Understanding the SRM Dashboard
Increasing volumes of operational data place a significant burden on the employee who is responsible for tracking information and reacting to events. As the sophistication of the knowledge worker continues to increase, the demand to provide powerful and easy to use solutions grows. The SRM Dashboard can fulfill this requirement and provide the tools to ease the information overload for employees.
The SRM Dashboard provides you with an aggregated view of the source-to-settle business process, including metrics. It provides you with the ability to view information from several PeopleSoft SRM applications (PeopleSoft Purchasing, PeopleSoft eProcurement, and PeopleSoft Services Procurement). It is a centralized portal page with multiple pagelets that provide buyers and managers with essential information to assist them with their daily jobs in one location. These buyer-facing and manager-facing pagelets are delivered with the SRM dashboard and can be accessed if PeopleSoft SRM applications are installed.
You can add any of these pagelets to your SRM Dashboard page:
Activity Monitor.
Dispatched Purchase Orders.
Live Sourcing Events.
Manager PO Contract Spend.
Manager PO Spend by PO Date.
Manager Spend by Category.
Manager Spend by Supplier.
Manager Total Schedule Spend.
Overdue Purchase Orders.
PO Acknowledgement Status.
PO Contract Spend by Period (buyer's view).
Requisitions to be Sourced.
Review ASN (advanced shipping notice).
Spend by Category (buyer's view).
Spend by Supplier (buyer's view).
Total PO Spend by PO Date (buyer's view).
Total Schedule Spend by Period (buyer's view).
The information that is displayed on each page or pagelet is either by buyer or manager. When a buyer logs into the system, the first page displayed to them will be their home page with their selected pagelets. The information displayed on each pagelet will be only those purchase orders or requisitions on which they are specified as the buyer. If a buyer is responsible for multiple purchasing business units, the purchase orders and requisitions for the purchasing business units specified on the reporting entity tied to the buyer will display.
When a manager logs into the system, the first page displayed to them will be their home page with their selected pagelets. The information displayed on each manager pagelet will be only those purchase orders or requisitions for the buyers that they manage. If a manager is responsible for multiple purchasing business units, the purchase orders and requisitions for the purchasing business units specified on the manager's reporting entity will display.
See the product documentation for PeopleTools: Portal Technology
To personalize your SRM dashboard page, you'll need to do some initial set up:
Select which pagelets you'd like to have appear on your home page. This is accomplished by clicking the Personalize Content link at the top of the menu.
Once you have accessed the Personalize Content page, you can select from the list of SRM Dashboard pagelets listed under Cross-Supply Chain.
After you've selected the pagelets you want to appear on your home page, click the Personalize Layout link at the top of the page.
Using the Personalize Layout page, specify the home page basic layout and where on the home page you'd like each pagelet to appear.
Note: The Spend by Category, Manager Spend by Category, Spend by Supplier, and Manager Spend by Supplier pagelets have two formats. If you choose the 2 column layout, additional information (specifically, the Historical Spend and Future Spend columns) will appear on the pagelet. If the 3 column format is selected, a summarized version of the pagelet will appear. The system will size the pagelet automatically, depending on the layout you select.
Click Save to retain these settings.
The first page you'll see when logging in to the system will be the layout you previously defined.
Note: You can change the information you wish to view or rearrange your layout at any time.
Dashboard Considerations
When setting up the dashboard, you have several options regarding how much data is collected for analysis, what is displayed on your home page, and how monthly or periodic totals are calculated.
A reporting entity code is used to control how purchase order spend information is categorized into monthly or periodic buckets, what currency to report the spend amounts in, and for which business units to collect procurement information. When the Spend History process that updates the Spend History table is run, you select a reporting entity, that provides the necessary parameters to calculate and bucket spend amounts. Using the calendar code on the reporting entity, the process will compare either the schedule due date or the purchase order date to the start and end dates of the calendar month and period, and assign the schedule or purchase order to a month or period corresponding to the calendar. The currency code and conversion rate type is used to convert all monetary amounts into a single currency, while the purchasing business unit list determines which business unit's purchase orders are collected for reporting.
When running the process, you also specify how many months or periods worth of data you want to collect to reside in your spend history record. However, you can always limit the amount of data that appears on the dashboard pagelets by defining the number of prior and future periods each buyer wants to view. For example, you can choose to collect 8 prior periods and 5 future periods worth of spend information when running the process. When defining a buyer, you can specify their preference to view only 3 prior periods and 4 future periods worth of data. When that buyer logs on to their home page, only the 7 periods worth of data will appear.
In addition to defining the amount of data that will be displayed on a buyer's home page, when defining a buyer, you also associate a reporting entity to that buyer. In essence, this is defining which purchasing business units a buyer is responsible for and in which currency they would like to view monetary amounts. The SRM Dashboard application will look for the reporting entity information in the spend history record that corresponds to the reporting entity defined for the buyer and displays that information on the buyer's dashboard. If the Spend History process has not been run for the buyer's reporting entity, no spend information will appear on the dashboard.
For the manager's view of spend information, you must first define a manager as a buyer. Again, this determines in what currency the manager will view spend information, what purchasing business units are included, and how many periods of prior and future spend information will appear on each pagelet. For managers, an additional set up must be performed to assign buyers to the manager. This determines which buyer's purchase order's are collected and displayed on the pagelets. When assigning a reporting entity to the manager (buyer), you will need to ensure the reporting entity contains a super set of all business units for all the buyers reporting to that manager. For example, if Buyer A buys for POBU 1 and Buyer B buys for POBU 2 and both report to Manager XYZ, the reporting entity for the manager should have both POBU1 and POBU2 listed. As with the buyer, the Spend History must be run specifying the manager's reporting entity in order for spend information for his or her buyers to appear on the manager views of spend.
If you are including the buyer or manager spend analysis pagelets as part of your dashboard, you will need to define:
Calendar periods by using the Calendar Periods page
These calendar period are used to bucket the purchase order expenditures to display spend information.
A reporting entity for the spend analysis.
The reporting entity defines which PeopleSoft Purchasing business units to be included when the system updates the spend history tables as well as the currency in which to convert any monetary amounts. In addition, the reporting entity defines in which period to bucket the purchase order schedules when creating the purchase order graphs for the buyer.
The buyers preferences for the SRM Dashboard.
This is used to further refine the information that is displayed on the spend analysis pagelets.
Note: Managers must be defined as a buyer.
The buyers that report to a manager.
This information is used to determine which buyer information appears on the manager spend analysis pagelets.
Note: You will only need to define this information for managers.
The run control parameters for the PO_SPND_HIST process and run the process.
If you are including the Activity Monitor pagelets as part of your dashboard, you will also need to define which workflow notifications should appear on the buyer or managers Activity Monitor. You can select from any number of existing workflow notifications.