Understanding Global Location Numbers and Global Trading Item Numbers

Global Location Numbers (GLNs) and Global Trading Item Numbers (GTINs) are two sets of industry-wide unique identification numbers for business locations and items respectively. Introduced in the healthcare world as voluntary industry initiatives, the idea of using GLNs and GTINs is to eliminate errors in conducting business due to duplicate or sometimes confusing use of codes to refer to locations and goods in different systems amongst trading partners. The use of GLNs and GTINs in purchasing transactions makes sure that the right goods are requested and delivered to the right locations.

A GLN is a 13-digit number that uniquely identifies a physical location or legal entity across the globe. GS1 maintains a central registry of locations and their associated GLNs, which are provided by and accessible to participants. In PeopleSoft Financials and Supply Chain Management, you can specify GLNs for business locations of purchasing organizations and their suppliers using the Location (LOCATION_TBL) component and the Supplier Information (VNDR_ID) component respectively.

GLNs are entered manually in the system as a one-time setup (no load utility to populate values automatically). Each location can only be assigned one GLN but the same GLN can be associated with multiple locations if you prefer. The reason for this flexibility is that, depends on how the locations are set up initially, you may have defined locations at a level that is lower than you want to assign GLNs. For example, you want to assign GLNs to locations at the city level but you have locations defined at the building level, one level below city. In this scenario, you enter the same GLN for all the building locations that are in the same city.

At runtime, GLNs are displayed on purchase orders and express purchase orders for the ship-to, bill-to and supplier locations that have GLNs assigned to them. Similarly, when you select to copy a purchase order from a contract, requisition or another purchase order using the Copy From field, GLNs (if available) for the bill-to and ship-to locations are displayed accordingly.

Due to the voluntary nature of the GLN initiative, companies and their suppliers should be in agreement with the use of GLNs on their EDI transactions. The PeopleSoft system provides needed fields in source tables to support EDI mapping, whereas the actual mapping needs to be done by the User Company or by their VAN (value added network) partner.

Note: The Purchase Order Dispatch and Purchase Order Acknowledgement messages and file layouts have been updated to support GLNs for bill-to, supplier and ship-to locations.

GLN values are not maintained on transactions; rather, they are maintained in the Supplier Master or Location table. When the system receives Purchase Order Acknowledgement messages, GLN values are archived in history tables.

Supplier GLN Defaulting

You can specify GLNs at the supplier and supplier location levels. At runtime, the system populates supplier GLNs on purchase orders and EDI transactions in this defaulting hierarchy:

  • supplier location

  • supplier

If a purchase order references a supplier that has GLNs specified at both levels, the system displays the supplier location GLN on the purchase order.

Supplier GLNs are not effective-dated.

A GTIN is a 14-digit number that uniquely identifies a trade item, which is a product or service that is sold, delivered, and invoiced at any point in the supply chain. In PeopleSoft Financials and Supply Chain Management, you can specify GTINs for items using the Universal Item Identifier (ITM_MFG_UPN) component.

Refer to the Using Universal Item Identifiers section for steps on setting up the system to use GTINs and assigning GTINs to items. At runtime, GTINs are displayed (in the GTIN field on the Item Information Tab) on purchase orders and express purchase orders for items that have GTINs assigned to them.

Note: UPN details for the purchase order is taken from the matching contract. In the absence of a matching contract, UPN values from the requisition will be defaulted to the PO. If UPN details is not available for the requisition, then it will be taken from the UPN defaulting hierarchy.

GTIN Defaulting

When an item is added to a purchase order, the system populates the manufacturer ID to the purchase order line. The manufacturer ID either comes from the default value that is set on the supplier's Manufacturer Info page for the selected item and supplier, or, if the former value is blank, from the item's preferred manufacturer that is set on Manufacturer's Item page at the item master level. Then, it looks for a GTIN match for the item based on the item ID, UOM, manufacturer ID, and manufacturer's item ID that are available on the purchase order line, and displays it in the GTIN field.

Note: In order for GTIN defaulting to occurs, the supplier that is selected on the purchase order must be UPN ready.

Here is how GTINs gets defaulted on purchase orders (assuming that item ID and UOM are specified):

  1. If manufacturer ID and manufacturer item ID are present:

    1. The system populates the GTIN that is assigned to this item ID-UOM-manufacturer ID-manufacturer item ID combination on the purchase order line.

    2. If no matching is found, the system populates the GTIN that is assigned to the item ID-UOM-manufacturer ID combination (excluding manufacturer item ID) on the purchase order line.

    3. If no matching is found, the GTIN value becomes blank.

  2. If manufacturer ID is not present, the GTIN value is not populated on the purchase order line.

This defaulting mechanism applies to online and express purchase orders.