OIM: Understanding Approval Workflow Rule Evaluation

When an operation (bulk or non-bulk) is being performed, approval workflow rule evaluation takes place in the following way:

1. The approval workflow rules associated with the operation being performed are evaluated one by one, in the order in which they are configured.
2. Rule evaluation stops, and the outcome, which is workflowID or Direct, of the matched rule is returned.
3. Approval workflow rule evaluation stops at the first matching rule, which is the rule that evaluates to true, and that rule's outcome is returned as the result.
4. For a Bulk operation, if none of the rules match, then the SOA composite configured in defaultRequestApprovalComposite of SOAConfig is returned implicitly.
5. For a non-bulk operation, if none of the rules match, then the SOA composite configured in defaultOperationApprovalComposite of SOAConfig is returned implicitly.

If the approval workflow rule evaluation returns a WorkflowID, for example UserManagerApproval, then a request is created and the corresponding ASYNC orchestration is initiated. As part of the orchestration, there is a possibility that some of the data submitted by the user is modified or added. As a result, a different workflow ID than UserManagerApproval might be applicable. To handle such scenarios, approval workflow rules are re-evaluated before the workflow is initiated. If the re-evaluation results in a different workflowID, for example HRManagerApproval, then HRManagerApproval is initiated.

Source: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E52734_01/oim/OMADM/workflowrules.htm#OMADM5385