1. Using Procurement
  2. Search for Suppliers

Search for Suppliers

For many procurement activities, you must identify the suppliers with whom you want to deal. Depending on the procurement task you're performing, you use different pages:

  • If you're on the Suppliers work area, you can use the Quick Search feature, available by clicking Search: Suppliers(magnifying glass icon).

  • Also on the Suppliers work area, you can perform searches from within the various information regions.

  • If you're working with supplier profiles, you use the Search region of the Manage Suppliers page.

  • If you're creating an Oracle Sourcing negotiation, you use the Suppliers: Add Suppliers page to invite suppliers to your negotiation.

  • If you're creating an Oracle Supplier Qualification initiative, you use the Overview: Add Suppliers page.

  • You could also use the global search bar to search for suppliers.

These pages each provide you with a flexible tool for conducting detailed searches using supplier attributes.

Keywords Search (Quick Search and Basic Search)

On the Manage Suppliers page or the Quick Search page, enter full or partial search values values into the Keywords field. The application searches for a match between the value you enter and either the supplier name, alternate name, parent supplier name, supplier number, or D-U-N-S number. Additionally, if you're performing a Quick Search, the application suggests possible matches as you type a search value.

Using Keywords Search

Keyword search enables you to navigate to a supplier profile directly when you know which supplier you need to access. Use the Manage Suppliers page to look up suppliers using a keyword search if you know the supplier name, or know part of the name.

The application searches for matches in the following supplier profile attributes:

  • Supplier name

  • Alternate name

  • Parent supplier name

  • Supplier number

  • D-U-N-S number

If you enter a partial search value, the application returns all entries that contain the value anywhere in the entry name/number. If you enter a search value of "corp", for example, the application would match on and return all of:

  • Corporate Relocation Services

  • Acme Corporation

  • News Feed Corp

You can use partial matching to retrieve a group of suppliers that have similar naming attributes. When using Quick Search, if you enter a partial search value, autosuggest displays possible search values.

Basic Search

The basic search functionality is available on the Manage Suppliers page and uses keywords to quickly identify a single supplier or group of suppliers who match the search values you enter. You can use one or more than one search fields to narrow your search when targeting a particular supplier.

Advanced Search

While on any search page, click Advanced Search to use multiple search fields to perform a more specific search based on supplier attributes. All of the search fields on the advanced search page are selectively required (instead of being always required). You can choose only fields you want to search on, although you must enter a search value in at least one search field.

Note that you can search on the products and services that a suppliers provides. You can enter the name of a category, for example, Office Supplies. If you don't know the exact name, you can click the search icon at the end of the search value field. On the Search and Select: Products and Services page, you can enter a full or partial search value in the Category Name or the Description field and click Search. When the search results appear, you can highlight an entry and click OK. When you return to the Manage Suppliers page, the value you chose appears in the Products and Services search field. You can click Search to generate a list of suppliers who provide that product or service.

When using advanced search, use the Add Fields button to display a list of additional search fields. You can select one or more search fields, add them to the search panel and enter values to search on.

Use Global Search

Global search bar is present on the global header of the page and can be accessed from any page within the application. Suppliers can be searched using supplier or supplier child attributes.

The application searches for matches in these supplier attributes:

  • Supplier Profile: Supplier Name, Supplier Number, D-U-N-S Number, Parent Supplier Name, Alternate Name, Customer Number, Corporate Web Site.

  • Address: Address name, Address details concatenated.

  • Contact: First name and last name concatenated, Email, Phone number.

  • Site: Site Name.

Enhanced Global search is however configured using an opt in and additional setups.

Generating Reports

Download and print search results from any type of search by selecting Export to Excel from the Actions menu. Use multiple search fields with the Advanced Search to isolate groups of suppliers that share attributes and then export the results and print from Excel. This way, you can use the advanced search for light-weight reporting.

Searching within a Work Area Region

On the Suppliers work area, you can control the information displayed in a particular region by selecting a tab for the information type and a time span value (for example, Expiring: Next 90 days, or Created: Last 30 days) to control the content of the results. Once the search results appear, you can generate a spreadsheet containing the information by selecting Export to Excel from the region Actions menu.

For requests for spend authorization, you can click the request link to drill down into details of the request. If the request was rejected, you can see the reject reason among other information.

You can see information on expired and expiring business classifications for a particular supplier.

For incomplete supplier profiles, you have several choices about what kind of information you view. For supplier profiles that have no addresses or contacts, you can click the appropriately labeled tab. For profiles that have no administrative contacts or tax identifiers, you can click the supplier link to view the Edit Supplier page, where you can update the profile information as needed.

For outstanding profile change requests that require approval, you can view the request and the supplier information.

Scenarios

Scenario One - Lucy Noh, the supplier quality manager for her company, wants to identify all suppliers with an assessment of Excellent for the assessment New Suppliers - Fiscal Year 2017. From the task panel drawer, she clicks the Research Suppliers link. On the Research Suppliers page, she enters the assessment name and selects the outcome status of Excellent and clicks Search.

Scenario Two - John Patel has been asked by his manager to generate some reports on their suppliers. One particular request is for all suppliers that are certified to transport chemicals within the state. When the search results appear, he clicks the Actions menu and selects the option Export to Excel. He saves the Excel output and prints it for his manager.

Scenario Three - Mike Yamagato, a category manager, is creating a negotiation to purchase new hardware for a new office his company is opening. He wants to identify all the suppliers that sell computer hardware. there's a short time frame for this purchase, so he wants to restrict the search to only suppliers that already have a business relationship of spend authorized. He selects the category value Miscellaneous Hardware and selects the business relationship of spend authorized. He selects all of the suppliers resulting from the search and adds them to the negotiation document.

Scenario Four - Jason Wilde is tracking down information on an invoice from a particular supplier. To answer the question, he needs to know the address of one of the supplier's distribution sites. Jason knows that this transaction occurred over 12 months ago, and since then the supplier has changed names due to an acquisition. However, the suppler number didn't change, so on the Overview page, he clicks the Search: Suppliers icon to perform a quick search and enters the supplier number into the Keywords search field. When the supplier information appears, Jason can look up the site address.