Oracle® Fusion
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Procurement Implementation Guide 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.5.0) Part Number E20383-01 |
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This chapter contains the following:
Configure Supplier Registration
Supplier User Provisioning refers to the process of establishing suppliers with access to Oracle Fusion Supplier Portal. It enables the buying organization to create and maintain user accounts, job roles, and data access controls for supplier contacts. An important part of supplier user provisioning is to provision job roles, which give users the ability to perform on-line business tasks and functions with the buying organization which are associated with their job.
The content Supplier Users can access and tasks they can perform are tightly controlled by the buying organization. However, a key feature of Oracle Fusion Supplier Portal allows supplier users to assume the responsibility for user account management on behalf of the buying organization by creating and maintaining user accounts for their fellow employees that require access to the Supplier Portal application. The buying organization maintains control by granting provisioning access to their trusted suppliers, significantly reducing their administrative burden.
The seeded job roles that can perform supplier user provisioning are:
Supplier Administrator: This is an internal job role to the buying organization. Users with this role are responsible for maintaining supplier profile information as well as administering user accounts for supplier contacts.
Supplier Self Service Clerk (SSC): This is a supplier job role. Supplier users with this role can maintain contact profiles and request user accounts for their fellow employees. All contact profile updates and user account requests made by the SSC require approval by the buying organization.
Supplier Self Service Administrator (SSA): This is a supplier job role. Supplier users with this role can maintain contact profiles and provision user accounts to their fellow employees, without requiring buying organization approval.
There are several flows in which Supplier Administrators perform user provisioning:
Supplier registration review and approval.
Supplier contact change request review and approval.
Suppliers work area, Edit Supplier flow where supplier contacts are maintained.
In each of these flows the Supplier Administrator is able to create a user account, assign job roles and set data security access for a supplier contact.
The Manage Supplier User Roles setup page is used by the buying organization to define the job roles that can be provisioned to supplier users for accessing Oracle Fusion Supplier Portal. This page also controls options for how the supplier job roles are used in the various provisioning flows. These two distinct setup tasks are intended to be performed by two different internal job roles.
The Manage Supplier User Roles page serves two important setup tasks:
The core task is to define the list of roles that can be provisioned to supplier users in Oracle Fusion Supplier Portal provisioning flows. The supplier roles are added from the central Oracle LDAP roles repository which stores all Oracle Fusion application job roles. Once the role is added to the table, it is immediately available for provisioning to supplier contacts by the Supplier Administrator. Only the IT Security Manager job role can add and remove roles to avoid the risk of adding an internal application job role inadvertently which could result in suppliers gaining unauthorized access to internal data. This security risk is the reason only the IT Security Manager has the privilege to manage the list of supplier job roles that can be provisioned.
Define the supplier role usages. The Procurement Application Administrator is responsible for this setup task, which manages settings for how the supplier job roles are exposed in provisioning flows. The first column controls whether the supplier job role can be provisioned by suppliers in Oracle Fusion Supplier Portal, specifically supplier users with the SSA role.
Additionally, default roles can be established which expedite supplier user account requests by allowing the buying organization to identify the minimum set of job roles that a supplier contact can be granted. This prevents approvers from having to explicitly review and assign job roles for each user account request.
The IT Security Manager can also set supplier role usages as they can access all functions on the setup page, however this is typically performed by the Procurement Application Administrator. The Procurement Application Administrator cannot add or remove roles from the table.
When the role default setup is done correctly, the Supplier Administrator (or approver) can review supplier contact user account requests with job roles selected based on the source of the request, and proceed to approve user account requests with appropriate role assignments.
The three role usages relevant to supplier user provisioning include:
Allow Supplier to Provision: If selected, the role can be provisioned by the SSA, assuming the role is also assigned to the SSA user.
Default for Oracle Fusion Supplier Portal: If selected, the role is automatically added to supplier user requests in the provisioning flows enabled by Oracle Fusion Supplier Portal such as supplier registration and supplier profile maintenance.
Default for Oracle Fusion Sourcing: If selected, the role is automatically added to supplier user requests generated in sourcing flows such as Create Negotiation.
A role in the table can be marked for one or more of the three usages.
The figure below shows the flow for managing supplier user roles.
The IT Security Manager and the Procurement Application Administrator access the Manage Supplier User Roles page through the following respective setup tasks in the Oracle Fusion Setup Manager, under Define Supplier Portal Configuration:
Manage Supplier User Roles
Manage Supplier User Roles Usages
Note
SSA users should be careful when removing roles from their account because they are not able to add additional roles to their own user account.
To ensure the SSA provisions proper roles to the supplier users in their company, users with the SSA job role are able to provision roles based on those roles checked in the Allow Supplier to Provision column and the set of roles they have already been assigned. This intersection, as depicted in the figure below, determines what roles they can grant to their fellow employees.
The following simple examples illustrate selecting and managing roles for supplier user provisioning .
Selecting roles for supplier user provisioning:
Company ABC decides to expand supplier portal deployment and allow suppliers to access orders and agreements. The IT Security Manager navigates to the Manage Supplier User Roles page, searches for the supplier job role, Supplier Customer Service Representative. The IT Security Manager adds Supplier Customer Service Representative to the table. The Procurement Application Administrator then navigates to the Manage Supplier User Roles page and sets Supplier Customer Service Representative as Default for Supplier Portal and Allow Supplier to Provision.
Managing default roles and defining roles that the Self Service Administrator (SSA) can provision:
Company ABC determines that all supplier users can be granted access to orders, shipments, receipts, invoices and payments information by default, but access to Agreements will only be granted to select supplier users. The Sales Representative role will not be marked as a default role.
Company ABC recently implemented Oracle Fusion Sourcing and needs to provision the Supplier Bidder role to specific suppliers invited to sourcing events. The SSA should not be allowed to provision this role as it needs to be controlled by Company ABC. When Supplier Bidder is added to the table, Allow Supplier to Provision should not be checked, but Default Roles for Sourcing is checked.
User accounts need to be provisioned to allow supplier contacts to access the Oracle Fusion Supplier Portal application. User account maintenance is performed for a specific supplier contact under the Contacts tab. A user account is assigned roles that determine what functions a supplier contact can perform when logging into the application.
Below are Fusion flows where a user account can be requested and managed as part of a supplier contact:
Create Supplier Contact: When creating a supplier contact, the administrator can also request to create a user account for the contact, request roles and grant data access.
Note
Creating a user account for a supplier contact cannot be reversed. Once a user account is created, it cannot be deleted from the system, but it can be inactivated
Edit Supplier Contact: The supplier administrator can make changes to supplier contact information as well as create or maintain the user account for the contact.
Approve supplier registration request: When an approver is approving a supplier registration, the approver can create and edit supplier contacts. Since a user account is part of a supplier contact, the approver has the ability to create a user account and assign roles within this flow.
The Supplier Administrator is responsible for:
Creating and inactivating supplier user accounts
When Create User Account is selected for a contact, a request is initiated to Oracle Fusion Identity Management (OIM) to provision the account. Status is displayed to the user to communicate provisioning status during this process.
When the process is complete, OIM sends notification to the supplier contact with the username and temporary password to access Oracle Fusion Supplier Portal. If the process fails, a notification is sent to the Supplier Administrator alerting them that a user account was not successfully provisioned for the supplier contact
Assigning supplier job roles.
The Roles subtab controls function security which determines the business objects and task flows the supplier user can access. Supplier job roles should be assigned based on the job that the contact performs within the supplier organization, such as Customer Service Representative or Accounts Receivable Specialist.
Assigning data access
The Data Access tab controls data security, or which transactions the user can access for the specific business objects their job role is associated with. There are two levels of data security; Supplier and Supplier Site. By default all supplier user accounts start with supplier level, meaning they can access all transactions belonging to their supplier company only. For more restrictive access, Supplier Site level, limits user access to transactions for specific Supplier Sites only.
The Configure Supplier Registration page enables a procurement business unit (BU) to select which optional profile components to capture on registrations, which can include; address information, business classifications, product category offerings, and bank account details. The components can be enabled for internal users and supplier users. Internal users are authenticated users in the buying organization. Supplier users are prospective suppliers accessing the Supplier Registration flow. Only components selected for internal users can then be selected for supplier users.
Selecting a component for internal users adds it to the Supplier Registration Approval flow and Internal Supplier Registration which is exposed in the Sourcing Negotiation flow. Selecting a component for supplier users adds it to the external Supplier Registration flow used by prospective suppliers.
Supplier registration is deployed at a procurement BU level. The global row allows for all procurement BUs deploying supplier registration to share a common configuration. If a procurement BU requires different components in its registration flow from the global row definition, then a new configuration can be defined specific to the procurement BU by adding a new row.
The Configure Supplier Registration page is seeded with one row. For this seeded row, the scope is set to Global and none of the registration components are selected for Internal Users or Supplier Users. The default value of the Review Type field is set to Registration. This seeded record can be edited, but cannot be deleted.
If a buying organization wants to mark suppliers after they are autocreated following registration approval the Review Type field can be leveraged. This is useful to perform any additional setup steps or offline qualification checks before conducting business with the supplier. For example, setup tax profiles to support accruals processing and review the site parameters to ensure the site is ready to transact. In order to use this field, the default value of the Review Type field should be set to Registration in the Configure Supplier Registration page. This ensures all newly created suppliers from approved registrations will have the Review Type field value set to Registration. After completing the necessary setup steps, the supplier administrator can change the Review Type to None on the supplier record to indicate that any remaining supplier setup was completed.
When a prospective supplier saves the registration with the intent of completing it later, the application sends an e-mail to the prospective supplier containing the URL to be used to return to the registration. The URL contains an identifier which is encrypted using an encryption key. This is done to prevent someone from altering the URL in order to gain access to registrations submitted by other companies.
If it is suspected that registrations have been tampered with, the Procurement Application Administrator can regenerate the encryption key. Once the registration key is regenerated, the registrations which were saved for later will no longer be accessible to the prospective suppliers.
A supplier registration URL for each procurement BU deploying a registration flow needs to be published, for example on a corporate web site page focused on supplier information. The URL contains a parameter for the procurement BU which navigates the user to the registration flow for that particular BU.
The registration URL for each procurement BU can be found on the Procurement Options page in the Supplier Registration URL field.
In the registration flow, the procurement BU name is displayed in the sub-branding region. To turn off displaying the procurement BU name in the sub-branding region, append the parameter showBU=N to the registration URL. Here is an example of the registration URL with showBU parameter turned off:
http://<server>:<port>/supplierPortal/faces/PrcPosRegisterSupplier?prcBuld=<Buld>&showBU=N
Products and services categories can be captured as part of supplier profile which can be used to identify suppliers to invite to sourcing negotiations. The categories are presented in a tree based hierarchy for easy selection, which is available in all flows where supplier profile information is captured, including; supplier registration, internal supplier registration, supplier registration approval, and the supplier master where profiles are maintained by internal supplier administrators.
The hierarchy is defined and maintained by accessing the Manage Supplier Products and Services Category Hierarchy setup task found under the Define Supplier Configuration setup activity in the Fusion Setup Manager. The buying organization may, at times, decide to reorganize categories exposed to suppliers for selection due to internal reorganization or changes in the business.
The buying organization can collect information about the products and services categories supplied by the company on the registration flow by enabling Products and Services using the Configure Supplier Registration flow. Prospective suppliers can select the categories they are capable of supplying during the registration flow. If the category manager is registering a company while creating or editing a negotiation, they can also select the applicable categories on the registration.
Once the registration is submitted, it goes through an approval process in the buying organization. If the registration is approved, the Products and Services Categories is maintained by the Supplier Administrators as a part of their supplier profile maintenance task. Supplier users are able to review their Products and Services Categories in Oracle Fusion Supplier Portal as part of their supplier profile information.
The figure below illustrates the tasks which use the Supplier Products and Services Categories.
The Supplier Portal Overview provides suppliers a quick glance across transaction flows and highlights urgent tasks which are relevant to a user's job role.
The transactional tabs offer consolidated reporting views across different business objects which provide quick visibility to recent business activity. The Watchlist on the summary tab provides users with a one-stop shop for all the key tasks that need to be performed and important inquiries that need monitoring.
The overview page serves as the home page in Oracle Fusion Supplier Portal. The page is in a tabbed structure and by default the Summary tab is selected.
The Summary Tab contains the following regions designed to alert suppliers on the latest transaction information as well as communicate general news and provide access to supplier performance reports:
Supplier News: A place where relevant news is posted for supplier users. For example, server down time, upgrade notices, and so on.
Worklist: A list of all notifications sent to the current supplier user. Critical transaction events generate notifications, such as communication of a new purchase order issued by the buying organization. The worklist serves as a convenient place where supplier users can view these notifications.
Note
An e-mail version of most notifications are also sent to the supplier.
Watchlist: Contains a set of saved searches which display counts of urgent or recent transactions, possibly requiring action, such as Orders Pending Acknowledgment. Clicking a watchlist entry navigates the user to begin working on the transactions immediately.
Supplier Performance Reports: Contains a list of transaction reports relevant to the user role. Report criteria can be specified for example Supplier Site, Category, or Item. Reports include:
Report Name |
Description |
---|---|
PO Purchases Amount |
Provides summary of PO purchase amount for the given set of parameters, which also includes supplemental information such as growth rate and percent of total. |
Receipt Date Exceptions |
Set of reports providing detailed information on Receipt Date Exceptions (comparing receipt date against the PO schedule for each receipt line to determine being early or late) for the given set of parameters. Early is defined as receiving before the promise date or need-by date if no promise date is available. Late is defined as receiving after the promise date or need-by date if no promise date is available. The Receipt Date Exception Rate provides the exceptions rate for a given time period. The lower the exception rate, the better the delivery performance. This is calculated as: Exception Amount divided by Receipt Amount, multiplied by 100. |
Returns |
Set of reports providing detailed information on returns for the given set of parameters. The report also includes growth rate, percent of total and its change for all the values. |
Invoice Amount |
Provides a summary of invoice amount for invoices with or without a matching PO for the given set of parameters. The report also includes growth rate, percent of total and its change for all the values. |
Invoice Price Variance Amount |
Shows the variance between the invoice price and the purchase price. Payables records invoice price variances when the invoices are matched, approved, and posted. The invoice price variance is the quantity invoiced multiplied by the difference between the invoice unit price and the purchase order unit price. The report also includes growth rate, percent of total and its change for all the values. |
Content within this tab is primarily tailored to the role of Supplier Customer Service Representative. The tab contains the following regions:
Orders with Recent Activity: A list of orders that are Opened, Changed, or Canceled since the specified date.
Pending Change Orders: A list of change orders initiated by the supplier company that are either requiring supplier action or are pending review by the buying organization.
Content within this tab is primarily tailored to the role of Supplier Sales Representative whose main function is to manage agreements. The tab contains the following regions:
Agreements with Recent Activity: A list of agreements that are Opened, Changed, or Canceled since the specified date.
Pending Change Orders: A list of agreements initiated by the supplier company that are either requiring supplier action or are pending review by the buying organization.
Pending Authoring: A list of draft agreements that are transferred to the supplier for catalog authoring. Catalog authoring is the process by which suppliers enter or upload their catalog items to the agreement for review and approval by the buying organization.
Content within this tab is primarily tailored to the role of Supplier Customer Service Representative. The tab contains the following regions:
Open Schedules: A list of open purchase order schedules that are not received by the buying organization. Any overdue schedules are highlighted with an alert. Open schedules can fall into three categories:
Order schedules not shipped.
Orders schedules shipped and in transit, but no shipment notice was communicated.
Orders schedules shipped and in transit, which have an associated shipment notice.
Recent Receipts: A list of purchase order schedules recently received.
This transaction tab is tailored to the role of Supplier Bidder. Users are presented with negotiation transactions that the supplier is involved in or is invited to by the buying organization. It provides a quick summary view to easily monitor the status of supplier negotiation responses.
Note
This tab is only visible when Oracle Fusion Sourcing is implemented.