Navigating Sourcing and Contract Management Pages Version

Contents

Contents of this topic:

Links to other topics:
Search Contracts Online Doc
Current Release Notes

Overview

Sourcing and Contract Management enables strategic, enterprise-wide study of spend patterns and contract savings based on spend goals.

The application utilizes a variety of tools to provide the user with easy navigability. These features can help you . . .

Note: The only feature in the application that does not use the features discussed in this chapter is Reports, which uses the features of the Materials Management, AP and GL products. A discussion of these features is available in the online Help.

Calendar

Sourcing and Contract Management uses the normal calendar year, rather than a fiscal calendar year (if one exists for a site). For example, incentives are calculated and reported using a normal calendar.

Menu, Search, and Help

At the top of every page*, you will find links to the main Menu, Search, and online Help. (See Figure 1.) Use the links to access application features without returning to the Table of Contents page. (*Exception: Reports, as noted above.)

Figure 1 - Menu, Search, and Help

Tabs

The Table of Contents is tabbed, allowing you to access the specific Table of Contents for Supply or Shared Services pages, or go to the pages/panels you have designated as favorites.

Supply and Shared Services Tabs

The Supply and Shared Services tabs are similar. However, Sourcing and Contract Management handles supply contracts differently from services contracts. The differences are outlined in the table below.

Table 1 - Supply and Shared Services Tabs

Feature

Supply

Shared Services

Analysis Workbench

Choose to analyze one of the following segments of spend:
All Spend Analysis
File Analysis
Non-File Analysis
Off-Contract Spend Analysis

Analyze all Shared Services spend.
Contracts

Load and Activate: Allows you to upload and activate
emailed or imported supply contracts.

Contracts Workbench: Allows you to work with supply contracts
already in the system.

Contracts Workbench allows you to create
or work with shared services contracts.
Dashboards
Create new or view saved analysis graphics.Create new or view saved analysis graphics.
Incentives

Incentives: Work with incentives.

Incentives Setup: Create and maintain incentives.

Incentives: Work with incentives.

Incentives Setup: Create and maintain incentives.

Projects
Create and monitor analysis projects. Not applicable to Shared Services
Reports
Create and view reports. Create and view reports.
Savings

Contract Savings: View savings for items within
a contract for specified date ranges.

Project Savings:View savings for items within a project
for specified date ranges.

Savings Opportunities: Identify purchases at higher than
contract prices;
take actions to recover overpayments.

Not applicable to Shared Services
Search
Search for Contract Numbers, Contracts, Manufacturers, Items,
Vendors, Notes,
or UNSPSC codes.
Search for Contract Numbers, Contracts,
Vendors, or Notes.
Administration
View tables, manage users, view/manage batch jobs, rebuilds,
downloads, etc.
View tables, manage users, view/manage
batch jobs, rebuilds, downloads, etc.
Help
Access online help and service pack notes. Access online help and service pack notes.

Favorites Tab

The Favorites tab can give you quick access to panels you work with frequently. You select the contents of this tab by clicking on the star in the top right-hand corner of the page or panel you want to list as a favorite. For example, if you work with contracts, you may want to set Contracts for Review as a favorite. To select this panel as a favorite, simply click the star at the top right of the panel. (See Figure 2.) When you select it from the Favorites tab (See Figure 3), only the Contracts for Review panel will display, not the entire Supply Contracts Workbench.

Creating Favorites

To select a page as a favorite,

  1. Click the star in the upper right-hand corner of the page or panel that you want to create a link for. (Figure 2).
    A box appears with the default name of the page/panel.
  2. Click Save to accept the default name, or enter another name and click Save.
    The link appears on the Favorites list. Clicking the link opens the page/panel. (See Figure 3.)

Figure 2 - Designating a Page or a Panel as Favorites

Figure 3 - Favorites Tab

Features of the Pages

Panels

The title of the panel is displayed on the left side of the green bar at the top of the panel. For list panels, the number of pages of data is given in parentheses (if greater than 1), as well as the total number of lines of data. (See Figure 4, item 1.)

A security object may be required to view the data on a panel. Mouse over the tab title to see what security object setting is required (if any); the security object requirement is displayed at the bottom of the page. (See Figure 4, item 2.)

Detailed Help for each panel is available by clicking ? in the panel's upper right corner. The ? Help explains how to use each panel, and links to more information, and the documentation's full-text search.

Figure 4 - Panel Details

The "Work with Contract" and "Work with Project" pages feature at least three panels. (See Figure 5.) At the top of the page are the Summary panel (item 1) and the Actions panel (item 2). At the bottom of the page is a list panel that displays the detailed information for the selected tab (item 3).

Figure 5 - Work with Project Panels

When Add Items is selected from the Actions panel in Figure 5, two panels appear in the middle of the page: the Add More Items panel and a second Actions panel. (See Figure 6, items 4 and 5.) Items selected in the list panel (item 6) appear in the Add Items panel after you mouse over the Move mouse here to refresh link.

Figure 6 - Add Items Panel and Corresponding Actions Panel

Scroll Bars and Page Navigation

Panels with multi-page lists to display contain a page navigation menu at the top and bottom. Analysis Workbench panels (and other panels) that are wider than the viewing area (such as the Analysis Workbench Prior 12 Months Items View), a horizontal scroll bar appears at the top and the bottom of the panel. Figure 7 is an example.

Figure 7 - The Items View on an Analysis Workbench Panel with New Top Navigation

Filters

On panels that display lists of data, filters are provided to allow you to narrow the lists. On the Project and Contract lists, the filters are located on the left side of the panel. (See Figure 8.) On Savings Summary views, you may hover over the name of an Organization to select it as a filter. (See Figure 9.) To clear the filter, click the Clear link at the top of the Filters field on the left (Figure 10).

Figure 8 - Project Filters
Figure 9 - Savings Filters
Figure 10 - Clear a Filter

Icons

Several icons may appear on panels which provide various functions. This table contains a list of the icons and what they do. (The Example column contains a path to the panel that it mentions.)

Table 2 - Icons in Sourcing and Contract Management

Icon

Location

Name of Icon

Function

Example

Top left; next to Search icon

Refresh

Refreshes the data on a panel with current data from the server.

Display the markup sets list containing a newly-created markup set for a vendor.
On the Markup Sets panel, after you create a new markup set, clicking this icon displays the new markup set on the panel.

Top left; next to Refresh icon

Search

Open the Search box so that you can search for data.

On the application panels, clicking this icon opens a search box that you can use to locate an item in the list.
- Enter characters that you wish to search for in the box.
- Click Enter.
- To clear the search box and close the search, click the X at the end of the search box.

Top right

Favorites

Enables you to list the page on the Favorites tab

For example, if you frequently work with expired contracts, click this icon on the Contracts Expiring panel.

Top right

Import to Excel

Imports panel information into an Excel spreadsheet.

Import the list of vendors into an Excel spreadsheet.
Search for vendors of interest. When the application displays the list, click this icon to send the list to an Excel spreadsheet. You can then save the spreadsheet to a local folder, or open it for viewing and save it later.

Column header

Direction of sort

Clicking a sortable column in a list sorts the column in either descending or ascending order. When you sort a column, an icon appears indicating the direction of the sort.

The File Items spend column is sorted in descending order.

Left of list item

Add user note

Opens the User Note Add panel so that you can enter and save a user note.

Add a note to a contract.
On the Contract Info panel, click this icon to open the User Notes panel and add a note to the contract. This icon only appears if notes do not exist. If notes exist, the Note icon appears (). Click the Note icon to view existing user notes, and add more.

Left of list item

Note

Indicates that user notes exist. Opens the user notes for viewing.

This icon only appears if notes exist.

To add a note , hover to the left of the item and click the icon that appears.

Open a user note for a contract.

When this icon appears on the Contract Info panel, click the icon to display the user notes.

Left of list item

Copy

Makes a copy of panel information.
Some panels can be copied, and then, usually edited.

Set up a new user by copying an existing user profile.
On a user profile, click this icon to make a copy. A panel appears for editing. Enter the new user's specifics: name, password, role, etc., in the edit panel. Anything that you do not change will be the same as the user profile that you copied.

Left of list item

Delete

Deletes data

Note: For some types of data, this icon only appears when you hover the cursor over the data element.

Delete a document from a project.
On the Documents tab for Projects, hovering the cursor over any document displays this icon. Click the to delete the document.

Left of list item

Edit

Edits panel information

Edit a contract header.
Click this icon on the Contract Info panel to open contract header information for editing. You can edit information in fields such as Contract Review Date, Price Change Tolerance, and others.

Left of list item

Detail Opens Item Details popup panel.

Display detail for a contract item.
On the Savings Details panel, click this icon next to an item to open the Item Details panel.

Manufacturer or Benchmark line on "Work with Project" page

Email Opens an Email document.
On the Projects Correspondence tab, clicking this icon opens an empty Email form for you to compose a new Email.

Compose an Email for a Project.
On the Correspondence tab for Projects, click this icon next to a Email document to compose an Email message.

Documents tab of "Work with Project" page

Email attachment

Opens an attachment to an Email

View Email document attachments in a Project.
On the Correspondence tab for Projects, click this icon next to an Email message to display the message's attachment.

Top of Contract Info panel

User fields

Indicates that user fields have been set up. Opens the user fields for editing.

On the on the Contract Info panel, click this icon (if it appears) to display and edit user fields.

Bottom left

Audit changes

Opens an audit so that you can see what changes were made to audited fields on a panel.
Note: On panels with the audit function, not all fields may actually be audited. Usually, only a few critical fields are subject to audit.

Audit changes to a contact.
Click this icon on the Contract Info panel to display changes to the contract such as: updates or a new end date extension.

Bottom left

Graph

Creates a data graph.

 

When working with an analysis group, click this icon at the bottom of the left-hand View panel next to Market Share or Trend.

Left of contract name Documents icon

Opens a list of contract documents.

See Managing Contracts, Figure 2.

Hover Functions

You can drill down to details on elements within the "Contracts" and "Savings" pages. If hovering over an element causes a box to appear, then clicking that element will bring up details in a new page or popup.

For example, anywhere in the "Contracts" or "Savings" pages, you can hover and click over a contract identifier (Figure 11) to bring up the Work with Contract Page (Figure 12).

Figure 11 - Click Contract Identifier

Figure 12 - "Work with Contract" Page

The Savings Details panel (Savings > Contract Savings > Contracts > Saving Details link) has several fields where you can hover and click to drill down to details on an item. (See Figure 11.) Hover and click on the items in Figure 13 to view the following popup panels:

  1. Item Details (Click the +.)
  2. Item Catalog Info
  3. Entity Family
  4. Contract Savings Details
  5. Pre-Contract Purchase Price

Figure 13 - Drill Down to Detail from the Savings Details Panel

Color Conventions

Throughout Sourcing and Contract Management , the following conventions are used for the color of various elements.

Table 3 - Color Conventions