Local Catalogs and Inclusion and Exclusion Rules

Catalog Administrators can control local catalog content visibility by agreements or category. For example, Administrators can restrict certain requesters to be able to request only items from a small set of approved agreements.

Administrators can define items that should be included or excluded from the local catalog based on blanket agreement and category inclusion and exclusion rules.

Local Catalogs

A Local Catalog consists of items (item master items and agreement lines) and item attributes defined in Oracle Inventory and Oracle Purchasing such as categories, descriptions, UOM, and so on.

When defining a local catalog, content must be first separated into logical and manageable partitions. These partitions can be created based on purchasing categories, browsing categories, and blanket agreements. Each of the different options that can be used to define a local catalog is referred to as a dimension.

Once a local catalog is defined, it can be associated to content zones which are made accessible to the users assigned to see that catalog content.

How Intersection Is Used for Restrictions Across Agreements and Categories

In a local catalog, items can be included or excluded based on the agreement and category inclusion or exclusion rules.

In order to determine the available local content, the application will resolve the inclusion or exclusion rules within a local catalog as illustrated in the table below:

• Inclusion rules will always result in the intersection across dimensions, as in example D below.

• If there is an exclusion rule in one dimension, it will be treated as the inclusion of the inverse set, and then there will be intersection across dimensions as in examples A and C below.

• If both agreements and categories are specified by exclusion, then the rules are first intersected with all content. The union of the resulting intersections is excluded as in example B below.

Example	Local Catalog Setup (Inclusion versus Exclusion)	Available Content
A	Exclude Agreements {123, 456}, Include Category {Pens, Pencils}	Anything that's in the Pens category or in the Pencils category as long as they're not in Agreements 123 or 456.
B	Exclude Agreement {123}, Exclude Category {Pens}	All content as long as it's not in Pens or Agreement 123. For example, no content from Pens, and no content from Agreement 123.
C	Include Agreement {123}, Exclude Category {Pens, Pencils}	All items from Agreement 123, except those items that belong to Pens category or Pencils category
D	Include Agreement {123}, Include Category {Pens}	Only Pens from Agreement 123

How Union Is Used for Restrictions in Separate Catalogs

Restrictions can also be separated. For example, a restriction can exclude agreement 123, but include all office supplies content even if the items are in agreement 123. In this case, separate catalogs are needed to define restrictions as union. The following table provides examples of local catalog setups, and the content that would be made available.

Example	Local Catalog Setup (Intersection versus Union)	Available Content
A	Catalog 1: Agreement {123} and Category {Pens}	Only Pens from Agreement 123.
B	Catalog 1: Agreement {123} Catalog 2: Category {Pens}	Anything that's in agreement 123 or in the Pens category.
C	Catalog 1: Agreement {123, 456} and Category {Pens}	Pens from agreements 123 or 456. Items must be pens in either Agreement 123 or 456.
D	Catalog 1: Agreement {123} and Category {Pens} Catalog 2: Agreement {456}	Pens from Agreement 123 or anything from Agreement 456.
E	Catalog 1: Agreement {123} and Category {Pens} Catalog 2: Agreement {456} and Category {Chairs}	Pens from agreement 123 or Chairs from Agreement 456.
F	Catalog 1: Agreement {123} and Category {Pens} Catalog 2: Agreement {456} Catalog 3: Category {Chairs}	Pens from Agreement 123 or anything from Agreement 456 or anything in the Chairs category.
G	Catalog 1: Exclude Agreement {123} Catalog 2: Category {Pens}	Anything in the Pens category or anything else not in Agreement 123.