Supplier Directory Services

This chapter covers the following topics:

Overview of Supplier Directory Services

Supplier Directory Services enables buyers and administrators to find suppliers in the system, generate a 360 degree view of their profiles, export search results to a spreadsheet, and notify suppliers.

Home Page

Navigate to Suppliers > Home and view the various options you have on the Home page.

The following buttons are available on the Home page:

The New Supplier Requests region shows you new supplier requests that are in progress. Requests such as new supplier requests and prospective supplier registrations are found in this region as links. See Registering Suppliers.

Below the New Supplier Requests region, the Supplier Profile Update Requests region enables you to view the profile update requests that are in progress. Examples of profile update requests in progress are: Supplier Address Requests, Supplier Business Classification Requests, Supplier Product and Services Requests. See Supplier Profile Pages.

The Draft Assessments and Published Assessments regions show you the draft assessments and published assessments with the names, numbers as links. See Overview of Assessments.

Quick Links

The following quick links help you to navigate to the most frequently used pages:

Supplier Search

In order to find suppliers by name, number, keywords, DUNS number, etc, the Supplier Search region is available with three search options: Simple Search, Advanced Search, and Keyword Search. For more information, see Searching for Suppliers.

Supplier Profile

Supplier Profile consists of key supplier information that is required to maintain business relationships between buying organizations and their suppliers. Supplier Profile includes details such as supplier identity information, addresses, contacts, , business classifications, banking details, products and services category, supplier tasks, notes, and supplier party relationships. Administrators can customize the profile based on their business requirements. Suppliers can be given access to their profile information online, so that they can update their profile details anytime. The buying organization, however, needs to approve the profile updates made by suppliers to their profile. This chapter discusses the Supplier Profile in detail. A number of customizable business processes such as Supplier Registration and Qualification Management, Supplier Compliance and Profile Audit, Item Supplier Qualification, and Supplier Performance Evaluation use supplier profile and its extensions. These processes are discussed in further details in subsequent chapters.

If you currently use Oracle Payables, Oracle Purchasing, or Oracle iSupplier Portal, then you are familiar with Supplier Profile. Supplier Lifecycle Management extends this profile and gives administrators control over suppliers' profiles so they can restrict sensitive information from suppliers as well as internal users. For example, if administrators have created some custom attributes to gather supplier performance metrics, the administrator can hide these metrics from your suppliers.

For more information on Supplier Profile in Oracle Payables, Oracle Purchasing, and Oracle iSupplier Portal, please refer to the following guides:

Supplier Profile Pages

These pages contain information about suppliers, their identity, and their type of business. A significant portion of this information needs to be provided by your supplier contacts. You can give suppliers access to most of the profile details so that they can maintain the information for you. The application handles any updates that the supplier provides as change requests that require approval by an internal administrator.

Suppliers receive notifications when you approve or reject requests for changes to the following information:

See "Maintaining Supplier Profile (Supplier Self-Service)" for information.

Log in with the Supplier Management User or Supplier Management Administrator responsibility and click Supplier Home. This opens the Supplier Home page, where you can search for suppliers. Click the supplier name link to open the supplier's profile details page. Follow the same navigation from Supplier Data Librarian and Supplier Data Librarian Super User responsibilities to access the supplier profile.

Suppliers Home Page

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The following pages are visible to suppliers as well as internal administrators in the buying organization:

See "Suppliers Pages Reference" in Oracle Payables User's Guide and "Supplier Profile Management" in Oracle iSupplier Portal User's Guide for descriptions of these pages.

Approval history is part of a supplier profile - all approval details, such as who approved or rejected a supplier, in what order and when, is available in every supplier profile. In the Supplier Profile page (Quick Update page), the supplier registration approval history is displayed. If there is no approval history for the supplier, the following message displays: No history found for this supplier.

Additionally, the following pages are visible to suppliers and internal users:

The Contact Points page is used by internal users. Use this page to indicate the specific ways to contact the organization or person. You can create and update these types of contact points: phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and URLs.

The Party Relationships page is for internal users. This page enables you to specify the relationship between two parties, such as a contact or employee.

The General Classifications page is used to assign a classification to a supplier. See: Assigning Classifications.

Terms and Controls: These pages provide access to all of the attributes that are used to control the business relationship you have with the supplier. This includes account code references, internal tax setups, purchasing, receiving, invoicing, and payment options. In addition, there is a Quick Update page that can be personalized to provide access to the most commonly used setup attributes for individual users or groups of users. The following pages are visible only to internal users:

Others: The following pages are internal to the organization, and are specific to managing supplier profiles:

User Defined Attributes: Oracle Supplier Lifecycle Management enables you to maintain additional supplier information using user defined attributes. User defined attributes are aggregated in user defined attribute groups. These groups appear on the supplier profile pages where you and suppliers can maintain extended profile information based on your business requirements. For example, you could set up attribute groups to gather compliance and certification details, insurance information, business details, quality control qualifications, and any other information that meets your business requirements.

The UDA pages have the attributes differentiated: attributes to be entered by supplier and attributes to be entered by buyer.

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An attribute group can be multi-row or single-row. Multi-row attribute groups enable association of multiple sets of attribute values with the same attribute group. For example, for a supplier, you can set up a multi-row attribute group called 'services', with 'service name', 'service type', and 'service frequency' as the attributes. You can associate multiple rows of services with the supplier.

You can maintain additional supplier information at one or more business entity levels such as supplier party, party site, and supplier site. At each level, you can associate the attribute group with a certain type or classification of that entity. For example, an attribute group called 'Supplier Monitor Product Attributes' created for a business entity 'Supplier Party' must apply only to those suppliers that supply monitors.

A supplier party user defined attribute can be associated with a certain type of supplier party based on the following:

An attribute group for capturing party site details can be associated with certain type of party sites based on:

An attribute group created for capturing supplier site details can be associated with certain type of supplier sites based on:

For setting up the user defined attributes, see "Setting up User Defined Attributes" in Oracle Supplier Management Implementation and Administration Guide.

Searching for Suppliers

Supplier search is available in the following ways:

Simple Search

In the Search region, you can enter a wide variety of search criteria, including supplier name, supplier number, tax registration, or DUNS number. If you want to search for employee-suppliers, then select Employee as the Supplier Type.

Use the Supplier Management Administrator and Supplier Management User responsibilities.

To find a supplier using the Search region:

  1. On the Suppliers home page, enter your search values into the appropriate search fields. You can enter complex criteria by entering information in several fields. Click the Show More Options link to access additional search fields if necessary.

  2. Click Go. The search results appear in the table below the search fields. Use the Update button to access the details for the supplier.

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Advanced Search

Advanced search is available to run complex search queries containing multiple search criteria. Search criteria are not just limited to the supplier's name and identification information, but can include any attribute in the Supplier's profile, including user-defined attributes. This helps buyers find appropriate suppliers to invite to a negotiation event based on the requirements of that negotiation. For example if you wish to find suppliers based in the United States who supply monitors and are ISO 9001 certified but in the process of becoming environmentally compliant with general liability insurance of at least USD $3 million, you can do that using Advanced Search.

Use the Advanced Search button available on the Suppliers page to go to the Advanced Search page. Follow these steps to search:

  1. Setting the Search Context: There are three components on this page that contribute to the search. First is the Search Context. In this dropdown, select one of the classifications from Address Purpose, Business Classification, Country, General Classification, Products and Services Category, and Supplier Type. Then select a value for that classification and click Go. This sets the context for the remaining two regions, Search Criteria and Display formats.

    Search criteria offer a convenient way to save frequently used search criteria and values. Display Formats enable you to predefine how search results are displayed. Results can be set up to show different sets of attributes of the suppliers that are returned by the search.

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  2. Creating Search Criteria and Display Formats: When you set the Search context and click Go, if there are Search criteria and Display formats for the selected search context, then the application displays them in the respective drop lists. However, in case there isn't any search criteria or display format configured, click on Personalize to create one from this page.

    Personal search criteria and display formats criteria created in this manner are only available to the user who created them. Administrators can create frequently used search criteria and display formats from the Administration tab, which become available to all users. When a user and administrator define a default search criteria template for a particular search context, the user-defined search criteria template takes precedence. See: Setting up Advanced Search Criteria and Display Format in Oracle Supplier Management Implementation and Administration Guide.

    When you create search criteria and display formats, the attribute groups available to add criteria are dependent on the search context set on the Advanced Search page. For example; consider the attribute group EPA Guidelines. EPA Guidelines is associated with Country USA so it only applies to suppliers in the US. First you must set the Search context to Country and value to US. Only then EPA Guidelines will show up in the Search Criteria creation page.

  3. Setting Mandatory Indexed Search Criteria : Some of the attributes are indexed and this is indicated by a '^' sign next to the attribute name. The administrator can index a custom attribute when creating the attribute. At least one indexed attribute must be used in the search criteria. Also a valid operator should be used to make the index usable. Valid operators for an indexed attribute are - is, starts with, greater than, less than, after, and before. If you choose a 'contains' or 'ends with' operator, then the application ignores the indexing on that attribute.

A lock icon appears in the search results if the user searching for suppliers does not have the privilege required to view a particular attribute group. To assign privileges to users, see Setting up Profile Access in Oracle Supplier Management Implementation and Administration Guide.

Smart Search

The Smart Search engine enables you to perform an exact or corresponding search based on the criteria you provide. You can choose any search criteria from Supplier Party level attributes for the smart search.

Ensure that you select the applicable attributes in the Data Quality Management (DQM) match rule as the available search criteria depends on the DQM match rule, HZ: Match Rule for Identifying Duplicates with Smart Search. Run the search with at least one criteria.

Use the appropriate Supplier Management, Supplier Hub, or Trading Community Manager responsibilities to access Smart Search.

To find a supplier using the Smart Search region:

  1. On the Suppliers home page, enter your search values into the appropriate search fields.

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  2. Click Go. The search results appear in the table below the search fields. Use the Update button to access the details for the supplier.

You can merge suppliers using the search results. Additionally, you can publish the supplier profile using the Publish button and generate the supplier profile report using the Generate Report button. See: Publishing Supplier Profile and Generating Supplier Profile Report.

Keyword Search

You can search for suppliers using keywords in the Supplier Home page. This page has a new Keyword Search region, where you can enter a value in the keyword field and select Go.

The system uses a heuristic-based text-search engine to find a match across all attributes of the supplier such as header level attributes, addresses, sites, contact directory, tax information, banking information, along with associated UDA regions. You can use the '+' operator in search. You can enter more than one keyword separated by '+'. For example: 'John Doe + Brazil + Bank of America' displays all suppliers whose profile contains all three keywords.

This page displays the search results in the Search Results region, in the same way it does for simple search. All actions available for simple search are available for search results obtained from this new keyword search method.

Exporting Supplier Profile to a Spreadsheet

Supplier Management enables you to export supplier profile information into a spreadsheet from the Advanced Search results page. Search for the supplier or suppliers whose profile information you wish to export. Then click Export All to export the entire result set to a spreadsheet. Set the display format to export the most relevant information.

Note: Before performing this step, ensure to check the Trust access to Visual Basic Project and close the MS Excel application. Refer to the applicable topic in MS Excel Help to check the Trust access.

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Notifying Suppliers

Many times buyers may wish to notify suppliers of required actions, change in policy, or upcoming events. Use Supplier Management User responsibility and Profile Extension subtab on the Supplier tab to notify suppliers.

To notify suppliers:

  1. Click on Notify All Suppliers button to send a notification to all suppliers in the supplier master.

  2. If you wish to notify a subset of suppliers, search for those suppliers using the Search region of the Suppliers page. Select the applicable suppliers and click Notify to open the Notifications page.

  3. Enter subject and message to notify the selected supplier's contacts.

  4. Select the applicable option in the Send To field. If you select All Contacts, then the application notifies all the selected supplier contacts. If you select Contact Users Only, then the application sends the email and workflow notification to those contacts of suppliers that have system user accounts.

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  5. Optionally, select the Include OSN Registration Instruction, if you are notifying suppliers who have not yet registered on Oracle Supplier Network. See On-Boarding Suppliers on Oracle Supplier Network.

Standard Supplier Lists

You can create a reusable standard invitation list by navigating to the Standard Invitation Lists link using one of the two following paths:

Both navigation paths open the Standard Supplier Lists with the Search region.

You can search for an invitation list using the search criteria provided. The search results display in the table below the search criteria.

Click Create Standard Supplier List to open the page Create Standard Supplier List. Enter the List Name and other required information. You can opt to make the list publicly accessible to all buyers, or private only to a single user.

Enter participants (supplier names) to the list by clicking Add Suppliers. The Create <supplier list name>: Add Suppliers page displays. You can search for a supplier by entering the supplier name in entirety or partially with a % wildcard search character. When the suppliers are listed in the search results table, click the Select check box and then click Add to Invitation List. The supplier name displays in the top right region that is called Invitation List.

If there are multiple contacts for each site, select which contact you wish to notify from the contact list. Select the Primary Contact check box to identify a specific contact as the primary contact. You can add multiple contacts for a particular supplier or supplier site. If there is only one contact, then the application automatically identifies this contact as the primary.

Click Apply when you are done adding suppliers, and return to the Create Standard Supplier List page. Select supplier sites from the Supplier Sites dropdowns and enter additional email contact. Click Apply and you get a confirmation message that the supplier list is successfully created.

Using the Standard Supplier List when an Assessment is created

Use the standard supplier invitation list in an assessment. The standard supplier list is reusable, thus you could add the same set of suppliers for different purposes in an assessment. Whether your assessment is an evaluation or an audit or any other assessment, you can use the reusable standard supplier list to add suppliers to the list of invited suppliers. See Overview of Assessments.

Navigate to Suppliers > Home > Quick Links > Create Assessment. Select a template (Audit or Evaluation) for your assessment. The Create Assessment page displays. Enter the required fields in the header link, such as the Assessment Name, etc. Click the Suppliers link in the top left corner of the screen. The Create Assessment <assessment number>: Suppliers page displays. Add your list of suppliers by clicking Add Standard Supplier List. The Suppliers : Add Invitation List page displays. This page shows you a Search region, where you can enter search criteria to retrieve your supplier list. The supplier list information shows in the search results table. Click the Add icon to add your supplier list to the assessment. The Create Assessment <assessment number>: Suppliers page displays again, with all the suppliers listed in the Invited Suppliers region.

Additionally, you can add individual suppliers by clicking Add Supplier. The Suppliers: Add Suppliers page shows you the list of already added suppliers. You can add any other suppliers, they will be part of the assessment, however, they will not be part of the invitation list.

Dynamic Supplier Lists

Using the Standard Supplier Lists, you can create a list of frequently used suppliers. However, with a standard supplier list, you cannot convert search results into a supplier list. Additionally, the system does not update the supplier list automatically, if a supplier is added or removed from the supplier master records.

You can create a reusable dynamic invitation list by navigating to the Dynamic Invitation Lists link using one of the two following paths:

Both navigation paths open the Dynamic Supplier Lists with the Search region.

You can search for an invitation list using the search criteria provided. The search results display in the table below the search criteria.

Use the search criteria to search the user-defined attributes (UDAs). Furthermore, you can define criteria at the attribute level, for example: 'Total Employees > 1000' or 'CEO Name starts with John', etc. If a supplier's attributes fulfill the criteria, then the supplier details are displayed in the search results table. At least one indexed attribute is required for the search to be conducted. The indexed attribute could be a seeded attribute or a user-defined attribute.

Dynamic supplier lists are also reusable, in the same way as are standard supplier lists. Dynamic supplier invitation lists enable you to convert a search context and search results into a supplier list. This minimizes time and effort while creating a supplier list. The system also updates dynamic invitation lists every time a new supplier is added or removed or updated from the supplier master records.

To create a dynamic supplier invitation list, navigate to Suppliers > Home > Quick Links (Reusable Lists) > Dynamic Supplier Lists. The Dynamic Supplier List page opens, with a search region. You can search for an existing dynamic supplier list or create a new list by clicking Create Dynamic Supplier List. If you click Create Dynamic Supplier List, the Create Dynamic Supplier List page opens. Enter the required fields, such as List Name, Description.

Enter a search condition in the Conditions region by clicking Add Search Conditions. The Add Conditions page opens, where you can add Search Contexts, Search Criteria, and Display Formats.

The Search Context region enables you to select a search context. A search context is a broad set of categories of criteria such as a search among business classification, products and services category, supplier type, country, address purpose, etc. When you select one or more of the search contexts, the search criteria columns dynamically refreshes, to display the appropriate search criteria. For example, if you select Business Classifications as the search context, the search criteria will automatically show you the values for business classification and you can narrow down to search to one or more specific business classification values (such as Veteran Owned, Small Business, Minority Owned, etc.).

In the Search Criteria region, you need to enter the Compliance Criteria fields such as Supplier Audit, Environmental Certification, Business Specific Certifications, Financial Controls and Compliance, etc. If you wish to update the compliance criteria columns, or not set compliance criteria as a default criteria set, click Update.

You can also create new criteria such as specific values for business classification and/or products and services, etc., by clicking Create New Criteria.

The Display Formats region enables you to customize the columns that you wish to see in the search results for the supplier. Some default display formats are available for you to use, such as Compliance Information, Insurance Information. If you wish to create a new set of columns for your specific business requirement for the search results, click Create Display Format.

Provide the name and a description for the display format. Additionally, select the number of rows you want to display per page. Optionally, set this display format as the default display format for the object by clicking Set as Default. Enter applicable details and click Apply.

In the View Columns region, specify the columns you want to display in the search results display. If you simply wish to locate a single column, then enter its name and click Find. To search for attributes by business entity and attribute group, select the business entity, click Go, then select the attribute group and click Go again. To see the results correctly, it is recommended that you add the required set of search result row identifying attributes to the display format. If you do not specifically add the search result row identifying attributes, then the application adds the attributes to the display format automatically. You can also move and remove the columns and attributes by clicking the arrow key icons from one window to another. Click Apply to return to the Add Conditions page.

In the Add Conditions page, click Search to get search results for the context, criteria and display format you specified. The list of suppliers displays in the Display Formats region. Click Save and Apply to save and apply your changes. Your dynamic supplier list can now be used in an assessment.

Executing a Dynamic Supplier List

Even though Dynamic Supplier Lists are automatically executed by the system, you can execute the Dynamic Supplier List to reflect current changes to your list of suppliers. To view the current changes in your supplier list:

Using the Dynamic Supplier List when an Assessment is Created

Use the dynamic supplier list in an assessment. See Overview of Assessments. You could also use the dynamic supplier list in a recurring assessment rule. See Recurring or Periodic Assessments. Because this list is reusable, you can add the same set of suppliers for different purposes in an assessment. Whether your assessment is a performance evaluation or an audit or any other assessment, you can use the reusable dynamic supplier list to add suppliers to the list of invited suppliers.

Navigate to Suppliers > Home > Quick Links > Create Assessment. Select a template (Audit or Evaluation) for your assessment. The Create Assessment page displays. Enter the required fields in the header link, such as the Assessment Title, etc. Click the Suppliers link in the top left corner of the screen. The Create Assessment <assessment number>: Suppliers page displays. Add your list of suppliers by clicking Use Dynamic Supplier List. The Suppliers : Add Invitation List page displays. This page shows you a Search region, where you can enter search criteria to retrieve your supplier list. The supplier list information shows in the search results table. You can only view supplier lists in the search results table, you cannot update any supplier list information here. Click the Add icon to add your dynamic supplier list to the assessment. The Create Assessment <assessment number>: Suppliers page displays again, with all the suppliers listed in the Invited Suppliers region.

Additionally, you can add individual suppliers by clicking Add Supplier. The Suppliers: Add Suppliers page shows you the list of already added suppliers. You can add any other suppliers individually; they will be part of the invitation list of the assessment only.

Collaboration Teams

The Suppliers > Home page has a link called Collaboration Team under the Quick Links > Reusable Lists region. This link opens the Collaboration Team Search page, that enables the administrator or buyer to find existing collaboration teams or create a new collaboration team. A collaboration team consists of a group of users who are involved in evaluating and/or scoring suppliers. This is applicable to the registration and qualification process, assessments (profile audit and evaluations), where suppliers need to be evaluated and/or scored.

Using an appropriate Supplier Management responsibility, navigate to Suppliers > Home > Quick Links (Reusable Lists) > Collaboration Team. The Collaboration Team Search page opens, and you can search for a collaboration team or create a new collaboration team.

Click Create Collaboration Team to open the Create Collaboration Team page. Enter the mandatory fields such as Name and Description. Select whether you wish to make the collaboration team publicly accessible or private. Select Status to make the team Active or Inactive.

In the Participants region, click Add Members. The Member column displays a search list of values that you can use to add a collaboration team member. Click the magnifying glass icon to search for, and select, the member name.

After you add the member name, you can specify if the member will also be an approver. If not, leave the Approver check box unselected. The Access column enables you to assign an access role to the collaboration team member: Full (Access), Scoring, Evaluation, Evaluation & Scoring, View Only. You can opt to remove a member by clicking the Remove icon.

If you select Scoring or Evaluation & Scoring as your access value, you need to click Manage Scoring, in order to create a scoring team. The Header Scoring Settings page opens, with the Enable Team Scoring check box selected by default.

Click the Add Another Row icon (form with a green plus sign) and in the Scoring Teams region, enter a name and instructions for the scoring team. Click the pencil icon in the Members column to add members from the collaboration team. You could delete a scoring team, by clicking the Delete icon.

After you add members, click Apply to return to the Header Scoring Settings page.

If you select Evaluation or Evaluation & Scoring as your access value, click Manage Evaluation Settings in order to create an evaluation team. The Header Evaluation Settings page opens. You can view the teams that are already created, in the Evaluation Teams region. Click the Add Another Row icon (form with a green plus sign) to create an evaluation team. Enter a Name and Instructions, then click the Members icon. The Evaluation Team page displays, and you can add the team members to the Members region, by clicking the Add Another Row icon (form with a green plus sign) to add a team member. Click Apply to return to the Header Evaluation Settings page. Click Apply once more to return to the Update Collaboration Team page.

Using the Collaboration Team in the Assessments page

You can add the collaboration team you created, in any assessment, because the collaboration team is a reusable list. See Overview of Assessments.

Using the Suppliers > Home page, navigate to Quick Links (Manage Assessments) > Create Assessment. Select a template from the popup and click Apply. The Create Assessment: Header page displays. The Collaboration Team region enables you to add collaboration team members by clicking Add Collaboration Team. The Collaboration Team Search page opens, and you can find the collaboration team you created. When the collaboration team appears in the search results table, click the Add icon to add this collaboration team to the assessment.

If your collaboration team has members that are already listed in the assessment as collaboration team members, you get a warning message: if the member has a higher access role in the assessment or in the collaboration team list, that higher access role will be included in the assessment with the member name (Access roles are: Full, Scoring, Evaluation, Evaluation & Scoring, View Only). Thus if a member has Scoring access in the assessment, and Full access in the collaboration team list, then the member's name will be added from the collaboration team list with Full access. However, if a member has Scoring access in the assessment, and Evaluation access in the collaboration team list, then the member gets added with an Evaluation & Scoring access.

Click Save as Draft to continue with your assessment creation.

Some considerations to be noted for collaboration teams (scoring and evaluation) during assessment creation:

When you complete creating an assessment, a notification is sent to all the evaluation team members (provided the assessment has evaluation teams). The notification informs the evaluation team members that they have been added to the assessment as evaluation team members.

When an assessment is Closed, a notification is sent to scoring team members. The notification informs the scoring team members that they have been added to the assessment as scoring team members. Additionally, when you update the Scoring End Date for a team, a notification is sent to let the members know about the changed date.

Using Scoring in the Apply Knockout Results page

The Apply Knockout Results page has a Comments column in the Remove From Shortlist table. The Comments column shows you the comments if the suppliers are rejected on the basis of the score of a specific section. If there are two or more parallel scoring teams in parallel and both the teams enter scores that lead to supplier rejection, a link called Multiple Comments is shown in the Comments column. If you click the Multiple Comments link, a popup containing all the supplier comments are displayed for you to view.

The Supplier Registration and Qualification assessment has no comments on the supplier being rejected or shortlisted on the registration request page. If the approver wants to know more details on the assessment, the approver needs to go the Pre-Qualification and Evaluation Assessment region and click the Detail icon.

Using Scoring in the Analyze by Supplier's Score Page

This page enables you to view final scores at the supplier level, irrespective of the number of evaluators. In the Assessment: Header page, click the Analyze by Supplier's Score action in the Actions dropdown. The Analyze by Supplier's Score page displays. The sum total of score per supplier is displayed in this page. If you wish to drill down to see the details of the scores, click Compare Requirements / Questionnaire. This page shows you the final scores for all the suppliers. These scores (average of the scores provided by all the scorers for all responses entered by the evaluators) are calculated and displayed for every question and section in the questionnaire.

The Total Score for a supplier is the average of the scores for all the scorer's responses for the supplier.

Questionnaires

Using Questionnaires

In order to gather specific information from suppliers, Oracle Supplier Lifecycle Management provides buyers and administrators with the Questionnaire function that can be part of any assessment. As a buyer or administrator, you can either create a questionnaire from the assessment header, or create a reusable questionnaire list.

Login with an appropriate Supplier Management responsibility, and navigate to Suppliers > Home > Quick Links (Reusable Lists) > Questionnaire. The Reusable Questionnaire Lists page opens, and you can search for an existing questionnaire list using the Search region. You can also create a questionnaire list using Administration > Setup > Reusable Questionnaire Lists. When you create an assessment, you can create a questionnaire for that specific assessment. In the assessment header page, scroll down to the Questionnaire region and enter the questions. You can also upload and import a spreadsheet with the questionnaire in order to use the questionnaire list in the system. Once the import process is complete, you can establish the relationship between parent and dependent questions using the Manage Dependency page. Please note that the spreadsheet import and upload process can include primary and dependent questions, though the spreadsheet does not differentiate between primary and dependent questions.

Click Create Questionnaire List to create a questionnaire. The Create Questionnaire List page displays, where you need to enter a Name, a Description and specify the Status of the questionnaire (Active or Inactive).

Your questionnaire consists of sections, questions, and dependent questions, if any.

Creating a section enables you to structure and order your questions and dependent questions. Examples of sections are: Financial Information, Quality Information, General Questions, etc. Select the check box in the Section row to add a section. You can opt to add a pre-defined section, or create a new section for your specific requirement. In the Create Questionnaire List: Add Section page, select New Section or Predefined Section from the Add dropdown. After you enter a new section name or select a predefined section from the list of values provided, you can either add another section, add questions to your newly created section or return to the Create Questionnaire List page.

Create questions that are clear and unambiguous to the supplier, and meaningful to the scoring and evaluation process. The best practice for this is to select a section that you have added to the main Section, and then click Add Question. The Add Question page displays. This page shows you the section name you selected to put the question in. Enter a Name and a Description for the question in the text box and text area provided. Both are mandatory fields. An example question you could add: Enter the number of years you've been in operation.

Scroll down to the Properties region, where you can define the properties of the question. Select a question Type: Display Only, Internal Required, Internal Optional (to be used by buyers and administrators), Supplier Required, Supplier Optional (supplier responses are required or optional). Select a Value Type (Date, Number, Text, URL) for the question. For the example question (Number of years in operation), select Number as the Value Type. The Target field enables you to enter an optimum response, and compare that response with the response of the supplier. For the example question, buyers may prefer supplying organizations with 10 years of operational experience, thus you could enter 10 in the Target field. You can opt to display the target value to suppliers or not, by selecting the Display to Supplier check box. Select a Scoring Method (None, Automatic, Manual). Enter a Maximum Score and a Knockout Score for the question, by entering appropriate values.

The Acceptable Values region helps the supplier to view the acceptable values for the question and respond accordingly. For example, some questions may have a Yes/No response and it is better to specify that the acceptable values are Yes and No, otherwise the supplier may not be aware of this and enter unacceptable values in response to such a question. In our example question (Number of years in operation), acceptable values are of number type, and could range from 1 to 20. Click the Add 5 Rows icon to enter acceptable values to the question. Enter the acceptable responses in the rows provided. Alternatively, you could enter a value set. A value set is a list of pre-defined values that are likely to be used frequently as acceptable values. In the example question, a value set for 1 to 20 could be created and then used in this question. Click Apply Value Set to open the Apply Value Set page. Search for a value set, select the required value set from the search results, and click Add.

Note that in order to create a value set, navigate to Administration > Profile Extension > Value Sets. The Maintain Value Sets page opens, where you click Create to create a value set.

When you are done creating the question, click Apply and Add Question to save your work and add another question in the same section. Otherwise click Apply to return to the Create Questionnaire List page.

The Create Questionnaire List page enables you to delete a section or question, by selecting the associated check box and clicking Delete. You can also move a section or question above or below a given section or question. Select the appropriate check box and click Move. The Move Question page prompts you to select a section or question above or below which you wish to perform the move. Select a radiobutton and click Apply. In the Create Questionnaire List page, you see the section or question has been moved to the place you specified.

The Mapping button is used to map the response provided for a question to a specific attribute on a supplier's profile.

In order to add dependent questions to the Questionnaire List, you should have created the dependent question prior to creating the dependency. For example, a primary question can be: Do you have a global presence? If the supplier response to this question is Yes, the dependent question should be: Enter the number of countries you operate in. In order to define a question as a dependent question, first create the question, and then click Manage Dependencies to associate the question to a primary question as a dependent question.

The Manage Dependencies page displays, and you need to select a question from the left side of the page, in order to make it dependent or primary. The best practice is to select a question that you intend to make the primary question and then use the shuffle regions in order to select and associate the dependent question(s). You can create any number of dependent questions under a single primary question and any number of dependent questions one after another.

In the example questions, select Do you have a Global presence as your primary question. This question name and question description appear above the shuffle regions. Select an Operator from the dropdown. In this example, the available operators are Is and Is Not. Then select the Response Value. In this example the response value is Yes. The Response Value comes from the acceptable values you entered while creating the question.

Note: You need to create acceptable values in the question in the Add Question page, if you are creating dependent questions.

Click Go to enable the system to find relevant and potential dependent questions. The best possible dependent question(s) appear in the Available Questions shuffle region. If you click a question name in the shuffle regions, the Description text areas populate with the question description. Click the Move icon to move the question to the Selected Questions shuffle region. The example question that could be moved to the Selected Questions shuffle region to become a dependent question is: Provide the number of countries you operate in.

The Associated Questions region shows you the conditions and dependent questions that are now associated to the primary question. Click Apply and Add Another to add another dependent question to this primary question. Click Apply to return to the Create Questionnaire List page. This page shows you the question hierarchy (primary and dependents) that you created. Simply click on a section and drill down to the questions by clicking the expansion icon. The dependent questions are indented to the right as compared to the primary questions.

Moving Primary and Dependent Questions

Primary and Dependent Questions can be moved within or across sections with the following considerations:

If a primary question is moved, the dependent questions that are associated to the primary question are moved along with the primary question.

Note: The Move function does not enable you to make dependent questions to some other questions. If you need to create dependent questions, please use the Manage Dependencies function.

A question that is neither primary nor dependent can be moved within or across sections except that it cannot be defined as a dependent question using the Move function.

A dependent question can be moved only before or after other dependent questions under the same primary questions that share the same condition.

Scoring and Evaluation

The Questionnaire region in the Create Assessment: Header page has 2 buttons: Manage Scoring and Manage Evaluation Settings.

Click Manage Scoring in the Create Assessment: Header page. The Header: Select Scoring Settings <Assessment Number> page displays. See Overview of Assessments. You can enable weights (scoring with weightage calculations) and also display the scoring criteria to suppliers. The Scoring Teams region enables you to create one or more scoring teams specific to that assessment. The Enable Team Scoring check box is selected by default. Enter one or more scoring team names, instructions, and enter members for the scoring team in the same way you did when creating the collaboration team list. In the Section Assignments region, select Team Assignments from the dropdown to assign the team to the section. Select Enable Conditional Routing so that conditional routing is enabled ; otherwise the existing scoring abilities wherein every team gets to score together, are available anyway.

When you select Enable Conditional Routing, the following columns are added to the Scoring Teams region:

Note: You may not shortlist a supplier based on the scores of an individual section, you can only reject a supplier based on the scores of an individual section.

Associating Questionnaire Lists to Supplier Profile Attributes

Supplier Profile attribute groups such as Business Classifications, Products and Services, Supplier Type, General Classifications, Country, Common, Address Purpose are used to extend the profile of the supplier in various areas. You can also add questionnaire lists to any supplier profile attribute group and attribute value, in order to associate the questionnaire list to the supplier profile attribute. For example, you could add a questionnaire list called Insurance Information to the attribute groups of General Classifications, and /or Common. Or you could associate a questionnaire list called Company Information to the attribute groups of Business Classifications or Supplier Type.

Using an appropriate supplier management responsibility, navigate to Administration > Profile Extension > Associations. If you click Associations, the first attribute group called Common is automatically highlighted, and you will see a tab called Questionnaire Lists on the Associations page. Click the Questionnaire Lists tab in the Associations page and then scroll down and click Add Questionnaire Lists. The available questionnaire lists are listed. Select one or more questionnaire lists that you wish to associate the attribute group with, and click Apply.

Note: You cannot associate a questionnaire list that has a status Inactive to a supplier attribute group.

Similarly, you can navigate to other supplier attribute groups, and select an attribute group value (for example, Business Classification attribute group, with a value Small Business or Minority Owned). Click Apply to complete the association.

When the buyer sends a pre-qualification questionnaire to the supplier during registration, the questionnaire lists that are associated with the supplier's profile attribute groups and attribute values will be part of the questionnaire. For example, the buyer created an association with Business Classification (value is Small Business) and the questionnaire list called Company Information. If the new supplier to be registered has a Business Classification called Small Business, then the questionnaire list called Company Information will be sent to the supplier as part of the pre-qualification questionnaire.

Questionnaire Responses and Evaluation or Scoring

Using the Create Response page, suppliers can respond to the questionnaire. Suppliers need to respond to the primary questions first, and based on their response, the dependent questions are displayed. Dependent questions may be displayed one or more at a time, depending on the responses the supplier provides for the primary response.

Suppliers can also respond to the questionnaire by importing and uploading a spreadsheet that contains the responses. The columns that the suppliers need to enter as part of the spreadsheet response are:

In the Create Response page, click Respond by Spreadsheet. The Respond by Spreadsheet displays, enabling suppliers to first download (export) a spreadsheet format. When suppliers enter the response details in the spreadsheet format, they can import and upload the completed spreadsheet into the system.

The Step 1: Export Spreadsheet region enables you, as a supplier, to select a format that you can use to download the spreadsheet. Select from XML Spreadsheet - Rich Style (.xml); XML Spreadsheet - Light-Weight Style (.xml); Tab-Delimited (.txt). You will need to save the spreadsheet format to your local drive. Enter the spreadsheet responses and save in your local drive. Then use Step 2: Import Spreadsheet to upload your spreadsheet with responses to the buyer system. Select a format : XML Spreadsheet (.xml) or Tab-Delimited (.txt). Then select your spreadsheet with responses to be uploaded, and click Import. You get a confirmation message that the spreadsheet is imported successfully. If there are errors during the import, they are displayed in the Import Errors Requirements region.

Based on the responses the supplier provides, the buyer can score or evaluate the responses in the following pages: Enter Scores page, Enter Evaluations page. If a dependent question was displayed to the supplier in the Create Response page, and the supplier entered a response, the dependent question will also be displayed in the Enter Scores page or Enter Evaluation page. If no dependent question was shown to the supplier, then no dependent questions are displayed in these pages.

Update Submitted Evaluations

Buyers can update previously submitted evaluations. A warning message is sent to evaluation team members who will attempt to update an evaluation for an RFI for which scoring has been locked.

Buyers can update an internal RFI till the RFI is closed. For other RFIs (that require suppliers to provide data) buyers can enter evaluations until the RFI is completed.

A warning message is shown to the user who attempts to update the evaluation for an RFI for which the scoring has been locked.

Online Discussions

You can send email notifications to various stakeholders using the Online Discussions option. In this way, the administrator can inform/ remind different team members about important milestones such as Lock Scoring date, date of completion of RFI / assessment, etc.