PS Procurement @ Queen's U

For the past 4 weeks we’ve had the University in a Research Purchase Requisition Blackout, in order to process our year-end functions.

Yesterday, it lifted.

Patience, knowledge & recollections have been put to test. That is the TRUTH… 40 min phone calls, failing processes, constant documentation review/updating and MUCH more vodka consumption. <— J/K….?

It’s rewarding when the process completes successfully - the best accomplishments come from the dedicated work you’ve put into it, right?

“You want a happy ending, but not such a ridiculous happy ending that is doesn’t mean anything to anybody” - Paul Feig

Paul knows what’s up.

Now comes the review/improve stage. From which there is only one direction to move - UP.

The little cherry that always gets requested to be put on top of something awesome, would be for summer to show up any day now. I am IMpatiently waiting for it. 

I hope you are celebrating endings/accomplishments too - your life deserves it.

The fact that we are approaching another year-end already, is blowing my mind a little bit. 

Has it really been a year?!

And so it begins… reminder notifications, procedure prep, document review, etttt-cetera..!

In some off-beat/warped kind of way, I look forward to this time of year. I can only assume it’s the anticipation of starting a big challenge and knowing there will ultimately be a feeling of accomplishment at the end of it. That’s not so unreasonable, is it?!

It takes an army, folks. Or a village. You choose. Either way, teamwork is KEY.

Ready!

P0001 Tips

We’ve posted some pretty handy tips on completing/submitting P0001 forms. Make sure you check them out here.

As always, let us know if you’ve got any burning questions!

This week is one for reflection, celebration, regular routines and cramming.

It’s the last week before Queen’s Christmas break, and Christmas in itself!

Attendance is slightly lower than usual, which means some of those left to man the ship might have a few extra tasks on their plate this week.

Our group is 100% dedicated….. to keeping our lunch reservations this afternoon. This is where the celebration part of the week kicks in.

When we’re not lunching, reflecting on my PeopleSoft Procurement 2012 calendar year occupies some of my brain space. It’s been a productive 12 months, covering topics from requisition training sessions to year-end processing, exploration of improving business processes to solidifying new working relationships… It all has contributed to constant learning and growth within the working role I occupy.

As we gradually knock off the days this week, the time left before the break gets smaller. POs require quick approvals (in order to meet deadlines), invoices need to approve & release for payment, Requestor inquiries need to be answered and I need to finish my Christmas shopping….. one of these things doesn’t belong…?

I wish you a safe and happy holiday! Hoping you get a bit of a break from your busy work life, enough of one to enjoy celebratory moments with your family & friends.

Cheers to 2013 - I think it’ll be an exciting year :)

Ever since the beginning of PS, we’ve experienced a regular (as well as sporadic) batch process failure in relation to the approval of Pending Purchase Requisitions.

I use terms such as regular and sporadic because this failure has been happening ever since PS go-live but might occur anywhere from 3 times in one day to only once a week, etc. To sum, I can’t really predict it.

Delightfully, a theory has been suggested by my brilliantly technical colleague, as to why this failure happens. I’ve done some field work to confirm this theory, and it appears everything jives.

Revelation: This batch process failure happens when a Requestor submits their purchase requisition exactly on the hour (ie. 9am, 10am, 11am, 12pm, etc.), which happens to be the exact moment the batch process is scheduled to run (every hour on the hour).

These two events (submitting the Req and approving the Req) cannot seem to co-exist peacefully, so in order to ensure smooth waters within the Requisitioning process it looks like we’ll want to avoid contact between them.

Ie. If you are ready to submit your Purchase Requisition try waiting until the hour change has passed (ex. 10:01).

Another mystery solved… I feel like I should request detective badges for our team.

Even though this week has been a short one (coming off the long Thanksgiving weekend), it has been filled with challenge and entertainment!

There’s been one burning question I’ve been presented with on several occasions this week:

“Why do we need to submit a Purchase Requisition (PO)?”

I went on a slight rant about this topic in a previous post (Cheque Requisitions vs. Purchase Requisitions), but I think it deserves a second chat.

At Queen’s, we are fervently attempting to eliminate Cheque Requisitions for purchases of goods and services. In the efforts to acheive that lofty goal there are other options Queen’s departments have (and are recommended to utilize) in order to still acquire and pay for their departmental purchases:

Visa Procurement Card or Purchase Order

There are loads of benefits within each option (i.e. Visa Procurement Card purchases are typically instantaneous in the sense that you order the product and “pay” for it right away; PO’s are completed online as opposed to printing and having to obtain signatures on a form, and are considered a “contract/agreement” in a sense between Queen’s and the vendor).

In both scenarios, paying with personal cash/dealing with reimbursement is not something to worry about. What’s not to love about that?

I spent a couple mornings over at Botterell Hall this week, giving condensed training sessions on Purchase Requisition entry. The goal was to present another option to the attendants, for dealing with the purchasing of goods/services.

My hope is to have the above ramblings answer the question posed in this post.

If I haven’t, as always give me a shout - nicole.mundell@queensu.ca.

Happy procuring!

I have Requisition Email Notification news. Do we want to hear the positive or the not-so positive news first?

I tend to request the not-so positive news first, so the information-unloading can end on a somewhat uplifting note. Hope I’m not alone in this train of thought.

Not-so positive news:

Lately, PeopleSoft has been testing my patience. The email notification process has decided to take a little stay-cation, if you will.

This issue is still somewhat mysterious to us – but we do have a few answers. One aspect seems to be that of unmatched email addresses between PeopleSoft databases (FIN, HR, etc). If the email addresses were unmatched, an email notification related to Requisition matters would not send.

When I say Requisition matters, I’m referring to:

-          Your Requisition being sourced into a Purchase Order

-          A Requisition requiring Amount Approval

This issue seems to also have a few more layers to it however, so we’re still attempting to decipher all the factors.

Good news:

I haven’t pulled all my hair out.

That’s not it, don’t worry.

As always, you can still find out your Purchase Order ID w/o waiting for that email notification to come through. Look your Requisition back up in PS, once open click on the Document Status link you will find on the page of the order. This will open a new window, which will contain details of all the documents that correspond with your Requisition (ie. Purchase Order, Vouchers, Payments, etc.).

My dedication to you guys is to continue to work with the highly intelligent technical people on our team and clear this up.

Stay with me.  

Nicole.mundell@queensu.ca

PeopleSoft terms can be cryptic.

I kind of felt like I was learning a new language when PS came into our lives. Made me think back to highschool French class and wonder the same things I wondered then… Would it ever sink in??

Bad news? I still don’t know French that well… good news? PeopleSoft was much easier to learn.

A couple terms you will want to become familiar with as Requestors:

-          Requisitions (or Purchase Requisitions)

• These are the name for the orders you will actually create within PS. In our Legacy system, we were skipping the Requisitioning aspect and creating straight Purchase Orders.
• We now begin with submitting a Requisition, which will eventually turn into a Purchase Order
• The vendor won’t need to know the Requisition ID number, as they’ll get the Purchase Order ID instead

-          Requisition Defaults

• This section of the Requisition should be the first place you go when submitting your order – it will include the bulk of the information about your order

-          Header

• The header section of a Requisition will include your Requestor information and the currency you have selected for your order

-          Line

• Your line details will include descriptions of the product/service you are ordering
• It will also include your selected vendor
• You could have multiple lines on your order

-          Schedule

• This describes the Ship-to location defined for your order, your Due Date requirements and how you want to set the order up (by Quantity or Amount)
• You could have a One-time address in your Schedule (maybe you have someone working out in the field who requires the product/service – the location is not already loaded in PeopleSoft)
• You could have multiple schedules defined on your order

-          Distribution

• Distribution is the term to describe the chartfield layout you define on your order
• You could have multiple distributions (splits between accounts/projects/fund, etc.)
• Two sections for distribution information to reside – Requisition Defaults screen and the Line level 

-          Chartfields

• Chartfields define a string of accounts
• I.e. Fund-Dept-Account-Program-Class-Project

-          Purchase Orders

• The order we will actually send out to the vendor
• These are created from the Requisitions you submit
• Different ID number than your Requisition

-          Vouchers

• Accounts Payable creates vouchers in the PS system when they receive the invoice in for your order
• Voucher is the PS term for invoice    

-          Pre-Encumbrance

• Describes the amounts initially encumbered to your accounts when the Requisition budget checks

-          Encumbrance

• Describes the amounts committed to your accounts when the Purchase Order budget checks

-          Liquidate/Liquidation

• Liquidation occurs when we clear out any lingering commitments from your accounts
• In the purchasing realm, liquidation happens when we close your Purchase Order/Requisition (closing the order because everything has been fully received/paid)

This is just a small sample of terms we might come across throughout our PS Purchasing travels.

If you have a question about a specific term not mentioned above (or want further clarification on something mentioned here), please ask me about it!

Hi! Around Queen’s University campus I’m known as Nicki Mundell and my home is within Strategic Procurement Services. Responsibilities of mine reside under the roll of Procurement Systems Administrator…. extraordinaire? OK, that last bit might be more wishful thinking, than reality.

I enthusiastically welcome you to my blog site, as I’m an avid believer in knowledge/advice/information sharing! Yes… I am one of those people that are always asking “why?/how?”!

This forum enables me to communicate/demystify/share with you, the Queen’s Requestor, information about our People Soft purchasing system processes.

Since our “Go-Live” in December 2009, I’ve been hands on with the purchasing side of PS (People Soft) - attemping to master all the inner workings of the application and be able to navigate through it with my eyes shut! Am I there yet? OK, maybe not quite…these things take time, you know. However, after attending a couple Oracle PS training courses and conducting multiple Requisition training sessions I would like to believe I’ve become very friendly with the system.

I am certainly not saying that we don’t have a complicated relationship sometimes… what technological/human relationship doesn’t hit the odd bump-in-the-road somewhere along the path?!

If you’ll stick with me, my hope is to share with you as much about purchasing in PS, in order for you all to feel comfortable maneuvering through the application… and perhaps start referring to yourself as a “Master PS Requisitioner”…?

I encourage suggestions/inquiries/comments from you, the Requestor, on any post that sparks your interest. In order to submit an inquiry/comment you will need to create a Tumblr account - which involves assigning a URL address to your account…you could use your own name, or keep it general and go with your Department’s name. Whether you utilize the account just for “following” purposes, or to start creating your own blogs, is completely up to you!

Let’s get started!