1. Using Procurement
  2. Source Documents and Requisitions

Source Documents and Requisitions

Consider these situations when you source documents and requisitions.

How You Use Blanket Purchase Agreements to Source Requisitions That Contain Description-Based Items

Blanket purchase agreements (BPAs) are created for description-based items. But when you use a Smart Form request or the Enter Requisition Line flow to create requisitions, for description-based requests, only contract purchase agreements (CPAs) are available in the Agreements selector. But you require to leverage the BPAs to meet your requirements.

To resolve, leverage the auto-source functionality that the Requisitions to Purchasing integration offers by using the Supplier Item as your reference when adding the items either from Smart Form or the Enter Requisition Line flow.

  1. When creating requisition lines using the Enter Requisition Line and Smart Form pages, enter the supplier.
  2. Enter the supplier item attribute that corresponds to the BPA description-only item.
Note:
  • You must provide the same Supplier Item defined in the BPA line. Line type, category, and currency must match as well along with Supplier and Supplier Item. The UOMs need not match, but conversion should exist between these UOMs for the item to get auto sourced to the BPA. Also, don’t select any agreement from the Agreements selector.
  • Noncatalog request will also get auto sourced to the BPA based on the supplier item when the requisition is submitted. Whereas the items added from Smart Form or the Enter Requisition Line flow, will get auto sourced at the time of add to cart only.

Here’s Why Blanket Agreements aren’t Sourced in the Enter Requisition Line Flow

When you as the advanced procurement requester create a requisition using the Enter Requisition Line flow, select the master item that definitely has a backing blanket agreement. To confirm this, search for the item on the shopping page by either using a keyword search or the Shop by Category feature and the item is returned in the search results as a blanket agreement backed line. Now, when you select the same item in the said flow and add the item to the Shopping Cart and click Review, you find that there’s no blanket agreement.

To resolve, check to see if these steps are done:

  1. In the Enter Requisition Line flow, is the item selected from the search LOV, the source type is changed to supplier, and then added to cart.
  2. Are the attributes such as Line Type, Description, Price, Currency, and UOM updated manually.
  3. Does the UOM on the BPA line is different from the primary UOM of the item entered.

If only step 1 is done, then the item that’s added to the shopping cart will be sourced from the blanket agreement successfully. But, if the flow includes any additional updates like in step 2, then the item won’t get sourced from the blanket agreement.

If the UOM on the blanket agreement is different from the primary UOM of the item, then the BU must allow requisition-to-agreement UOM conversion. To enable this, in the Setup and Maintenance work area, use the Configure Requisitioning Business Function task in the Procurement Foundation functional area, select theAllow requisition-to-agreement UOM conversion check box for the Requisitioning BU.

If you change specific parameters around what you’re looking to do effectively, then this invalidates the automatic sourcing requirement, this is because the parameters such as line type, description, price, currency, and UOM are all effective in looking for the correct agreement. So, when you encounter this issue, as a first level triage, do check the flow closely to understand how and what was done in creating the requisition.

How You Autogenerate Orders from Negotiated Requisition Lines

When you check the Negotiated checkbox on a requisition line that’s being added from Noncatalog Request, Enter Requisition line, or Smart Form Request, though the request contains a valid supplier and a site, the application won’t autogenerate the purchase order from the requisition.

To resolve, check these:

  • While adding the item to cart, the Negotiated checkbox is selected.
  • Requisition contains a supplier and a supplier site.
  • Buyer assignment rules derive a valid buyer.
  • To autogenerate purchase orders, in the Setup and Maintenance work area, use the Configure Procurement Business Function task in the Procurement Foundation functional area, select the Autogenerate orders from requester-negotiated requisition lines check box.

How You Prevent a Requisition Line from Being Autosourced into a Purchase Order

When you want the buyer to source a requisition based on additional criteria such as supplier, with the touchless buying setup, the application always attempts to source a requisition into an order through an agreement.

When you don't want to automatically create a purchase order, do this:

  1. On the Purchase Agreement page, deselect these checkboxes:
    • Enable automatic sourcing
    • Automatically generate orders
    • Automatically submit for approval

    When you don't want to automatically create a purchase order but let the item to be sourced to the agreement, select Enable automatic sourcing and deselect Automatically generate orders checkboxes.

  2. On the smart form definition page or Create Noncatalog request page, deselect the Negotiated checkbox to prevent from autogenerating an order for that specific item.

    Personalize the Create Non-Catalog Request page to view the check box.

  3. To prevent automatic generation of purchase orders for the requester negotiated lines at BU level, in the Setup and Maintenance work area, use the Configure Procurement Business Function task in the Procurement Foundation functional area, deselect Autogenerate orders from requester-negotiated requisition lines check box for the procurement BU.
  4. To prevent automatic sourcing of requisition lines to an agreement for the requisitions created either from requisition import or purchase request webservice, use the Autosource Flag. This helps to retain the user provided price and the unit of measure (UOM) on the requisition line.

When Does a Blanket Agreement Not Get Autosourced During Requisition Creation

Let’s look at why sourcing to a blanket agreement is prevented or why the blanket agreement isn’t sourced as expected

With All things being equal, when you create a requisition through the Enter Requisition Line process (and in exception scenarios use a Smart Form or Non Catalog Request process), the application attempts to source any eligible blanket agreement and the types of blanket agreement that can be sourced and they include:

  • Quantity based goods or services
  • Amount based services

An eligible BPA must satisfy these requirements:

  • The agreement and agreement line must be in open status.
  • The agreement and agreement line isn’t expired.
  • The currency on the requisition line matches the currency on the blanket purchase agreement.
  • The requested delivery date is within the effective dates of the blanket agreement.

More on Autosourcing

The process of autosourcing is where the requester isn’t manually selecting a blanket agreement during the requisition creation process. So during shopping, if the search results already return an agreement backed line or during the Enter Requisition Line flow, if you manually select a blanket agreement, then these aren’t autosourced agreements.

When Does Autosource Happen

Typically, an agreement is autosourced on a requisition line when you add the line to the shopping cart and navigate to the Edit Requisition details from any flow (Whether the Enter Requisition Line flow or others). In addition, the autosourcing is attempted at the time of submit, which is mostly intended to check whether there are any eligible agreements to source from, particularly if there’s a lapse in time from the creation of the requisition to its submission. Auto sourcing will also happen when requisitions are created through either requisition import or purchase request web service.

When Does Autosource Not Happen

If any of these attributes were manually updated by you as the requester, then the application won’t call the auto source API. Not sourcing an agreement is only relevant to a pure master item or a description based item.

The Master Items scenarios are as follows:

  • Line Type
  • Description (assuming the item allows description override)
  • UOM
  • Price
  • Currency

Regarding Description Based Lines

The application won’t source a BPA for description based lines if the supplier item is either not provided or the one provided doesn’t exactly match the same supplier item value on a blanket agreement line.

Reason for This Behavior

The items won't get autosourced when attributes Line Type, Description, UOM, Price, or Currency are modified, the reason is that when a requester has knowingly updated these attributes (normally requesters aren’t expected to update master item details), the intent is assumed to be a specific requisition where the request isn’t something that can be met by a standard agreement. The requisition in this case will most likely end up in the Buyer's Process Requisitions queue for further review before getting placed on an order.

So when you allow these master item attributes to be updateable, be aware of the consequences that this impacts on whether or not the standard agreements will or won’t apply to your requester initiated requisitions.