Understanding Purchasing Item Information

With PeopleSoft Purchasing, you can define any number of item catalogs. These item catalogs can be tailored for individual, department, or corporate-wide use and can greatly reduce the repetitive tasks associated with service and material purchases, such as rent, supplies, and standing inventory.

With PeopleSoft catalog functionality, you can:

• Assign default item catalogs tailored specifically to individual requesters.

• Transfer item catalog information in electronic format into PeopleSoft catalogs.

  PeopleSoft Purchasing enables you to load and maintain items from various applications, including a process that loads and updates item information from a third party or supplier to PeopleSoft Purchasing and an Item Loader process that synchronizes item information between systems.

These are the main steps involved in creating an item catalog:

1. Create the category that will serve as the first node in the catalog tree.

2. Create a catalog tree.

3. Assign catalogs to the requesters.

4. Associate an inventory item with a default category.

To create the category that will serve as the first node in the catalog tree:

1. Access the Item Categories - Category Definition page in Add mode.

   In the access requirements for the page, enter the SetID and the category code that you want to use as the first node for the new catalog tree.

2. On the Item Categories - Category Definition page, enter required information, including account, description, short description, and currency code.

3. Save the category.

   You may see warning messages about tolerances that have been left as zero (0.00000). For our current task, this is acceptable. Click the OK button to acknowledge the warning.

4. When the system asks whether you want to update item catalogs with the category changes, click the No button because you have not yet created the target catalog tree.

   In the future, when the catalog tree has been established, click the Yes button, and select the catalog to which you want to assign a new category.

To create a catalog tree:

1. Access the Tree Manager component.

2. Choose to create a new tree definition and enter a tree name.

3. On the Tree Definition and Properties page, enter the basic information: tree name, structure ID, effective date, description, category, use of levels, audit options, and performance options.

   Click the OK button to accept the settings and close the Tree Definition and Properties page. When you do, the Enter Root Node for Tree page appears.

4. On the Enter Root Node for Tree page, create a tree level for the new tree.

   If no existing level is listed, click the Add Level button to access the Tree Levels page, where you can define the level to be used by the entire tree you are creating. If an existing level exists, you can choose to select it.

5. Enter a level name on the Tree Levels page.

   The level name that you define here can be any generic name, for example, LEVEL 1.

   If the level does not already exist in the system, you are transferred to the Tree Level Setup page.

6. On the Tree Level Setup page, enter further information about the level.

   This includes information such as effective date, status, description, and short description.

   Click the Apply button to save the settings. Click the OK button to return to the Enter Root Node for Tree page.

7. On the Enter Root Node for Tree page, create the first node by defining a value in the Root Node field.

   This should be the name of the first node.

   Click the OK button to accept and create the first node. When you do, the Tree Manager page appears.

8. On the Tree Manager page, click the Insert Detail button to create the detail node.

   The Detail Value Range page appears.

9. On the Detail Value Range page, select the Dynamic Flag check box and click the Add button.

   The system returns you to the Tree Manager page.

10. Save the new tree definition.

    You have now successfully created an item catalog tree.

11. Click the Yes button when prompted to update item catalogs with the category changes.

12. Assign the new category to the new catalog.

13. Launch Tree Manager to verify that the nodes have been created correctly for the catalog.

To assign catalogs to the requesters:

1. Use the Requester Setup page, and enter the requester name in the access requirements.

2. Select the Use Only Assigned Catalogs check box.

3. In the Catalog Information scroll area, assign catalogs to the selected requester.

4. Select the Default check box for the catalog that a requester will use as a default catalog.

see the product documentation for PeopleTools: Tree Manager

If you are an existing PeopleSoft Purchasing customer, the conventional category codes are considered to be user-defined and the market codes for these codes are set to User Def (user-defined) (01) in the Item Categories component after you run the upgrade script. You can maintain the same coding scheme, as well as migrate to the new industry standard coding scheme, the Universal Standard Products and Services Classifications (UNSPSC). PeopleSoft eProcurement provides you with the Import CUP File process (PV_CP_LOAD) to load UNSPSC and their corresponding MarketSite items through a batch process.

Use the UNSPSC to classify products and services at 2-digit, 4-digit, 6-digit and 8-digit levels, depending on your specific needs. Each subsequent level of detail describes a subset of all codes and descriptions preceding it in the code's hierarchy.

For example, ballpoint pens at the 8-digit level are a subset of writing instruments at the 6-digit level, which is a subset of office supplies at the 4-digit level. These descriptions are varying degrees of office equipment, accessories, and supplies at the 2-digit level. You can add ninth and tenth digits to indicate the business relationship to the supplier, such as rental/lease, wholesale, retail, or original equipment manufacturer. Each UNSPSC is unique and enables unambiguous translation of the commodity's description into any language.

This table explains the UNSPSC coding hierarchy. In this example, leased addressing machines are assigned UNSPSC number 4410210510. They are classified as office equipment, accessories and supplies – one of 55 existing segments at the top level of the UNSPSC hierarchy.

When you add a new category code using the Item Categories component, the system checks to determine whether the code consists of only numbers and has an even number of digits. If so, the system then assigns UN/SPSC (02) as the market code. If the category code does not meet these criteria, the system assigns User Def. (01) as the market code. You cannot modify the market code after you add the category code.

If the market code for the new category is set to UN/SPSC, the system looks at the code and determines whether its ancestor codes must be created and creates them accordingly. The length of the ancestor codes that are automatically generated is based on the length of the category code that you just entered. For example, when you enter the category code 4410210510 and no ancestor codes exist, the system generates the following ancestor codes:

4400000000

4410000000

4410210000

4410210500

Upon saving the Item Categories component, the system asks whether you want the item catalogs updated. If the answer is no, the catalog tree is not updated. If the answer is yes, the Update Catalog Tree page appears. If you are updating an existing code, the page displays the existing catalog information.

The relationship between CATEGORY_CD (category code) and CATEGORY_ID (a system-assigned sequential number) is one-to-one in the PS_ITM_CAT_TBL table. The relationship between an item (PS_MASTER_ITEM_TBL) and a default category (PS_ITM_CAT_TBL) is many-to-one.

For example, the following scenario is not supported in PeopleSoft Purchasing: In SetID SHARE, item 10002 is mapped to category code CYCLING (CATEGORY_ID = 00009). This means that for catalog ALL_PURCHASE_ITEMS, item 10002 belongs to the tree node CYCLING (due to dynamic range).

You might be able to create an item static range from 10001 to 10003 under another tree node, FISHING. This range violates the relationship previously described because, in this case, item 10002 is mapped to two categories, CYCLING and FISHING. Avoiding this scenario is a good practice because it may create unpredictable results when you use the Order by Catalog function.