PeopleSoft Purchasing Integration

Using the contract execution functionality in the purchasing system, you have access to these Supplier Contract Management features:

• Electronic contract repository.

• Document authoring capabilities.

• Contract compliance monitoring features.

  Agreements are assigned through PeopleSoft Strategic Sourcing bid factors and Purchasing contract maintenance. This formal tracking process makes it possible for you to ensure that a supplier is in compliance against the agreements in a contract. Among the measurement methods is a metric measurement based on procurement history.

• Requisition document types.

  You can create and link to requisition documents for use with Purchasing requisitions. The benefit of this feature is that you can gather information for a contract during its requisition stage and then use that information to develop the contract.

• Contract documents based on purchase orders.

  The purchase order maintenance functionality in PeopleSoft Purchasing is also integrated with the PeopleSoft Supplier Contract Management application, enabling you to create and maintain contracts that are linked to purchase orders as an alternative to the transactional contract.

• Spend threshold limits.

  A spend threshold is a specific monetary amount for a contract or contract item. Using the Spend Threshold feature, you can define the threshold and then notify users when spending on a contract crosses the threshold amount. In addition to defining a spend threshold, Supplier Contract Management provides the Contract Alert Workflow component to notify buyers when spend thresholds have been reached.

Within PeopleSoft Purchasing, you can choose to use the document authoring system upon which to base contract documents. Using the authoring system, you can create document clauses that link to transactional information and then use that information to create the contract document.

You use bind variables and rules to define what transactional information to use in a contract document. For example, using bind variables in clauses, you can pull information from data fields in the contract to complete the clause. Or, you can use a rule to define data fields that include specific information, such as a supplier name, item category, or contract amount. When you create the initial document, the authoring system resolves the binds and rules from the purchasing contract to generate the document. After a contract document is created, you can access the repository to maintain the document through its life cycle.

In addition, using a wizard you can build a contract document by answering predefined questions about the contract. Based on the responses, the system selects the appropriate clauses from the library and adds them to the contract document or invokes rules to include specific content. Wizards use binds and rules to resolve transactional data for contract documents.

An example of how you could use the clause library and contract document to interact with transactional information on the contract might be to create a one-year contract for purchasing steel-alloy waste drums for hazardous material disposal along with a service requirement for the loading and removal of the filled cans. This table describes how you might accomplish this using a combination of wizard bind values and transactional bind values:

Requirement	Document Input
Firm fixed-price contract. This requirement is based on the type of contract.	The user selects a fixed-price configurator with its associated clauses and sections. The configurator contains required document elements that meet fixed-price contract needs.
Sole source supplier for the contract?	Add a wizard question that asks this question and dynamically insert a clause that contains justification text for why the contract was not open to competition. For example, perhaps this supplier is the only supplier in a region with the proper transportation clearances to move the materials.
Contract line item with a hazardous material. This value is extracted based on a hazardous material code on the item table.	Add a clause containing special handling requirements for the materials. Using transactional bind variables related to the purchasing contract, you can also include multiple hazardous-material line items that should be included in the contract document.
Vehicles less than eight tons. This value is based on a service level agreement.	Add a clause that clarifies special restrictions placed on trucks used to remove the filled cans. You can set up the clause with the agreement tied to the contract. The system automatically includes the agreement in the authored document.