Update 20A

Revision History

This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates appear in the following table:

Date	Feature	Notes
04 OCT 2021	Validate Tax Registration Number Format in Supplier Registration	Updated document. Revised Opt In details.
13 MAY 2020	Integrate and Extend Procurement Using REST Services	Updated document. Clarified existing content.
06 MAR 2020	IMPORTANT Actions and Considerations	Updated document. Modified content in the Bypass Purchase Order Approvals While Importing Orders Using FBDI entry.
28 FEB 2020	IMPORTANT Actions and Considerations	Updated document. Added new section to capture additional changes that were included in update 20A.
13 JAN 2020	Improve Approval Rules for Internal Changes on Supplier Bank Accounts	Updated document. Added a link to a white paper in Key Resources.
09 JAN 2020	Shop for Master Items and Items Available on Blanket Agreements from a Punchout Site	Updated document. Added XML details to the feature description.
20 DEC 2019		Created initial document.

Overview

This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in this update, and describes any tasks you might need to perform for the update. Each section includes a brief description of the feature, the steps you need to take to enable or begin using the feature, any tips or considerations that you should keep in mind, and the resources available to help you.

Security and New Features

The Role section of each feature identifies the security privilege and job role required to use the feature. If feature setup is required, then the Application Implementation Consultant job role is required to perform the setup, unless otherwise indicated. (If a feature doesn't include a Role section, then no security changes are required to use the feature.)

If you have created job roles, then you can use this information to add new privileges to those roles as needed.

Give Us Feedback

We welcome your comments and suggestions to improve the content. Please send us your feedback at oracle_fusion_applications_help_ww_grp@oracle.com.

Optional Uptake of New Features (Opt In)

Oracle Cloud Applications delivers new updates every quarter. This means every three months you'll receive new functionality to help you efficiently and effectively manage your business. Some features are delivered Enabled meaning they are immediately available to end users. Other features are delivered Disabled meaning you have to take action to make available. Features delivered Disabled can be activated for end users in a couple of ways:

Access the Opt In page from the New Features Work Area

1. Click the Navigator, and then click New Features (under the My Enterprise heading)
2. On the New Features page, select the offering that includes new features you’d like to review
3. Click Go to Opt In for any feature you want to opt in
4. On the Edit Features page, select the Enable option for the feature, and then click Done

or...  Access the Opt In page from the Setup and Maintenance Work Area

1. Click the Navigator, and then click Setup and Maintenance
2. On the Setup page, select your offering, and then click Change Feature Opt In
3. On the Opt In page, click the Edit Features icon for any area that includes features you want to opt in
4. On the Edit Features page, select the Enable option for any feature you want to opt in to. If the Enable column includes an Edit icon instead of a check box, then click the icon, select your feature options, and click Save and Close. 
5. Click Done.

Opt In Expiration

Occasionally, features delivered Disabled via Opt In may be enabled automatically in a future update. This is known as an Opt In Expiration. If your cloud service has any Opt In Expirations you will see a related tab in this document. Click on that tab to see when the feature was originally delivered Disabled, and when the Opt In will expire, potentially automatically enabling the feature. You can also click here to see features with Opt In Expirations across all Oracle Cloud Applications.

Feature Summary

Procurement

Project-Driven Supply Chain

You need the ability to perform your supply chain activities in context of projects whenever you have to produce contract-specific goods and services of a specific quality on a specified schedule and budget. If you’re a manufacturing or a service company delivering goods and services on a project, you also want to invoice your customers based on terms of the contract, rather than the cost of goods and services.

Project-Driven Supply Chain is an end-to-end, integrated solution across supply chain and project management cloud applications. This solution supports business processes of both manufacturing and asset-intensive companies.

• Manufacturers can enhance their market share and profitability by offering servitized sales of differentiated products.

• Contract manufacturers can increase their margins by serving multiple contracts from the same plant without having to maintain project-specific organizations.

• Asset-intensive companies can use this solution to control project risks when building assets and also comply with regulatory requirements.

You can use the Project-Driven Supply Chain solution to manage your supply chain operations without having to create separate organizations for each project and capture supply chain costs as project expenditures.

In this update, the Project-Driven Supply Chain solution is comprised of 11 features. The first nine features are part of the Oracle Supply Chain Management Cloud applications, and the last two features are part of the Oracle Project Management Cloud applications:

• Segregate and Manage Project-Specific Inventory
• Receive Project-Specific Supply
• Pick Project-Specific Inventory
• Ship Project-Specific Inventory
• Transfer Project-Specific Inventory
• Purchase Project-Specific Inventory
• Execute Project-Specific Manufacturing
• Perform Project-Specific Maintenance
• Execute Project-Striped Supply Chain Without Project Financials
• Capture Project-Driven Supply Chain Material and Manufacturing Costs (Oracle Project Management Cloud feature)
• Capture and Capitalize Project-Driven Supply Chain Asset Maintenance Costs (Oracle Project Management Cloud feature)

The ability to plan and execute supply chain operations by project enables your business to serve more than one project from the same set of plants and warehouses while maintaining project-specific material visibility and project-specific costing.  The Project-Driven Supply Chain solution also enables you to track your overall schedule and budget and comply with the terms of contracts.

The Project-Driven Supply Chain features in Oracle Procurement Cloud are described in this document.

Purchase Project-Specific Inventory

You typically purchase project-specific material to satisfy project demand. Project-specific purchase orders ensure that the cost of the purchase is charged to the project and the material is received into project inventory. 

With this feature, you can:

• Create and approve requisitions to purchase material to an inventory destination for a project
• Create project commitment upon approval of the requisition
• Create and approve purchase orders to purchase material into an inventory destination for a project
• Receive into project-specific inventory
• Charge purchase cost to project

Requisition with Project Attributes for Inventory Destination

Purchase Order with Project Attributes for Inventory Destination

Steps to Enable

Use the Opt In UI to enable this feature. For instructions, refer to the Optional Uptake of New Features section of this document.

Offering: Manufacturing and Supply Chain Materials Management

Feature: Project-Driven Supply Chain

After you opt in, you must perform additional steps to enable project-driven supply chain. For instructions, refer to the Steps to Enable section in the Segregate and Manage Project-Specific Inventory feature, available in the Oracle Inventory Management Cloud What's New, update 20A.

Tips And Considerations

• Enable individual inventory organizations associated with deliver-to and ship-to locations or organizations that default from Configure Requisitioning Business Function to track by project. For instruction, refer to the Steps to Enable section in the Segregate and Manage Project-Specific Inventory feature, available in Oracle Inventory Management What's New, update 20A.
• Purchase requisitions and purchase orders to inventory destination having project costing details are not subject to budgetary controls. If you enable budgetary control to the requisitioning BU, the funds status will be Not Applicable for purchase requisitions and purchase orders to inventory destination having project costing details.
• A purchase order schedule can only have one distribution if the purchase is for an inventory destination with project references.

Role Information

Users with any of the following predefined job roles are automatically able to participate in the project-driven supply chain process:

• Procurement Manager (ORA_PO_PROCUREMENT_MANAGER_JOB)
• Buyer (ORA_PO_BUYER_JOB)

If you're maintaining your own configured job roles: no new privileges were introduced to support the Purchase Project-Specific Inventory feature.

Transfer Project-Specific Inventory

In a project-driven supply chain, you need the ability to transfer project-owned material from the point of storage to the point of use on demand and ensure that it remains segregated through the moves.  You also want to make sure that when material is transferred in or out of a project, its costs are properly accounted for on the project

With this feature, you can:

• Create transfer orders through requisitions or REST services

• Transfer material between project inventory locations either across inventory organizations or within the same inventory organization

• Transfer material from common inventory to project inventory either across inventory organizations or across subinventories of the same inventory organization

• Create project commitment when a transfer requisition or a transfer order is created

• Send material costs to project when common inventory is transferred to a project inventory destination

• Maintain project-specific valuation upon transfer

With this feature, you can reduce the capital tied up in stored inventory and expedite project schedule by maintaining central warehouses and transferring material to points of use when required on a task.

Here are the key enhancements for this feature:

• You can specify project attributes on an inventory destination internal requisition.  As a project accountant or project manager, you can view project commitment for these internal requisitions once project data is summarized in Project Management.

Requisition Lines page

• Receive and process interorganization transfer requests of inventory and expense destination with project costing attributes from Self Service Procurement (SSP) in Supply Chain Orchestration.

• Receive and process interorganization and intraorganization transfer requests of inventory and expense destination with project costing attributes from the Supply Request REST service. Using the Supply Request REST service, you can either capture just the project number and task number, or capture the full set of project costing attributes. This enables you to get the default values for the project costing attributes and perform project cost transaction validations. If the validation fails, you can resubmit the supply request after manually taking corrective actions.

• You can search supply requests and supply orders by a combination of project number and task number in the Supply Chain Orchestration work area. This lets you view all the project costing attributes.

• Send the project details along with the transfer order create request to Inventory Management and view the project details on the transfer order line.

Edit Transfer Order page

• You can view project commitments for these transfer orders once project data is summarized in Project Management.

• Pick from project inventory, or pick from common inventory, if item setup allows it.

• You can even group the picks with same project and task in a single pick slip.

• Use Quick Ship to bypass pick release and pick confirm, and ship the material from either project inventory or common inventory, if allowed.

Manage Shipment Lines page

• You can easily configure shipping reports to display the project and task

• When you receive at the destination organization, the inventory is associated to the project and task indicated on the requisition or supply request

• Cost and account inventory and expense destination transfer orders to a project.  You can import costed and accounted transactions from supply chain as project expenditures into Oracle Fusion Project Management.  If it is a capitalized cost, you can proceed to run the capitalization flow

• You may choose to allocate costs to other projects, project tasks, or accounts as appropriate. For additional details, refer to the What’s New document for these features in Project Management Cloud:  Capture Project-Driven Supply Chain Material and Manufacturing Costs and Capture and Capitalize Project-Driven Supply Chain Asset Maintenance Costs
• You can create a return transfer order with the appropriate project and task attributes

Watch Demos of:

• The Self Service Procurement Flow
• The Inventory Management Flow
• The Cost Accounting Flow
• The Project Portfolio Management Flow

Steps to Enable

Use the Opt In UI to enable this feature. For instructions, refer to the Optional Uptake of New Features section of this document.

Offering: Manufacturing and Supply Chain Materials Management

Feature: Project-Driven Supply Chain

After you opt in, you must perform additional steps to enable project-driven supply chain. For instructions, refer to the Steps to Enable section in the Segregate and Manage Project-Specific Inventory feature, available in the Oracle Inventory Management Cloud What's New, update 20A.

Tips And Considerations

Here are some things you can't do:

• Send a transfer order that includes project details through Order Management.

Key Resources

• Using Functional Setup Manager, available on the Oracle Help Center.
• Watch Transfer Project-Specific Inventory Readiness Training
• Oracle Supply Chain Management Cloud: Implementing Manfacturing and Supply Chain Materials Management and Using Inventory Management, available on Oracle Help Center.

Role Information

Users with any of the following predefined job roles are automatically able to participate in the project-driven supply chain process:

• Warehouse Operator (ORA_INV_WAREHOUSE_OPERATOR)
• Shipping Manager (ORA_WSH_SHIPPING_MANAGER)
• Shipping Agent (ORA_WSH_SHIPPING_AGENT)
• Receiving Agent (ORA_RCV_RECEIVING_AGENT_JOB)
• Cost Accountant (ORA_CST_COST_ACCOUNTANT_JOB)
• Project Manager (ORA_PJF_PROJECT_MANAGER_JOB)
• Project Administrator (ORA_PJF_PROJECT_ADMINISTRATOR_JOB)
• Project Accountant (ORA_PJF_PROJECT_ACCOUNTANT_JOB)
• Project Billing Specialist (ORA_PJF_PROJECT_BILLING_SPECIALIST)
• Supply Chain Application Administrator (ORA_RCS_SUPPLY_CHAIN_APPLICATION_ADMINISTRATOR)

If you're maintaining your own configured job roles: no new privileges were introduced to support the Transfer Project-Specific Inventory feature.

Cross-Product Procurement Enhancements

Integrate and Extend Procurement Using REST Services

In this update, Oracle Procurement Cloud delivers modified REST APIs to enable and simplify integration with external systems.

These REST APIs were enhanced:

• Draft Purchase Orders
  • Use the SUBMIT custom action to submit draft documents for approval

NOTE: This enhancement was also made available in a monthly update of 19D.

• Purchase Orders
  • Use the POST action to close purchase orders, lines, and schedules. Close actions include Close for Receiving, Close for Invoicing, Close, and Finally Close.

• Supplier Negotiations
  • The PATCH action supports updates of draft negotiations with lines, collaboration team members, and suppliers
  • The POST action was enhanced so that negotiation lines automatically default values for the following item-dependent attributes: Description, Category, and UOM

• Suppliers
  • The POST and PATCH actions are now supported for sites, site assignments, flexfields and global flexfields for suppliers
  • The POST and DELETE actions are now supported for contact addresses
  • The GET, POST, and PATCH actions are now supported for third-party payment relationships

Steps to Enable

Review the REST service definition in the REST API guides, available from the Oracle Help Center > your apps service area of interest > REST API. If you're new to Oracle's REST services you may want to begin with the Quick Start section.

Key Resources

• Refer to the REST API for Oracle Procurement Cloud documentation, available on the Oracle Help Center.

Purchasing

Configure Page Number Display for Purchasing Document PDFs

Configure page number display on your purchasing document PDFs to ensure a consistent look and feel for your supplier communication. Define page number settings for purchase orders and purchase agreements in the corresponding RTF templates instead of using application generated defaults.

Steps to Enable

Use the Opt In UI to enable this feature. For instructions, refer to the Optional Uptake of New Features section of this document.

Offering: Procurement

To use this feature after you opt in, define page numbers in the RTF templates for both purchase orders and purchase agreements.

Tips And Considerations

After you opt in, contract terms that are merged into the purchasing document PDF will not have any page numbers unless you define page numbers in the contracts RTF template.

Retroactive Pricing for Configure-to-Order Purchase Orders

Apply model and option price changes retroactively to purchase orders for configured items. This eliminates the need to manually manage price changes on individual purchase orders.

Steps to Enable

You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.

Role Information

No new roles or privileges are required to use this feature. This feature is secured with the existing Retroactively Price Purchase Order privilege (PO_RETROACTIVELY_PRICE_PURCHASE_ORDER).

Add New Approved Requisitions to Existing Open Purchase Orders

Add new approved purchase requisition lines to existing open purchase orders. You can now add a requisition line to an existing open purchase order instead of creating a separate purchase order for the requisition.

With this feature, you can add new approved purchase requisition lines to existing open purchase orders:

• When requisition lines don't reference sales orders or work orders
• When requisition lines that are subject to budgetary control don't have project information on the distribution

This screen capture illustrates the feature.

Display of Open purchase orders in the Existing Order search

A change order is created when adding newly approved requisition lines to an existing Open purchase order

Steps to Enable

Use the Opt In UI to enable this feature. For instructions, refer to the Optional Uptake of New Features section of this document.

Offering: Procurement

Capture Supplier Discounts on Purchase Order Lines

Capture discounts from the base price of goods and services. You can specify discounts either in percentage or in amount, and you can specify a reason for the discount. In 19D, discount information could be entered only through the user interface. In this update, discount information can also be captured when you import orders from external applications. You can also include discount information in order PDFs and outbound B2B messages.

This screen capture illustrates the feature.

 

PO Line Discount Attributes in the FBDI Template

Steps to Enable

Use the Opt In UI to enable this feature. For instructions, refer to the Optional Uptake of New Features section of this document.

Offering: Procurement

Tips And Considerations

• When you import purchase orders with discounts, enter the pre-discounted price, also known as the Base Price, in the existing price field of the template.

• When you import discounted service lines with multiple schedules, ensure the sum of the schedule amounts equals the discounted line amount.

Review and Recover B2B Electronic Supplier Communication Exceptions Using the Transaction Administration Console

Monitor and review failed B2B electronic supplier communication transactions. Using the Transaction Administration Console, you can recover failed transactions after reviewing the fault details. As an application administrator, you can now respond faster whenever a fault occurs, without needing to involve support, development, and operations. Depending on the type of failure, you can take appropriate action, such as recover, which will attempt to resend the message, or terminate the communication process. When you terminate the communication process, you can recommunicate the purchase order using the REST service.

Steps to Enable

You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.

Tips And Considerations

To refresh the status of a transaction in the console at regular intervals, an administrator must manually schedule to run the Refresh Transaction Administrator Console Transaction Status process. It’s recommended to schedule the process to run every hour.

Key Resources

• For more information about this feature, see Using the Transaction Console.

Role Information

To use this feature, these predefined job roles or configured job roles are required: 

• Predefined job role name and code:
  • Procurement Application Administrator (PO_PROCUREMENT_APPLICATION_ADMIN_JOB)

• Duty role name and code for configured job roles:
  • Review Procurement Approval Transactions as Administrator (ORA_PO_REVIEW_PRC_APPROVAL_TRANSACTIONS)

NOTE: In the 20B update, this duty role will be renamed to Review Procurement Transactions as Administrator (ORA_PO_REVIEW_PRC_APPROVAL_TRANSACTIONS).

Self Service Procurement

Upload the Packaging String Attribute Through the Agreement Loader Process

You can use a product packaging string to let users know the exact quantity of items they are purchasing, especially when the UOM displayed on the search results page is different from the user's consumption UOM. You can now upload the Packaging String attribute through the Agreement Loader process for description-based lines. It’s an optional text attribute with 240 characters as the maximum allowed length. Here are the different formats you can use to upload the Packaging String attribute: 

• Tab-Delimited Text: A new column Packaging String is introduced in the text template that can be downloaded using the Download resources button on the Upload Lines screen.

Upload Lines

• Oracle XML: The value for the packaging string can be provided using the NAMEVALUE tag for each item (Parent Tag ITEM).
• cXML: The value for the packaging string can be provided using the Extrinsic tag for each item (Parent tag ItemDetail).
• CIF: In a CIF file, a new field can be added with title Packaging String and the value provided for the field will be uploaded. The other method is to use the Parametric Data column.

Steps to Enable

You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.

Tips And Considerations

In all the four formats, you can provide the name of the attribute as Packaging String or PACKAGING_STRING.

Shop for Master Items and Items Available on Blanket Agreements from a Punchout Site

Integrate punchout catalogs with an external marketplace. You can now shop for master items and agreement based catalog items from a punchout site instead of only description-based expense items.

When you enable this feature, Oracle Self Service Procurement Cloud will:

• Send the Deliver-to Organization to the punchout site in the user's Punchout Setup Request. Oracle Procurement Cloud uses the addressID attribute of the standard cXML element <Address> (Parent tag: ShipTo) to send the Deliver-to Organization code to the punchout site.

• Add master items returned from the punchout site to the user's requisition in Self Service Procurement. The punchout site must use the standard cXML element BuyerPartID (Parent element: ItemID) to send the master item number to Oracle Procurement Cloud.

• Add items that reference a blanket or contract purchase agreement from the punchout site to the user's requisition in Self Service Procurement. The punchout site must use the standard cXML element IdReference (Parent element: ItemID) to send the agreement details to Oracle Procurement Cloud. The punchout site must provide an agreementLineNumber for a blanket purchase agreement.

Here's an example of a cXML protocol containing the BuyerPartID and IdReference elements.

<ItemID>

<BuyerPartID>RCV-100</BuyerPartID>

<IdReference identifier="agreementNumber" domain="supplierReference">1002654 </IdReference>

<IdReference identifier="agreementLineNumber" domain="supplierReference">1</IdReference>

</ItemID>

Items can be fulfilled either as internal material transfers (if configured in Oracle Procurement Cloud) or supplier purchases. In case of supplier purchases, now items can be automatically sourced from a blanket purchase agreement in addition to a contract purchase agreement. You can disable automatic document sourcing when you want to retain the supplier's price on the items.

Steps to Enable

To process master items and agreement lines using punchout, follow these steps:

1. In the Catalogs work area, click the Manage Catalogs task.
2. Search for the punchout catalog name and edit the catalog.
3. Select the Process master items and agreement lines using punchout check box.
4. Click Save and Close.

        Process Master Items and Agreement Lines Using Punchout

To disable automatic document sourcing:

1. In the Catalogs work area, click the Manage Catalogs task.
2. Search for the punchout catalog name and edit the catalog.
3. Select the Disable automatic document sourcing check box.
4. Click Save and Close.

Disable Automatic Document Sourcing

Key Resources

• For more details about the feature, see the Punchout Catalogs topic in the Manage Procurement Catalog chapter of the Using Procurement guide, update 20A. In the topic, refer specifically to the section titled "Considerations for Integrating a Punchout Catalog with a Market Place."

Use Oracle Content and Experience Cloud for Hosting Catalog Images

Use Oracle Content and Experience Cloud, a cloud-based content storage solution from Oracle, to upload images and use these images to set up catalogs in Oracle Self Service Procurement Cloud.

Using this feature, you can associate images with agreement items, smart forms, punchout items, and browsing categories. This ensures a better shopping experience for users as they can view catalog product images while shopping.

Also, with Oracle Content and Experience Cloud, you have a better IT security as the images are stored and consumed in Fusion Applications, you don’t need to access third-party websites to store images. This is helpful, especially if access to third party websites is blocked.

Using this feature, you can do these:

• Upload images one at a time or a bulk import from third-party websites such as Google Drive, and Dropbox. 
• Review and approve content to be published. 
• Use various predefined or configured renditions of the same image. 

Steps to Enable

You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.

Key Resources

• For more information about this feature, see Hosting Catalog Images Using Oracle Content and Experience Cloud.

Sourcing

Enforce Sourcing Eligibility for Suppliers in Negotiations

In the Supplier Qualification work area, suppliers can now be assessed to determine if they are eligible for sourcing. You can enforce this sourcing eligibility control when inviting suppliers to a negotiation. The outcome of the assessment will result in the supplier being eligible, eligible with warning, or not eligible for sourcing. In Procurement BUs where sourcing eligibility is enforced, category managers will see the supplier’s eligibility status when creating a negotiation. If an ineligible supplier is added to the invitation list, the negotiation can't be published until the supplier is removed. Similarly, if a supplier has the status, 'Eligible with Warning', then a warning message is displayed when publishing the negotiation.

If a supplier becomes ineligible after they're invited an icon flags the supplier providing real time visibility throughout the negotiation lifecycle when monitoring, analyzing, or, awarding a negotiation, and when creating purchasing documents. In addition, you can use the new approval attribute, 'Sourcing Eligibility', to configure award approval rules to ensure proposed awards to an ineligible supplier receive additional scrutiny. The award approval notifications include icons to flag ineligible suppliers to help category managers pursue further action before making an award approval decision. These approval rules can provide additional process control by ensuring conditional approvers are added to investigate potential supplier risk.

Validation for Ineligible Suppliers During Negotiation Publish

Check Real Time Sourcing Eligibility While Searching for Suppliers

See Real time Sourcing Eligibility During Award

Configure Award Approval Rules for Sourcing Eligibility

Steps to Enable

Use the Opt In UI to enable this feature. For instructions, refer to the Optional Uptake of New Features section of this document.

Offering: Procurement

Feature: Assess Supplier Eligibility for Sourcing

To use this feature, you must also set up Oracle Supplier Qualification Management Cloud. 

After doing so, you can enable this feature for a specific procurement business unit. You can perform this additional step in the Setup and Maintenance work area: 

• In the Configure Procurement Business Function for a Procurement Business Unit task, select the Invite only sourcing eligible suppliers check box in the Sourcing tab.

For more information about the setup required, refer to the Assess Supplier Eligibility for Sourcing feature in the Supplier Qualification Management section of this document.

Key Resources

For more information, refer to the Assess Supplier Eligibility for Sourcing feature in the Supplier Qualification Management section of this document.

Role Information

To use this feature, the following privileges or roles are required:

• Privilege Name and Code:
  • View Supplier Eligibility (POQ_VIEW_SUPPLIER_ELIGIBILITY_PRIV)

• Job Role Name and Code:
  • Category Manager (ORA_PON_CATEGORY_MANAGER)       
  • Sourcing Project Collaborator (ORA_PON_SOURCING_PROJECT_COLLABORATOR)

Download Requirement Attachments Organized by Sections

Suppliers, category managers, and collaboration team members can now manage and organize a large number of requirement attachments efficiently during the negotiation process.

Already, in sourcing, you can use the negotiation and response attachments pages to download select or all attachments with a single action. Attachments are downloaded to a zip file and are organized into a directory structure to facilitate easy access to a specific attachment by supplier, response, or level. You can now extract the downloaded zip file and quickly locate a requirement attachment under the respective requirement section directory.

Download Response Attachments as a Category Manager

Requirement Attachments Organized By Section

Steps to Enable

You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.

Key Resources

• Refer to the update 17D What's New and Readiness Training for the Manage Sourcing Attachments Download feature on the Oracle Cloud Readiness site for more details related to managing attachments.

Role Information

TTo use this feature, the following roles are required:

• Job Role Name and Code:
  • Category Manager (ORA_PON_CATEGORY_MANAGER)       
  • Sourcing Project Collaborator (ORA_PON_SOURCING_PROJECT_COLLABORATOR)
  • Supplier Bidder (ORA_PON_SUPPLIER_BIDDER_ABSTRACT)

Improve Visibility and Control for Linked Supplier Contracts

In update 19D, you can create supplier contracts for awarded suppliers from a negotiation. This feature is now enhanced to improve usability and provides better control of the award to contracts process.

• You can now use new contract related approval attributes to route negotiation and award approvals

• On the supplier contract, you can see and drill down to the source negotiation and responses from which the contract was created

• Similarly, the supplier's awarded response shows the link to the resulting contract

• You can now track the outcome purchasing documents and contracts at one place after completing the negotiation

• Contract terms are now downloaded as a Microsoft word document format (.docx)

The following screens illustrate this feature:

Two new attributes are available for approval routing and award process control:

1. Base contract exists: Indicates whether or not the negotiation has a base procurement contract associated with it. This is part of both 'Negotiation approval header level attributes' & 'Award approval header level attributes'.
2. Supplier contracts exist: Indicates whether or not a procurement contract exists for at least one awarded bid of the negotiation. This is part of only 'Award approval header level attributes'.

Define Approval Rules Using New Contract Related Approval Attributes

Drill Down to Source Negotiation from Supplier Contract

Drill Down to Source Response Line from the Contract Line

Drill Down to Supplier Contract from the Supplier's Response

Track Contracts and Purchasing Documents Associated to Awarded Responses at One Place

Steps to Enable

Use the Opt In UI to enable this feature. For instructions, refer to the Optional Uptake of New Features section of this document.

Offering: Procurement

Tips And Considerations

NOTE: To use this feature, you must opt in to the feature named Create Supplier Contracts from Negotiation Award. If you previously opted in to that feature, you don't have to opt in again.

Contract information is not passed to purchasing documents created in Oracle Purchasing Cloud. This will be addressed in a future update.

Key Resources

• Review update 19D readiness training for  the Oracle Sourcing Cloud feature named Create Supplier Contracts from Negotiation for more details.

Role Information

To use this feature, the following predefined job roles are required:

• Job Role and Code:
  • Category Manager (ORA_PON_CATEGORY_MANAGER)      
  • Procurement Approver (ORA_PO_PROCUREMENT_APPROVER)

Update Scores on Behalf of a Team Member

Many companies in certain geographical regions often deal with intermittent network connectivity and training challenges when using online applications. In a negotiation, collaboration team members evaluate and score supplier responses to requirements online.  With limited internet connectivity, some members may not be able to access the online application to complete their scoring assignment. Now, with the scoring spreadsheet (.xlsm), you can update scores on behalf of another team member by downloading their scoring spreadsheet and sending it to them to complete offline.  Once they return the completed file you can upload their scores.  The person who last updated scores for a team member is recorded for transparency.

NOTE: This feature was first released in update 19D. In this update, the feature is enhanced so that you can enter scores online on behalf of another member, and quickly track which responses were scored by a surrogate scorer.

You can select a team member on behalf of whom you would like to score from the Team Members list in the Manage Scoring page. While entering scores, you can edit scores for each response. The 'Last Updated By' field will capture the name of the surrogate scorer and mark it with an icon to identify distinctly. Following screens illustrate the feature.

Select a Team Member to Score Responses

Enter Scores by clicking Edit button across each Response or Download Scoring Spreadsheet

Enter Scores online on behalf of Another Member

Enter Scores on behalf of Another Member from the Scoring Spreadsheet

Steps to Enable

Use the Opt In UI to enable this feature. For instructions, refer to the Optional Uptake of New Features section of this document.

Offering: Procurement

Tips And Considerations

When you opt in to use this feature, you must opt in to the feature named Score Requirements Offline with Team Scoring Spreadsheet, which is part of the Procurement offering. Doing so enables the functionality of the Update Scores on Behalf of a Team Member feature. 

NOTE: If you previously opted in to the feature named Score Requirements Offline with Team Scoring Spreadsheet, you don't have to opt in again.

To download and upload the scoring spreadsheet, you must install the ADF Desktop Integration plugin for Excel. In the Navigator, click Download Desktop Integration Installer to get started.

Role Information

To use this feature, the following privileges or roles are required:

• Job Role Name and Code:
  • Category Manager (ORA_PON_CATEGORY_MANAGER)

• Privilege and Code:
  • Update Response Scores for Another Member (PON_UPDATE_OTHER_MEMBER_SCORES)

Supplier Qualification Management

Assess Supplier Eligibility for Sourcing

To participate in sourcing negotiations, suppliers need to meet your criteria and standards for doing business.  For example, a supplier may need to show financial viability and agree to follow certain code of conduct requirements. Your assessment of these requirements can now establish or remove a supplier's eligibility for participation in sourcing, helping you manage risk and enforce your policies. You can refer to this eligibility outcome during sourcing. You can assess a supplier for sourcing eligibility when the supplier first registers as well as with additional assessments over time.           

QUALIFYING SUPPLIER DURING SUPPLIER REGISTRATION

You can request the supplier to respond to questions pertaining to sourcing eligibility during registration, or you can set up the application to automatically send out a questionnaire on sourcing eligibility to the supplier and internal responder once the supplier's registration is approved.

Supplier Registration Questionnaire          

Once the supplier is registered an assessment for sourcing eligibility is automatically created. For each qualification in the assessment the qualification owner can validate the supplier’s information and evaluate the supplier’s qualification. After all of the qualifications are completed the assessment owner can evaluate the supplier across qualifications. The supplier’s sourcing eligibility is automatically determined from the assessment outcome.

Sourcing Assessment Evaluation

The supplier’s sourcing eligibility in the procurement BU is recorded when the assessment is finalized.

View Suppliers' Sourcing Eligibility through Research Suppliers         

Supplier’s Sourcing Eligibility after the Initial Assessment

In this example:

• As a result of the assessment supplier AAA LEASING INC is now eligible for sourcing in Vision Operations, which is the inviting procurement BU of the registration.

• Any other procurement BU that hasn’t done its own sourcing assessment derives its sourcing eligibility from the default sourcing eligibility for the supplier, which is configurable during setup. Vision Argentina hasn’t done its sourcing assessment. Based on the supplier’s default sourcing eligibility supplier AAA LEASING INC is not eligible for sourcing in Vision Argentina.

QUALIFYING SUPPLIER AFTER SUPPLIER ONBOARDING 

After the initial onboarding you can assess the supplier's sourcing eligibility by launching an initiative for the sourcing assessment.

• To reassess the supplier's sourcing eligibility in the inviting procurement BU of the registration, after the initial evaluation.
• To assess the supplier's sourcing eligibility in any Procurement BU.

If you have the privilege you can manually set the supplier's sourcing eligibility or overwrite the sourcing eligibility derived from the assessment.

Supplier’s Sourcing Eligibility in Multiple Procurement BUs

In this example:

• Supplier AAA LEASING INC is assessed for sourcing in Vision Brazil, which is not the inviting procurement BU of the registration.

• Vision Services BU isn't ready to perform their sourcing assessment until they get more information. In the meantime, Clare Furey - a qualification manager in Vision Services, manually sets the supplier's sourcing eligibility so the supplier is not eligible for sourcing in Vision Services.                                      

SHARING SUPPLIER'S SOURCING ELIGIBILITY STATUS

If a single Procurement BU is responsible to assess the supplier's sourcing eligibility for the organization you can configure the qualification model such that the sourcing eligibility status becomes the default sourcing eligibility for the supplier. It determines the supplier's sourcing eligibility in any other Procurement BUs without its own sourcing assessment.

Shared Supplier Sourcing Eligibility

In this example:

• Vision Operations is responsible to assess the supplier's sourcing eligibility for Vision organization. The supplier's default sourcing eligibility is updated with the eligibility status resulting from the shared sourcing assessment.

• Supplier AAA LEASING INC is now eligible for sourcing in all Procurement BUs in Vision organization (Vision Operations, Vision Services, Vision Brazil, Vision Argentina).        

Steps to Enable

Use the Opt In UI to enable this feature. For instructions, refer to the Optional Uptake of New Features section of this document.

Offering: Procurement

To opt in, perform these steps:

1. On the Edit Features page, navigate to the Assess Supplier Eligibility for Sourcing opt in page.

Access the Assess Supplier Eligibility for Sourcing Opt In Page

2. On the Enable Supplier Eligibility for Sourcing page:
   1. Enable the feature.
   2. Set the default sourcing eligibility for the existing suppliers.

This is the default sourcing eligibility of the existing suppliers in any Procurement BU unless the supplier is assessed for sourcing in the Procurement BU. This status is set for the existing suppliers when the feature is enabled.

NOTE: see Tips and Considerations section.

             

Opt In to the Assess Supplier Eligibility for Sourcing feature

After you opt in, perform these steps from the Setup and Maintenance Work Area:

1. Set the default sourcing eligibility for new suppliers. (Navigation: Configure Supplier Qualification Controls)

This is the default sourcing eligibility of newly registered or created suppliers in any Procurement BU unless the supplier is assessed for sourcing in the Procurement BU.

Default Sourcing Eligibility for New Suppliers

2. Configure the sourcing model. (Navigation: Manage Qualification Models > Edit Qualification Model)

You can designate different sourcing models for different Procurement BUs, to fit their specific sourcing eligibility criteria. On the other hand, multiple Procurement BUs with similar sourcing eligibility criteria can use the same sourcing model.

1. Designate the qualification model to assess suppliers’ sourcing eligibility.
2. Select ‘Share eligibility’ option if the sourcing eligibility status resulting from the assessment should also become the default sourcing eligibility for the supplier.

Sourcing Model

3. Set which assessment outcomes enable suppliers to participate in sourcing activities.

There are three sourcing eligibility status: Eligible, Eligible with warning, Not eligible.

For more information on how the sourcing eligibility status affects the suppliers' ability to participate in sourcing, see the Enforce Sourcing Eligibility for Suppliers in Negotiations readiness document, available in Sourcing - Update 20A.

Sourcing Eligibility Status Corresponding to the Assessment Outcomes     

3. Configure the rule set for the Procurement BU. (Navigation: Manage Rule Sets > Edit Rule Set)

Specify the sourcing qualification model for supplier registration, supplier registration approval, or both.

Rule Set with Sourcing Model

Tips And Considerations

• Opting in to the Assess Supplier Eligibility for Sourcing feature enables you to assess your suppliers’ sourcing eligibility. When you’re ready to consider the suppliers’ sourcing eligibility in your sourcing negotiations you should enable the Enforce Sourcing Eligibility for Suppliers in Negotiation feature in Sourcing, which can be selectively set for a Procurement BU.

• The default sourcing eligibility for existing suppliers is set when the Assess Supplier Eligibility for Sourcing feature is first enabled, and should be set correctly. (Navigation: Opt In > Edit Feature > Enable Supplier Eligibility for Sourcing)

If you are already using Sourcing, this default sourcing eligibility status is going to affect all existing suppliers' ability to participate in sourcing negotiations when the corresponding Enforce Sourcing Eligibility for Suppliers in Negotiations feature in Sourcing is enabled.

• A supplier's sourcing eligibility remains active until the next time the supplier is reassessed, even after the initial assessment has expired, so there is no gap in the supplier’s ability to participate in sourcing activities.

Key Resources

• For more information, refer to the Sourcing feature in this document named Enforce Sourcing Eligibility for Suppliers in Negotiation.

Role Information

Here are the roles and privileges needed to use this feature:

• Job Role Name and Code:Supplier Qualification (ORA_POQ_SUPPLIER_QUALIFICATION)
  • Supplier Qualification (ORA_POQ_SUPPLIER_QUALIFICATION)

• Privilege Name and Code:
  • Edit Supplier Eligibility (POQ_EDIT_SUPPLIER_ELIGIBILITY)
  • View Supplier Eligibility (POQ_VIEW_SUPPLIER_ELIGIBILITY)

Default Qualification Owner by Procurement BU

Automatically assign an owner to your supplier qualifications and assessments based on the business unit managing the evaluation. You can now easily manage the default owners on the area and model for automatic assignment on transactions. Using this default helps you ensure the appropriate individual accepts and evaluates each supplier qualification or assessment.

This screen capture illustrates the feature.

Create Qualification Area

Steps to Enable

You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.

Tips And Considerations

• The qualification owner is derived from the Business Units table on the qualification area. If no owner is specified for that business unit, then the Default Qualification Owner is assigned to the qualification.

• Similar to managing qualification owners in qualification areas, you can also set an assessment owner for a business unit in qualification models.

• Automatic qualification and requalification flows also support defaulting the qualification owner for the business unit from the qualification area setup.

Role Information

To use this feature, the following privileges and roles are required:

• Privilege Name and Code:
  • Edit Supplier Qualification Area (POQ_EDIT_SUPPLIER_QUALIFICATION_AREA_PRIV)
  • Edit Supplier Qualification Model (POQ_EDIT_SUPPLIER_QUALIFICATION_MODEL_PRIV)

• Job Role Name and Code:
  • Supplier Qualification (ORA_POQ_SUPPLIER_QUALIFICATION_DISCRET)

Supplier Model

Create Supplier User Accounts on Supplier Contact Import

Creating user accounts for supplier contacts in bulk is a manual operation that needs to be performed one by one which delays suppliers from gaining access to Oracle Supplier Portal Cloud. You can now automate supplier user account creation when importing supplier contacts.  This feature allows you to create supplier user accounts en masse and assign user roles in the same import process. This greatly reduces the work required to set up supplier contacts that require user accounts.

In the supplier contact import template, the User Account Action column allows you to create or update a user account for specified contacts.  When creating a user account, you can choose to assign the default roles associated with the Supplier Portal work area or the Sourcing work area.  Alternatively, you can specify individual roles to be assigned to the user account.  The update user account action allows you to add or remove specific roles, or inactivate the user account. You can use the Role 1 to Role 10 columns to specify specific roles based on the user account action.

Supplier Contact Import Template with New Columns for User Accounts

Steps to Enable

Before using the feature, complete these setup tasks related to supplier user account provisioning: (existing customers already using Supplier Portal should already have completed these steps).

• In the Setup and Maintenance work area:
  • Enable at least one of these functional areas: Supplier Portal, Sourcing, or Supplier Qualification.       
  • Complete setup tasks: Manage Supplier User Roles and Manage Supplier User Role Usages.  These tasks specify the roles that can be provisioned to supplier users as well as the default roles for the Supplier Portal and Sourcing work areas.

• (Optional) In the Security Console work area, we recommend that you define a user category with name: SUPPLIER_USER and choose Email as the username generation rule for this user category. This ensures new supplier user accounts are assigned the SUPPLIER_USER user category which helps manage external users separate from internal users.  If this user category is not specified, new supplier user accounts will be assigned the DEFAULT user category.

Tips And Considerations

After running the supplier contact import process:

• If you need to find out the user accounts that are created or updated successfully, you can create a report for that.  Navigate to the Reports and Analytics work area, use attributes in Supplier - Supplier Real Time subject area to report on user account details.

• When a user account action is specified for any imported supplier contact, the Send Pending LDAP Requests process will be launched automatically to complete the user account action.  If the user accounts are not created or updated successfully, you can manually run the process using these steps:
  • From Navigator, go to Tools > Scheduled Processes.
  • Click on Schedule New Processes and search for Send Pending LDAP Requests.
  • For Parameters, choose Party for User Type and A for Batch Size, then click Submit.

Role Information

To use this feature, these privileges and roles are required:

• Privilege Name and Code:
  • Import Supplier (POZ_IMPORT_SUPPLIER_PRIV)
  • Run Send Pending LDAP Requests Process (PER_SYNCHRONIZE_USERS_ROLES_PROCESS_PRIV)

• Job Role Name and Code:
  • Supplier Administrator (ORA_POZ_SUPPLIER_ADMINISTRATOR_ABSTRACT)
  • Supplier Manager (ORA_POZ_SUPPLIER_MANAGER_ABSTRACT)

Validate Tax Registration Number Format in Supplier Registration

Accurate and valid supplier master data is critical to the procure-to-pay process. Invalid tax registration numbers can lead to compliance, tax, and other regulatory risks. Supplier registration now enforces country-specific format validation on tax registration number. You can be confident that only valid tax registration numbers are added to the supplier profile. This will eliminate risks associated to invalid tax registration numbers in your supplier master.

The following screen captures illustrate this feature:

1. Setup to validate the tax registration number for a specific country (India for example):

Country Default Controls: India

2. Format validation for Tax Registration Number in supplier registration:

Format Validation for Tax Registration Number

Steps to Enable

Use the Opt In UI to enable this feature. For instructions, refer to the Optional Uptake of New Features section of this document.

Offering: Procurement  No Longer Optional From: Update 22C

Tips And Considerations

• Configure the tax registration number in Setup and Maintenance work area, go to the Manage Country Default Controls task: Offering Procurement - Functional Area: Transaction Tax. If you are already validating tax registration number in the application, you don't need to change the country default controls.

• These cases apply when setting up registration number controls and defaults:
  • Validation Type: For countries that use more than one tax format validation type, you will need to select the one that is most applicable for new suppliers. This is required because only the validation type selected on the setup page will be used to validate the tax registration number.
  • Validation Level: Ensure validation level is configured to 'Error' to enforce the format validation in the registration flow.

Improve Approval Rules for Internal Changes on Supplier Bank Accounts

Bank account data in your supplier master represents a high risk for fraud. A robust and flexible approval capability is required to provide the highest level of risk protection to help ensure only authorized changes are made to a supplier's bank account. When creating approval rules for bank account changes by internal users, you can now use the attributes listed below to support new rule conditions. In addition, you can now route bank account changes for approval based on the supervisor hierarchy of the internal user submitting the change. These enhancements allow you to satisfy more rigorous approval requirements for bank account changes to further reduce fraud risk.

Change Request Header:

• Business Relationship
• Requested By
• Supplier Status
• Taxpayer Country

Change Request Organization Detail:

• Supplier Type

Change Request Bank Accounts:

• Bank
• Bank Account Level
• Country
• Currency
• Procurement BU

This screen capture illustrates the feature:

Use Bank Account Level and Procurement BU as Conditions for Supplier Bank Account Approvals

Steps to Enable

You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.

Tips And Considerations

• For approval routing based on the Bank Account Level rule condition attribute, you have the option to select one of the three values: Supplier Header, Supplier Address, Supplier Site. This rule condition attribute allows you to configure rules that can be conditionally triggered depending on the level at which a bank account is defined or changed. 

• The Procurement BU rule condition attribute is only relevant for bank accounts defined at supplier site level. If you author an approval rule that uses Procurement BU, you need to have at least one additional rule that will be triggered when changes are made to bank accounts defined at supplier header or address level. This additional rule can be configured to use the Bank Account Level attribute or check for a blank or null value of the Procurement BU as part of the rule condition.

Key Resources

• For more details on internal supplier profile change approval, refer to this white paper on My Oracle Support: Setting up Document Approvals in Oracle Procurement Cloud (note 2264952.1).

• For more details on how to use the internal profile change management feature, refer to the readiness training in update 18A: Approve Internal Changes on Supplier Bank Accounts.

IMPORTANT Actions and Considerations

This section includes details about additional changes in this update that might change the way your products work.

BUGS FIXED

Bypass Purchase Order Approvals While Importing Orders Using FBDI

After updating to 20A, users who need to import purchase orders with the Bypass approval action must be assigned the Import Purchasing Document Bypassing Approval privilege (PO_BYPASS_PURCHASE_ORDER_APPROVAL_PRIV), in addition to the privilege required to create purchase orders.

This privilege isn't assigned to any predefined job roles. Whether you manage security using predefined job roles or your own configured job roles, you must assign the Import Purchasing Document Bypassing Approval privilege to users who need to bypass approvals when importing purchase orders using FBDI.

Bug reference: 26049840

REPLACED OR REMOVED FEATURES

From time to time, Oracle replaces existing Cloud service features with new features, or removes existing features. Replaced features may be put on a path to removal. As a best practice, you should use the newer version of a replaced feature as soon as the newer version is available.

This section identifies the features in this Cloud service that have been replaced or will be removed.

Product	Removed Feature	Target Removal	Replacement Feature	Replaced In	Additional Information
Purchasing	Use B2B Gateway to Send B2B Messages	20C	Migrate Trading Partner Configurations from Oracle B2B Gateway to Oracle Cloud Collaboration Messaging Framework	19C	Customer Connect announcement As of update 20A, technical support will still be provided for the B2B Gateway option, but no bug fixes or enhancements will be made available.