Types of purchase order/agreements used in Oracle Purchasing

Standard Purchase Order

Planned Purchase Order: A planned purchase order is a long-term agreement committing to buy it items or services from a single source. We must specify tentative delivery schedules and all details for goods or services that we want to buy, including charge account, quantities and estimated cost. EX: Buying goods for Christmas from a specific dealer.

Contract Purchase Order: We can create contract purchase agreement with our supplier to agree on specific terms and conditions without indicating the goods and services that we will be purchasing i.e. for Rupees amount we must supply this much quantity. We can later issue standard PO referencing our contracts and we can encumber these purchase orders if we use encumbrance accounting.

Blanket Purchase Order: We can create blanket purchase agreements when we know the detail of goods or services we have plan to buy from a specific supplier in a period , but we do not yet know the detail of our delivery schedules. We can use blanket purchase agreements to specify negotiated prices for our items before actually purchasing them

Application Object Library Feature in Order Management

Order Management uses the following two AOL features

1. Document Sequences

Order Management used Order Number Sources for order numbering. It allows us to define sequences that were used to automatically number Orders and Returns. we assigned an Order Number source to an Order Type.

2. Attachments

In Order Management we could define Notes and addition rules regarding when they were attached to an Order or Line. We had to manually choose to add the eligible Notes to the Order or Line. We could also define how the Notes were printed on various Reports. Database triggers were used to duplicate Note definition data in AOL.

Order Management drives off the AOL Attachment functionality enabling us to attach images and web pages (in addition to short or long text). It also offers multi-lingual Document capability. Attachment definition and usage data is stored only in AOL. Automatic Addition rule definitions are stored in Order Management (OE_ATTACHMENT_RULES, OE_ATTACHMENT_RULE_ELEMENTS).

The Profile Option ‘OM: Apply Automatic Attachments’ determines whether rule based attachments are automatically applied

Information Templates in Purchasing

Oracle iProcurement 11i uses information templates to pass necessary order processing information to suppliers. We can set up information templates to gather additional information when an information template is assigned to a category or item, iProcurement prompts users to provide the information specified in the template

To define an information template:

• Navigate to the Define Information Template window by using the Oracle Purchasing menu,

Setup –> Information Templates.

• Enter an attribute name and description. The attribute name is the actual
  field prompt that is displayed in iProcurement.
• Optionally, enter a default value to automatically appear in the field.
• Indicate whether the field is mandatory for iProcurement 11i users.
  If the field is mandatory, users will be prompted to enter a value in the field
  before proceeding to complete the requisition.
• Indicate whether to activate the attribute to actually display on Self Service purchasing pages. 

In certain circumstances, you may want to define an attribute, but delay enabling it for display to iProcurement users

How to Define Event Phases in Oracle Advanced Pricing

Events are points in pricing process flow when the calling application sends a pricing request to the pricing engine (similar to a workflow event). The information that the pricing engine returns, for example, base prices, price adjustments, promotions, or freight charges, depends on the pricing phases of the event.

 

A pricing phase controls what modifiers are considered by the pricing search engine and in what sequence they should be applied to the request. The attributes of a pricing phase allow us to control which modifiers can be placed in a phase. (Metalink)

Example

We need to Apply Surcharge at two events when order booked and when order line entered so we need to define event phase as shown in following picture.

To Define Event Phase

Navigate to

Setup –> Event Phases

By using Oracle Pricing manager Responsibility

 

When we assign a modifier to a pricing phase the Modifier Setup form matches the attributes of the modifier to the attributes of the available pricing phases to validate which pricing phase or phases a modifier can be placed in. A Modifier can only be assigned to one Phase

Now Map This Event Phase in Modifier interface as shown below

How to enable Pricing Engine Request Viewer

The Pricing Engine Request Viewer window captures the pricing call from any calling application such as Order Management, and displays the inputs and outputs of the pricing call.

The information displayed by the Pricing Engine Request Viewer helps us to diagnose which lines were selected or rejected by the pricing engine to determine why certain prices and adjustments were or were not applied. The Pricing Engine Request Viewer displays the most recent pricing request each time the pricing engine captures a new transaction.

The Pricing Engine Request Viewer window is available in Oracle Order Management using the following navigation path

Sales Orders à Tools à Pricing Engine Request Viewer.

Features available in the Pricing Engine Request Viewer window

Using the Pricing Engine Request Viewer window, we can do the following:

1. View Pricing Engine Requests

2. View Pricing Engine Request Lines

2.1. List Price

2.2. Selling Price

2.3. Service and Serviceable Items

3. View Pricing Engine Request Line Details

3.1. Price List lines and Modifier lines evaluated and deleted by the pricing engine

Process for the Pricing Engine Request Viewer

The following process outlines the series of activities when a pricing call is made:

1. The calling application makes a call to build qualifiers and builds the contexts through sourcing.

1. The calling application then calls the pricing engine with the attributes generated by attribute mapping.

1. The pricing engine processes the request then searches for and evaluates eligible price list and modifier lines.

1. If the profile option QP Debug is set to Request Viewer On, then the pricing engine inserts records into the permanent pricing debug tables and generates a unique request ID, storing the information from the calling application.

1. The pricing request information can then be viewed by querying the request in the Pricing Engine Request Viewer from the OM Sales Order Pad or through the Pricing Manager responsibility menu.

Setting up the user profile options

QP: Debug:

Set the value of this profile option to Request Viewer to capture pricing request details into the pricing debug tables, and debug log information into the debug log table. The debug log text file is also created. The default value is Request Viewer Off. Must set this value to “Request Viewer On” at user

Check The Screen below after setting up above profile