to you, plus unassigned documents. |
Written to SoR |
Documents you wrote, plus documents assigned to you. |
Dismissed Documents |
Documents assigned to you, plus unassigned documents. |
Clear the filter to see everything, including documents that belong to other people. Filters you apply yourself are remembered as usual, and the default view returns once you clear them. On Written to SoR the assignee is whoever wrote the document.
Assignment during document processing
Document distribution runs at the end of the processing cycle, after extraction, after the vendor and entity are resolved, and after any business rules have applied their values. Rules therefore see final values rather than raw text from the page.
Two consequences are worth knowing.
An invoice arrives with its owner already set. You do not see one land and then change hands by itself.
Assignment happens once. Reprocessing a document never runs document distribution again, so whoever owns it keeps it.
Table 2. What happens in each case
Situation |
Result |
|---|---|
A rule matches and the person is eligible |
Assigned to that person. |
A rule matches a team |
Assigned to the next member in the team rotation. |
A rule matches, but the person is no longer eligible |
Created without an assignee. |
Rules exist and none match |
Created without an assignee. |
The vendor could not be identified |
Created without an assignee, whatever the rules say. |
No policy on the agent, or the policy is disabled |
Created without an assignee. |
You add a document by hand |
Assigned to you. |
The agent processes and writes the invoice on its own |
The assignee reads AI Agent. |
A document is reprocessed |
The assignee stays as it was. |
There is no automatic fallback team. If you want every invoice to have an owner, add a rule with no conditions at the end of the document rules and point it at a team.
Where a rule set the assignee, the document records which one. Document History and the audit log show the rule and the policy together, in the form Rule DR-16 | Policy DP-3, so you can trace an assignment back to the rule that made it. Documents assigned before this was introduced keep their original entry and are not rewritten.
Assignment requirement for document actions
Document actions are available only on a document assigned to you. This keeps two people from working the same invoice.
On an unassigned document, Edit, Attach, Reprocess, Write to SoR and Dismiss are unavailable, and the reason given is that the document must be assigned. Assign it to yourself and they become available.
On a document assigned to someone else, the actions are unavailable and the reason given is that the document is not assigned to you.
Document History is always available, whoever owns the document.
An unassigned document also carries a banner across the top of the document, reading This document must be assigned before you can take any actions. Assign to Me beside it takes the document, and the banner clears as soon as the document has an assignee, however it was assigned. A document already assigned to someone, or written by the agent itself, carries no banner.
Figure 1. The banner on an unassigned document, with the document actions unavailable.
Assignment permissions by role
Only users whose role makes them eligible for AP Invoices can receive a document. Eligibility is checked at the moment of assignment, for a rule that names a person and for team rotation alike.
This is why a rule that worked for months can quietly stop assigning. The rule still matches, but the person is no longer eligible, so the document is created without an assignee. Review the rules whenever people join, leave or change roles.
When someone stops being eligible, their name still shows on documents already assigned to them, so you can see where the work is sitting. Their name is no longer offered in the assignee dropdown and no new documents go to them, and they lose access to the Documents tab, so anything still theirs needs reassigning.
A rule that assigns to a team offers the work to members in the order they were added. The position is remembered between documents, so a batch arriving together spreads across the team rather than piling onto one person, and members who cannot receive documents are skipped.
Table 3. What each role can do, one document at a time and in bulk
Role |
One document |
A selection |
|---|---|---|
SuperAdmin |
Assign or reassign to any eligible user, or set it back to |
Reassign the whole selection to one user, or unassign it. |
ProcureToPay Manager |
Assign or reassign to any eligible user, or set it back to |
Reassign the whole selection to one user, or unassign it. |
ProcureToPay Agent |
Pick up an unassigned document and put it back down. Cannot hand it to someone else. |
Unassign their own documents. The action is not offered where the selection includes documents belonging to other people. |
Only a SuperAdmin creates and edits policies, rules and teams. For the role names themselves, see Document Distribution Overview.
Reassign documents in bulk
Select documents with the checkboxes on the list, then use Action. What is offered depends on what you selected.
All unassigned: assign them. Write to SoR and Dismiss are not offered until they have an owner.
All assigned: reassign them. Where they are assigned to you, Write to SoR and Dismiss are offered as well.
A mix: reassign, which applies your chosen assignee to everything selected.
Documents in the middle of being written to your ERP are excluded from bulk reassignment even when selected. If two people reassign the same document at once, the later change wins and both are recorded.
Choosing to reassign opens the same assignee dropdown used on a single document, including [None] to unassign, and everything selected is updated when you save. Document History records each change on its own document, attributed to the person who made it rather than the person receiving the work. A bulk change is recorded as Bulk Assignment, and a change made on the document itself as Modify.
Monitor how work is distributed
Two places answer this without opening a single document.
On the policy list, Distributed Documents counts what a policy has assigned. Select the number for a breakdown of Active Document, Written to SOR and Dismissed, and select one of those to open the matching list.
In Team Management, the Open Documents column sits beside Open Tasks. One member holding a large number while the rest sit at zero usually means a rule above your team rule is catching everything.
Related information
When a rule does not assign, see Troubleshoot Document Distribution.
For the rules that decide the owner, see Build Assignment Rules.
For the policy list and its columns, see Distribution Policy List.
For the teams that rules assign to, see Team Management.