REQUISITIONS AND APPROVAL > Approval > Build documents from approved requisitions > (Item requisitions /Purchase requisitions) > Approved requisition Staging Area (manual mode)
This option (Manual Mode) is used to create documents (POs, Releases, RFQs or Purchase Requisitions) from approved requisitions when Buyers want to review and edit requisitions before building the resulting procurement documents. For example, this option can be used when information on requisitions may be incomplete and/or in a centralized Purchasing environment where Buyers or other procurement staff typically “fill in the blanks” or otherwise add value before placing orders.
Also, unlike when using Automatic Mode, you can select the type of document to create on a req-by-req basis (or even an item-by-item basis for Item Requisitions).
See About Building Documents from Approved Requisitions for more details on the two options as well as additional information on what happens when you build requisitions into POs and other documents.
Differences between Item Reqs and Purchase Reqs
You can use this utility to build procurement documents from both Item Requisitions and Purchase Requisitions. However, since Purchase Requisitions must remain intact (e.g. can’t be split or consolidated), some of the options described in this section will not be available when processing Purchase Requisitions.
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Questions & Options
| 1. | Choose a filter for reqs to process. Requisitions that do not match the filter entered, even if approved, will be skipped and will not be loaded into your Staging Area.
Multi-user considerations and filters |
This utility can be used by many people simultaneously. This section outlines options to ensure that two users aren’t working on the same requisition at the same time.
In a multi-Buyer environment, there are two options for distributing work load (i.e. dividing requisitions between the various Buyers to work on and build procurement documents);
1) it can be on a first-come-first-serve basis, in which case Buyers would either load their Staging Area with all approve reqs or perhaps select specific reqs to work on, or
2) the workload can be distributed automatically by the system, such as A) in a distributed purchasing environment where Requisitioners are also the Buyers and process their own orders, or B) in a central Purchasing environment where orders are distributed to Buyers or Purchasing Agents based on business rules (e.g. based on item category/commodity, supplier, division, etc.). See the setting for “Route POs To” in Misc. Approval Rules and Settings.
If requisitions are being distributed to Buyers automatically by the system (option 2, above), you would typically select “Only MY requisitions”, in which case there is no multi-user issue since any one requisition will only ever end up in one person’s Staging Area. See additional tip, below, for when using “Only MY requisitions” option.
If, however, you have a first-come-first-serve environment (option 1, above), to ensure that two users aren’t working on the same requisition at the same time, as line items are loaded into your Staging Area, they will be “reserved” in your name. If you are working on a req and someone else accesses this utility, the reqs that you are working on will NOT appear in the other user’s Staging Area.
When you exit your Staging Area, any items that you have NOT prepared (i.e. show as open ( ) in the Status Column) will be “released” so that other users can work on them.
For items that you have prepared for processing (i.e. show ( ) in the status column), you will have three options...
1.Process them now
2.Keep them in my Work Area for processing later
3.Reset and release them so that anyone can process them later
If you select #2, the items that you've prepared () will remain “reserved” in your name and will NOT be available for other users to work on. These “reserved” items will be reloaded into your Work Area automatically the next time you use this utility.
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Tip when using “Only MY requisitions” option
If in Misc. Approval Rules and Settings you have configured SpendMap to route POs either to “Requisitioner’s PO batch” or to "Multiple Buyers, based on routing rules", one of the filter options will be “Only MY requisitions”
This option is used to manage document routing such that you will only see documents in your Staging Area that you have to work on (as opposed to seeing other Buyers’ orders).
If you are using this option, the filter prompt can be defaulted to “Only MY requisitions” so that you will only ever see your documents in the Stating Area. You can do this with either the Don’t Ask Me This Again feature or Add/Remove Menus and Pop-Up Prompts.
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Staging Area Summary Screen
This screen shows a summary of approved requisitions that have been loaded into your Staging Area.
Lines that show () in the Status Column are ready for processing. For more details, see Status Column, below.
Use the buttons at the bottom of the screen to review the requisition and related information and prepare the items for processing. You can then process the batch to build the resulting POs or other documents by selecting [PROCESS] or the applicable prompt when you exit the Stating Area.
Summary vs. Detail Mode
Since you may sometimes want to make change to the entire requisition (i.e. all lines items) but other times you may want to make a change to an individual line item, this utility offers both a Summary and Details mode. More...
For example, you may want to select a different document type to build for some items of a req (which you can do in Details Mode) or you might want to build the entire req into one document (which will be faster in Summary Mode since you won’t have to select the document type to build for each and every item).
In Summary Mode, you will see a single line in the Stating Area for the entire requisition and any operations that you perform will apply to all items on the requisition. In Detail Mode, you will see a list of all line items on the requisition. Also, the titles of some of the columns will change and some buttons/options will not be available in summary mode.
You can change from summary mode to detail mode using the [SUMMARY] / [DETAILS] button at the bottom-left of the screen (the button name will change when you click on it).
When viewing Item Requisitions in Summary Mode, if some of the items on the requisition are not included in your Staging Area, the Line Items Column will show "2 of 5" (or similar) to indicate how many items are visible and how many are on the entire requisition.
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Status Column
Line Item Details Screen
This screen is used to enter the details of how requisitions are to be routed when the batch is processed, including the type of document to create, the user to receive the document, etc.
The options that are available will be different for Item Reqs vs. Purchase Reqs.
Staging Area Defaulting Screen
When you click the [DEFAULT] button from the Staging Area Summary Screen, various options will be displayed to default or update various fields for all or selected transactions in the batch.
While this can save time over updating line items individually, if required you can still modify line items individually using the [ROUTE] button.
TIP: To update some (but not all) items in the Staging Area, establish a [FILTER] condition first and then use the [DEFAULT] button. If there is an active filter, only those records that are visible in the filter will be updated.
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You do not have to update all fields. To NOT update a field, select DO NOT CHANGE for the applicable drop-box or, for data entry fields, simply leave the field blank.
When you click [OK] to apply the changes, if you have modified the settings since the last time you used the defaulting feature, you will be prompted to save the changes “for future use”. Select [NO] if the changes that you made are for this session only.
Also, if some items in the Staging Area show as “ready” (i.e. have already been prepared for processing), when you click [OK] to apply the changes, you will have the option to “update completed items that are ready for processing”. Select [NO] if you would like to skip (i.e. not affect) items that are “ready”.
