Update 20C

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	Module	Feature	Notes
14 SEP 2023	Supplier Model	Search Bank and Branch for Bank Accounts in Supplier Registration	Updated document. Added opt in expiry.
30 OCT 2020	Supplier Model	Other Supplier Model Changes in This Update	Updated document. Added section.
12 OCT 2020	Purchasing	Import Purchasing Documents with Master Contract References	Updated document. Revised feature information.
12 OCT 2020	Sourcing	Conduct RFQ or Auction as Next Round After Two-Stage Evaluation	Updated document. Revised feature information.
12 OCT  2020	Sourcing	Identify Negotiation Team Members Who Aren't Active Employees	Updated document. Added feature that was backported from 20D.
12 OCT 2020	Self Service Procurement	View Master Item Images in Shopping Flows	Updated document. Revised feature description.
02 SEP 2020	Cross-Product Procurement Enhancements	See When Workflow Tasks Can Be Automatically Withdrawn	Updated document. Revised feature information.
02 SEP 2020	Cross-Product Procurement Enhancements		Updated document. Added a section to communicate common features related to approvals and notifications.
02 SEP 2020	Purchasing		Updated document. Added new section to capture additional changes that were included in update 20C.
27 JUL 2020	Self Service Procurement	Resolve Pending Approval Requisitions	Updated document. Revised feature description.
19 JUN 2020			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. For details about how to compare your configured job roles to predefined job roles and add security artifacts to your configured job roles, see the Security Console and Roles and Role Assignments chapters in the Oracle ERP Cloud: Securing ERP guide on the Oracle Help Center.

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 by stepping through the following instructions using the following privileges:

• Review Applications Offering (ASM_REVIEW_APPLICATIONS_OFFERINGS_PRIV)
• Configure Oracle Fusion Applications Offering (ASM_CONFIGURE_OFFERING_PRIV)

Here’s how you opt in to new features:

1. Click Navigator > My Enterprise > New Features.
2. On the Features Overview page, select your offering to review new features specific to it. Or, you can leave the default selection All Enabled Offerings to review new features for all offerings.
3. On the New Features tab, review the new features and check the opt-in status of the feature in the Enabled column. If a feature has already been enabled, you will see a check mark. Otherwise, you will see an icon to enable the feature.
4. Click the icon in the Enabled column and complete the steps to enable the feature.

In some cases, you might want to opt in to a feature that's not listed in the New Features work area. Here's how to opt in:

1. Click Navigator > My Enterprise > Offerings.
2. On the Offerings page, select your offering, and then click Opt In Features.
3. On the Opt In page, click the Edit Features (pencil) icon for the offering, or for the functional area that includes your feature.
4. On the Edit Features page, complete the steps to enable the feature.

For more information and detailed instructions on opting in to new features for your offering, see Offering Configuration.

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

Cross-Product Procurement Enhancements

Integrate and Extend Procurement Using REST Services

In this update, Oracle Procurement Cloud delivers new and modified REST APIs to enable and simplify integration with external systems. For privileges and data security details about the roles (such as advanced procurement requester) mentioned in this section, see the Job Roles and Privileges section in the REST API for Oracle Procurement Cloud documentation, available on the Oracle Help Center.

New REST APIs introduced in this update are:

• Purchase Order Schedules
• Supplier Qualification Areas

The following REST APIs are enhanced:

• Purchase Requisitions
  • Use the CANCEL custom action to cancel a requisition or a requisition line that's not associated with any downstream document, such as a purchase order, a transfer order, or a negotiation
  • GET, POST, and PATCH are supported for descriptive flexfields for purchase requisition distributions
  • GET, POST, and PATCH are supported for project costing information on purchase requisition distributions
  • Call GET, POST, DELETE, and custom actions as an advanced procurement requester

• Draft Purchase Orders
  • GET and POST are supported for descriptive flexfields for purchase order headers, lines, schedules, and distributions
  • POST is supported for creating purchase orders that are budgetary controlled and enabled for encumbrance accounting
  • GET and POST are supported for project costing information on purchase order distributions
  • Call GET, POST, and the custom action SUBMIT as a buyer

• Purchase Orders
  • Call GET as a buyer, accounts payable user, or line of business user
  • Call the custom action CLOSE as a buyer
  • Call custom actions RENUMBER, RESUBMIT, and RECOMMUNICATE if you are assigned the security privilege named Resolve Purchasing Document Actions by REST Service and have agent access  (note that these custom actions are intended for administrators to resolve issues with numbering, approvals, and communication)

• Supplier Negotiations
  • POST and DELETE are supported to add or remove supplier line access restriction in draft negotiations
  • Use the Create Negotiation From Template custom action to create a draft negotiation using a negotiation template
  • Call GET, POST, and PATCH as a category manager or collaboration team member
  • Call the custom action Create Negotiation From Template as a category manager

• Suppliers
  • Call GET, POST, and PATCH as a supplier administrator or supplier manager
  • Call GET as a buyer or accounts payable manager

• Supplier Qualification Questions
  • Call GET, POST, PATCH, DELETE, and the custom action REVISE as a supplier qualification manager
  • Call GET as a category manager

• Supplier Qualification Question Responses
  • Call GET, POST, and PATCH as a supplier qualification manager
  • Call GET as a category manager

• Supplier Eligibility
  • Call GET, POST, PATCH, and DELETE as a supplier qualification manager
  • Call GET as a category manager

• Supplier Initiatives
  • GET is supported for descriptive flexfields and attachments
  • Call GET as a supplier qualification manager

Steps to Enable

Review the REST service definition in the REST API guides to leverage (available from the Oracle Help Center > your apps service area of interest > APIs & Schema). If you are 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.

Approvals and Notifications

This section provides details about shared features that are related to approvals and notifications. These features are also available in Oracle Common Technologies and User Experience: What's New in Update 20C.

Automatically Archive Workflow Tasks Once a Day

Once a day, the Extract Workflow Tasks for Archive, Process Translation Workflow Tasks for Archive, and Upload Workflow Task Attachment for Archive scheduled processes automatically run to archive workflow tasks. Tasks with a final status, such as Completed, Withdrawn, or Expired are included if they haven't been archived already. Though unlikely, if at any time you need to archive more frequently, you can manually run all three processes from the Scheduled Processes work area. These scheduled processes replace the Archive Workflow Tasks process, which no longer runs automatically once a month and shouldn't be run manually either.

Steps to Enable

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

Tips And Considerations

• If you had manually set the Archive Workflow Tasks process to run on a schedule, go to the Scheduled Processes work area to stop the scheduled submissions. 

• If you still manually run the Archive Workflow Tasks process, for example by accident, it will most likely end up with a Succeeded status, but the process is disabled and won't actually perform any actions.   

• If you need to manually run the three replacement scheduled processes, make sure that one process is done running before you submit another, in this order:       
  • Extract Workflow Tasks for Archive       
  • Process Translations for Workflow Tasks Archive       
  • Upload Workflow Task Attachments for Archive

Key Resources

• How Workflow Tasks Are Archived and Purged
• Cancel or Make Changes to Scheduled Processes

See When Workflow Tasks Can Be Automatically Withdrawn

Workflow tasks are automatically withdrawn if they're still open after the number of days you see in the Open Tasks Withdrawn After Number of Days field. This field is now available on the Application Preferences page, and it's set to 180. You can't change this number, but you can set up expiration, escalation, and renewal policies that allow tasks to be open for longer. Define these policies as you would before, for any individual workflow task that's not a FYI task. If the expiration settings are set to Do Nothing, then the task is withdrawn after 180 days.

Here's how you see the Open Tasks Withdrawn After Number of Days field:

1. Click the Notifications icon in the global header.   
2. Click Show All.   
3. On the Notifications page, click the Worklist button.   
4. In BPM Worklist, click your user name and select Administration.    
5. On the Application Preferences page, find the field under the Task List Settings section.

Open Tasks Withdrawn After Number of Days field on the Application Preferences Page

To set expiration, escalation, and renewal policies, use the Deadlines subtab:

1. In the Setup and Maintenance work area, go to the Manage Task Configurations or another approval setup task in Application Extensions or another functional area.
2. In BPM Worklist, on the Task Configuration tab, select the workflow task.
3. Click the Edit task icon in the Tasks to be configured toolbar.
4. Open the Deadlines subtab.
5. Define your policies.

   • If the expiration setting is set to Do Nothing, then the task is withdrawn after 180 days.

   • If the expiration setting is set to Task Level or Assignee Level and the days entered for expiration is more than the default number of days for automatic withdrawal (180), then your expiration policy takes precedence over the automatic withdrawal.

Deadlines Tab with Expiration Settings Set to Do Nothing

Steps to Enable

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

Key Resources

• Define the Due Date and Expiration Policies for Workflow Tasks
• Define When to Automatically Dismiss or Withdraw Workflow Tasks

Access Requirements

To use this feature, you need a role that lets you perform administrative tasks in BPM Worklist.

Project-Driven Supply Chain

Project-Driven Supply Chain is an end-to-end, integrated solution across the Oracle Supply Chain Management and Project Management Cloud applications.  This solution is designed to support various business processes of manufacturing and asset-intensive companies.

You can use the Project-Driven Supply Chain solution to manage your supply chain processes in the context of projects without creating separate organizations for each project. You can also capture supply chain costs as project expenditures.

In this update, the Project-Driven Supply Chain solution includes these features:

• Plan Project-Specific Supply
• Purchase Unplanned Material for Project-Specific Manufacturing Work Order
• Purchase Unplanned Material for Project-Specific Maintenance Work Order
• Purchase Goods and Services for Project-Specific Manufacturing and Maintenance Work Orders
• Cost Account Direct Material Procurement on Project for Manufacturing
• Cost Account Direct Material Procurement on Project for Maintenance

The Project-Driven Supply Chain feature in Oracle Procurement Cloud is described in this document.

Purchase Goods and Services for Project-Specific Manufacturing and Maintenance Work Orders

Purchase goods and services for project-specific manufacturing and maintenance work orders. Create a purchase requisition and associate it with a project-based work order. The work order project and the task then automatically display in the requisition distribution. A purchase order is created referencing the work order and the project details from the requisition. The purchase order is delivered to the work order destination, consumed, and costed in the work order. The expenditure incurred will be transferred to Oracle Project Portfolio Management. Using the feature, you can expedite the procurement of unplanned materials for work orders and also capture material costs for the specific project and task.

These screenshots illustrate the feature.

Edit Work Order

Edit Requisition

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 Oracle Inventory Management What's New, update 20A. If you previously opted in to the Project-Driven Supply Chain feature, you're not required to opt in and perform initial setup again.

• Enable individual inventory organizations associated with deliver-to location, or the organization that defaults from Configure Requisitioning Business Function to track by project.

Tips And Considerations

• When you create requisitions for work order destination type with project-specific work orders, the project and task in the requisition line distribution must match the project and task of the work order.

• You can use the provided list of values to select the values for the other project attributes.

• You can also define filters, based on requisition parameters such as purchasing category and requester, for your project costing descriptive flexfield segments.

Key Resources

For more details about:

• Manual procurement of materials for a maintenance work order, see  Direct Procurement of Materials for Work Orders

• Project-specific maintenance work orders, see Perform Project-Specific Maintenance

• Project-specific manufacturing work orders, see Execute Project-Specific Manufacturing

Access Requirements

• Job Role Name and Code:
  • Maintenance Manager (ORA_MNT_MAINTENANCE_MANAGER)
  • Production Supervisor (ORA_WIE_PRODUCTION_SUPERVISOR_JOB)

Purchasing

Update Blanket Purchase Agreement Price Breaks in Bulk

Use file-based data import to keep your blanket purchase agreement in sync with the latest prices from your supplier. Update the price, discount, start date, and end date of multiple blanket purchase agreement price breaks simultaneously. 

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 21A

Tips And Considerations

After you opt in to the feature, the application updates the price break corresponding to the price break number you provided in the file-based data import template. If there is no price break with that number, the application creates a new price break. 

Associate a Master Contract with a Purchasing Document

Associate a master contract with a purchasing document. The master contract sets the overall terms and conditions between parties. In 20B, only purchase agreements authored online could be associated with a master contract. In this update, additional functionality is added. After you opt in to the feature named Associate a Master Contract with a Purchasing Document, you can use the features described in this section.

Include a Master Contract Reference on a Purchase Order

Link a purchase order with a master contract when you author online purchase orders.

Associate Master Contract with a Purchase Order

When you opt in to this feature, buyers can view and download master contract details in the PDF format by clicking the PDF icon that’s available next to master contract.

View Master Contract Details

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

• To use this feature, you must opt in to the Associate a Master Contract with a Purchasing Document feature. If you previously opted in to the Associate a Master Contract with a Purchasing Document feature, then this feature is automatically enabled.

• Only active enterprise contracts with buy intent for either the primary party (supplier) or any of its parents can be associated with a purchase order.

• The master contract must not have any lines as determined by the contract type.

• When you duplicate a purchase order that has a master contract association, the master contract isn’t copied to the new purchase order. However, you can manually enter the value.

• To include a master contract on either a PDF or electronic purchase order that you share with suppliers, you must modify the corresponding layout and mapping.
  • To know more about the layout modification, see Document Publishing and Communication in Oracle Fusion Purchasing white paper.
  • To know more about the mapping, see Configure Message Maps section in the Oracle Collaboration Messaging Framework Cloud listed under Oracle Supply Chain Collaboration and Visibility Cloud, What's New 17C.

• The master contract attribute isn't currently available for OTBI subject area analysis. However, you can build reports using Oracle BI Publisher.

Import Purchasing Documents with Master Contract References

Include master contract references when you import purchase orders and purchase agreements using file-based data import.

Master Contract 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

• To use this feature, you must opt in to the Associate a Master Contract with a Purchasing Document feature. If you previously opted in to the Associate a Master Contract with a Purchasing Document feature, then this feature is automatically enabled.

• Only active enterprise contracts with buy intent for either the primary party (supplier) or its parents can be associated with a purchase order.

• The master contract must not have any lines as determined by the contract type.

• Using the file-based import program, you can provide a master contract reference for agreements that were previously imported. This capability is not supported for purchase orders at this time.

Other Purchasing Changes in This Update

This section includes details about an additional change in this update that can change the way Oracle Purchasing Cloud works.

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS TO MANAGE BUYER ASSIGNMENT RULES PAGE

To address performance issues, the following two changes have been made to this page:

• Search results are not automatically displayed when you first navigate to the Manage Buyer Assignment Rules page in the Purchase Orders and Purchase Agreements work areas. You need to manually execute a search to see the assignments.

• When creating a rule based on commodity, the list of values will not automatically display all the commodities. You need to manually execute a search to see all the commodities.

NOTE: This fix was also made available in the September monthly update for 20B.

Bug references: 31377906, 30813903

Self Service Procurement

Synchronize Shopping Search Index Periodically

Synchronize the shopping search index at predefined time intervals. You can defer index synchronization for catalog search to prevent issues caused by bulk item updates to a catalog.

Whenever you create or update a master item through UI, web services, or file-based data import (FBDI), the Self Service Procurement index gets synchronized either immediately or at predefined item intervals. The same applies to agreement changes and punchout search items.

You can either defer the index synchronization or make it inline using these modes in Maintain Shopping Search Index enterprise scheduler service job:

• Disable Inline Index Synchronization
• Enable Inline Index Synchronization

When you disable the Inline index, it schedules an enterprise scheduler service job with the Synchronize Search Index mode that syncs up the index daily at midnight, UTC. You can change the schedule per your business requirements.

Maintain Shopping Search Index Job with Enable and Disable Inline Index Synchronization Modes

Steps to Enable

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

Access Requirements

• Duty Role Name and Code:
  • Procurement Catalog Administrator (ORA_POR_PROCUREMENT_CATALOG_ADMINISTRATOR_ABSTRACT)

View Master Item Images in Shopping Flows

As a procurement requester, you can now view the item's primary image in addition to the item description in various shopping flows. You can view these images both in the desktop application and the mobile app.

Using this feature, you can view the primary image of items in these shopping pages:

• Search Results (Cards View)
• Product Details
• Compare Products
• Shopping Cart
• Recently Viewed
• Recent Purchases (Cards View)
• Personal and Public Shopping Lists

View Item's Primary Image in Search Results

Steps to Enable

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

Tips And Considerations

• For the blanket purchase agreement line associated with the item, the application displays the primary image from the item definition if there is no image available for the blanket purchase agreement line.
• You can view the item image only when an image is set as the primary image for the item in the organization that you are shopping in.

Setting an Image As Primary in the Item Definition

Process User-Defined Purchasing Line Types in cXML Punchouts

Process user-defined purchasing line types, in addition to the standard line types of Goods and Fixed Price Services, for lines returned from cXML punchout sites. This support allows more flexibility for downstream business processes such as approvals and invoice matching.

Punchout sites can implement this solution by returning the code of the user-defined purchasing line type in an Extrinsic tag with the LineTypeCode attribute name. The Extrinsic tag must be a child tag of the ItemDetail tag of the payload.

<ItemDetail>

...

<Extrinsic name="LineTypeCode">PurchasingLineTypeCode</Extrinsic>

</ItemDetail>

Here's the order of precedence for deriving line type on the requisition line:

1. If a valid blanket purchase agreement line is provided, use the line type of the blanket purchase agreement line, and ignore itemClassification or LineTypeCode values.
2. If a valid LineTypeCode is provided, ignore itemClassification value.
3. itemClassification value, if valid.
4. If none of the above, use Goods as the default value.

Steps to Enable

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

Resolve Pending Approval Requisitions

As a requester, you can now resolve requisitions that are in Pending Approval status due to technical or infrastructure issues by manually withdrawing the requisitions. You can cancel or resubmit the withdrawn requisitions as required. Before update 20C, you couldn't withdraw, cancel, or reject such requisitions directly in the Purchase Requisitions work area. In update 20C, if the requisition approval process hasn't started within five minutes of submitting a requisition, you can now manually withdraw the requisition after five minutes, even with the requisition in Pending Approval status. You can then cancel or resubmit the requisition.

In some cases, the technical issue that kept the requisition in Pending Approval status might get resolved just before you withdraw the requisition, and the requisition gets sent for approval at the same time you resubmit it. In these cases, two approval notifications are generated for the same requisition. However, a new scheduled process, Terminate Requisition Approvals, is automatically submitted to periodically check for these cases, and the process terminates the original submission of the composite instance, which ends the approval process for that instance of the requisition. This ensures that the approver doesn't get duplicate approval notifications.

If you try to withdraw or cancel a pending approval requisition before five minutes have passed since submission, you'll see this error:

Error Message When Requester Withdraws or Cancels Requisition Within Five Minutes of Submitting

Steps to Enable

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

Access Requirements

Procurement Requester (ORA_POR_PROCUREMENT_REQUESTER_ABSTRACT) or Procurement Preparer (ORA_POR_PROCUREMENT_PREPARER_ABSTRACT)

Sourcing

Upload Award Lines Spreadsheet in a Flat File Format

Many companies need to source large volumes of negotiation line items, which can present challenges for category managers to award suppliers efficiently. This feature allows the category manager to award high volume negotiations using a flat file based template for faster processing.

EXPORT SPREADSHEET IN SIMPLE FLAT FORMAT (.csv)

Users can export this template using Microsoft Excel or any standard spreadsheet utility to quickly prepare an award decision offline. They can then import the award decisions for all line items. The template presents negotiation lines and supplier details in a linear format. This enables users to easily award many lines at once by using common spreadsheet functions such as drag and copy, or set filters to award specific lines.

This feature adds to the existing award templates that support more complex award analysis providing information on requirement responses and additional line details.

Export Lines Only Spreadsheet

Lines Only Award Spreadsheet in Flat File Format

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 importing the file:

1. Ensure that the column names and sequence are the same as the exported template.
2. Update only columns marked with **
3. In the Award column, Yes and No is accepted in upper case such as 'YES', lower case such as 'yes', and sentence case such as 'Yes'.
4. Enter only numeric values in Award Quantity and Agreement Quantity columns.

Access Requirements

To use this feature, these roles are required:

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

Conduct RFQ or Auction as Next Round After Two-Stage Evaluation

Two-stage RFQs support sourcing best practices for shortlisting suppliers after a sealed negotiation process involving a technical and commercial evaluation. Once suppliers pass the technical and commercial evaluation, introducing an additional round of competitive bidding can result in better pricing and savings. With this feature, you can now initiate an Auction or RFQ as the next round of a two-stage RFQ. This streamlines the effort by easily initiating competitive bidding with only shortlisted suppliers.

Select Auction or RFQ As Next Round of a Two-Stage RFQ

Steps to Enable

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

Tips And Considerations

• To create an auction or a single-stage RFQ as a next round, you must first unlock the commercial evaluation in the two-stage RFQ so that prices and other commercial information can be seen by all internal evaluators.

• Requirements in the new round: 

  • All requirements are copied over into the new round of auction or RFQ, but will no longer be classified as technical or commercial.
  • You can delete the requirements, or use a negotiation style with requirements disabled when creating the new round.

• Negotiation attachments in the new round:

  • When you create a new round of a negotiation, the Retain attachments check box gives you the flexibility of carrying over your previous round's negotiation attachments to the new round.

• Response attachments in the new round:

  • When you create an auction as the next round of a two-stage RFQ, the supplier has an option to copy the previous round response values. When they do so, any technical or commercial attachments added to the response or line are not copied over. However, the attachments associated with requirements will be carried over to the new round response.
  • When you create an RFQ as the next round of a two-stage RFQ, the supplier may copy the previous round response. When they do so, all technical and commercial attachments added to the response, line or requirement are carried over to the new response.

Access Requirements

To use this feature, the following role is required: To use this feature, the following role is required:

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

Identify Negotiation Team Members Who Aren't Active Employees

You can now quickly see if a negotiation team member has become inactive due to termination or a change in job assignment. Before publishing a draft negotiation, you will see a warning if any members in the collaboration team are inactive . You have the option to remove or replace them, or leave them in the team as a reference if they have completed assigned tasks.

Collaboration Team

Use this feature to gain better negotiation collaboration by ensuring the right team members are participating throughout the process.

Steps to Enable

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

Access Requirements

You have a couple of options for giving people access to this feature, depending on whether you're assigning them predefined job roles or your own configured job roles.

Users who are assigned any of these predefined job roles will have access to this feature:

• Category Manager (ORA_PON_CATEGORY_MANAGER)       
• Sourcing Project Collaborator (ORA_PON_SOURCING_PROJECT_COLLABORATOR)

Users who are assigned configured job roles that contain this privilege are able to access this feature:

• View Supplier Negotiation (PON_VIEW_SUPPLIER_NEGOTIATION_PRIV)

Apply Internal Cost Factors In Supplier Negotiations

Use internal cost factors in supplier negotiations to track and analyze the overall cost of doing business. Hidden costs such as past performance issues, vendor switching costs, and additional project management needs, can be quantified and added to the supplier’s bid as internal costs. After you opt in to the feature named Apply Internal Cost Factors in Supplier Negotiations, you can use the feature described in this section.

Apply Internal Cost Factors to Negotiation Lines

Prior to update 20C, you could use internal cost factors to apply internal costs to the supplier’s response to analyze the overall cost of doing business with that supplier. In this update, the functionality is extended to capture and apply internal costs to negotiation lines and lots. Suppliers might be qualified and competitively priced for awarding the business, but might not be viable for award after considering hidden costs or operational drawbacks. Internal expenses, such as tooling, maintenance, and so on, can be quantified and added to specific items in the supplier’s bid as internal costs. Supplier responses are transformed after these internal costs are added.

You can use internal cost factors to drive competitive bidding, or just for internal analysis to support award decisions. To drive competitive bidding based on transformed responses, enable the following response rules:

•  Display transformed amount to suppliers
•  Display transformed line rank to suppliers
•  Display transformed overall rank to suppliers

Set Response Rules When Creating a Negotiation

You can apply internal cost factors to individual items and services in a supplier’s response, analyze the total cost of doing business with the supplier, and make informed award decisions for each negotiation line.

Apply Internal Cost Factors When Creating a Negotiation

Evaluate bids based on the transformed price, which is calculated by aggregating internal and external cost factors for a line. A bid with the lower transformed price is ranked higher. When response rules allow suppliers to see the transformed price, that can promote competitive bidding, and the supplier with the top line rank can emerge as the real winner when analyzing based on the total cost.

View Transformed Price and Rank When Monitoring Negotiation

Compare Internal Cost Factors Side-by-Side During Award

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, you must opt in to the feature named: Apply Internal Cost Factors in Supplier Negotiations. If you previously opted in to the Apply Internal Cost Factors in Supplier Negotiations feature, then this feature is automatically available to you.

After opting in, perform these additional steps in the Setup and Maintenance work area, using the Procurement offering:

1. Define internal cost factors using the Manage Cost Factors setup task
2. If you have common sets of cost factors, you can create a cost factor list using the Manage Cost Factor List setup task
3. Enable internal cost factors on negotiation styles using the Manage Negotiation Styles setup task.

Tips And Considerations

When creating a negotiation, you can apply a negotiation template to default the response rule settings, suppliers, and internal cost factors.

Key Resources

• Refer to the What’s New for the Apply Internal Cost Factors in Supplier Negotiations feature, available in update 19D
• Refer to the Oracle Cloud Readiness site for readiness training for the Apply Internal Cost Factors in Supplier Negotiations feature, available in update 19D

Access Requirements

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

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

• Privilege and Code for allowing updates to internal cost factor values:
  • Apply Internal Cost Factors (PON_APPLY_INTERNAL_COST_FACTORS)

Create Supplier Contracts from Negotiation Award

After you opt in to the feature named Create Supplier Contracts from Negotiation Award, you can use the feature described in this section.

Create Supplier Contracts for Agreement Contract Types from a Negotiation

Since update 19D, you can seamlessly create an enterprise contract for each supplier from Sourcing. This allows you to negotiate terms upfront and pass them to the contract along with line items, pricing, and quantities finalized during negotiation award. The Contracts application can then initiate purchase orders in any purchasing application to fulfill the contract.

In this update, the functionality is extended to support the creation of agreement class contracts for awarded suppliers, which allows you to generate downstream blanket purchase agreements or contract purchase agreements from contract fulfillment.

Create an Agreement Class Contract from The Negotiation

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

• To enable use this feature, you must opt in to the feature: Create Supplier Contracts from Negotiation Award. If you previously opted in to the Create Supplier Contracts from Negotiation Award feature, then this feature is automatically available to you.

• To create blanket purchase agreements from the contract fulfillment process you need to choose a contract type that allows lines. 

• To create contract purchase agreements from the contract fulfillment process you need to choose a contract type that does not allow lines.

Key Resources

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

• Additional security assignments and set up tasks in Enterprise Contracts Cloud are required to create and edit contracts. Refer to Enterprise Contracts setup documentation in Oracle Help Center.

Access Requirements

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

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

Supplier Qualification Management

Automatically Reassess Suppliers After a New Qualification Is Evaluated

When managing suppliers, you can combine results from multiple qualifications into an overall assessment allowing you to measure how well the supplier meets overall objectives.  Each qualification result may change over time when requalification occurs. You can now set your assessments to use the requalification results to automatically reassess the supplier.  This allows you to keep your assessment outcome current without any manual intervention.

Automatic Reassessment on New Qualification

Steps to Enable

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

Tips And Considerations

• You can enable automatic reassessment on new qualification in the qualification model setup. Once enabled, all the assessments that are created based on the qualification model will enable automatic reassessment by default.

• If you want to receive a notification when the automatic reassessment results in an adverse outcome, you can enable the existing notify feature in the qualification model.

• On the rule set, provide default information to be used for the requalification event which covers both requalification and reassessment.

• The existing Requalify Supplier Qualifications background process is used to process the assessments with automatic reassessment enabled. If you are already using the automatic requalification feature, you don't need to submit a different process. Otherwise, you will need to schedule this process to use the feature.

Key Resources

• Review the related feature, Automatically Requalify Qualifications on Expiration, readiness training in 18A for more details on how to use automatic requalification on expiration.

• Review the related feature, Automatically Requalify Suppliers on New Question Response, readiness training in 18B for more details on how to use automatic requalification on new response.

Access Requirements

You have a couple options for giving people access to the automatic reassessment feature, depending on whether you're assigning them predefined job roles or your own configured job roles.

• Predefined job role name and code:           
  • Supplier Qualification (ORA_POQ_SUPPLIER_QUALIFICATION_DISCRETIONARY)    

• Privilege name and code for configured job roles:           
  • Requalify Supplier Qualification (POQ_REQUALIFY_SUPPLIER_QUALIFICATION_PRIV)

Supplier Model

Search Bank and Branch for Bank Accounts in Supplier Registration

Supplier bank accounts are key to paying suppliers efficiently so it’s important to streamline how suppliers provide bank account information. Suppliers can now quickly search for bank and branch when adding bank accounts in supplier registration. This improves the supplier user experience especially when you have a large number of banks and branches. You can also search and select the branch first which will automatically populate the bank information.

Search a Branch Directly Using the Bank Name

Bank is Automatically Populated on Selecting a Branch

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 24C

Tips And Considerations

• If you have personalized the bank or branch attribute such as renaming the attributes, you will need to redo the personalization after opting in the feature.   

• This new feature is implemented in all supplier registration flows and other supplier profile management flows already support these functions. To ensure a consistent user experience, it is recommended to enable this feature.   

• If you have more than 499 banks or respective branches for any country, you must enable this feature. Even if you don't have this many banks or branches, this feature is still recommended so you can search bank and branch more efficiently.

Other Supplier Model Changes in This Update

This section includes details about an additional change in this update that can change the way Oracle Supplier Model Cloud works.

To Maintain a Supplier Profile, Users Must Have the Maintain Supplier Privilege

Prior to update 20C, users could create or edit supplier child entities even when they didn’t have access to maintain the supplier header, which requires the Maintain Supplier privilege. For example, a user who was assigned the Maintain Supplier Site privilege, but not the Maintain Supplier privilege, was able to create or edit a supplier site. This issue was applicable only when the feature named Approve Internal Changes on Supplier Bank Accounts wasn’t opted in, and users were granted configured job roles instead of the predefined Supplier Administrator or Supplier Manager job roles.

Starting In 20C, users require the Maintain Supplier privilege to save changes on the supplier profile. Without this privilege, users can’t create or edit the child entities of suppliers, even if they have the maintain privileges for the respective child entities. This is applicable whether or not you have opted in to the Approve Internal Changes on Supplier Bank Accounts feature.

Procurement Contracts

Manage Contract Deliverables in the Supplier Portal

Your suppliers can view and manage their contract deliverables directly from the Supplier Portal Manage Deliverables page. They can view activated deliverables of type 'Contractual' where they are designated as External Party Contact. Suppliers can also edit deliverables where the Responsible Party field is set as External, for example change the status or add attachments. They can filter based on the Supplier Contract document type in the Manage Deliverables page.

Supplier Contract Type in Manage Deliverables Page

Steps to Enable

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

Tips And Considerations

Contract deliverables returned in the search results display the contract number in the Document Number field, but there is no drill-down link available for your supplier to open and view the contract.

Key Resources

• See the Author Contract Terms chapter in the Using Customer Contracts guide.

IMPORTANT Actions and Considerations

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

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.