Overview

At the beginning of a Project, especially in businesses like Plumbing Services and Concreters, and on high-rise construction buildings, there is most likely a detailed list of materials that will be required for the whole project. This list might have been used to quote the Project. It could be created from Workbench’s Quote module (with stock items and materials) or an external estimating software, either way, it can then be imported into a Job Procurement list to order and manage as the Job progresses. A variation or extra materials/stock items can always be added later, via a Budget Variation or directly on the Procurement List.

• Procurement Lists are best utilised where Jobs/Sub Jobs have a fixed quantity of materials and fixtures for a project.

• The audience is mainly Site supervisors/Foremen drawing down on the procurement list for quicker/more efficient purchasing. Once the purchase requisition/order is created it typically is directed to the desired workflow for review and approval.

The audience can be:

• The Admin Procurement Team making company-wide decisions on supplier and price and POs raised.

• The Site Supervisors/Foreman drawing down on the procurement list themselves and creating POs.

• The Site Supervisors/Foreman requesting off the Admin team quantities required from the Approved Procurement List. The purchasing is done by the Procurement Team or Project Managers.

Once the purchase requisition/order is created it typically is directed to the desired workflow for review and approval.

Benefits of Procurement Lists for the organisation:

• Quick and efficient quantity draw-down ordering of material/fixtures for the procurer at the sub-job level.

• Fixed quantities are ultimately fixed, so in a perfect world quantity procurement should never be short or oversupplied by sub-jobs.

• In some cases, fixed quantity procurement of materials and fixtures for large sites can be claimed (Revenue) upfront. However, the ordering of procurement lists by sub-job can greatly assist with expense cashflow alleviating strain on the business finances.

In the case of a business organisation that has the Stock module setup:

• A standard set of parts/materials such as PVC Pipe, Copper, and Clips, that is consumed regularly for many projects via the yard/warehouse can be procured more efficiently and faster by drawing down on the list and creating the stock requisition.

• A standard set of parts/materials on 1 x Procurement list can be configured to filter by activity code (i.e. PVC, Copper), thus allowing the Warehouse user to draw down on quantities and not worry about supplier pricing etc as this would be pre-configured in the procurement list tab.

In summary Job Procurement lists, are fundamentally all about a fixed quantity and potentially a fixed cost value by project(s). It is easier for site supervisors/foremen to draw down on stock/material quantities rather than creating a standard purchase order and worrying about costs etc.

Dependent on the processes of each company (described above) the Job Procurement supports two screen views:

Admin Procurement
This is intended for the Admin Procurement Team making the purchasing decisions back at the office.

Field Procurement
The Field Procurement view available to an onsite user will be provided through a combination of features on the Procurement tab.  This is intended for a field-based view to request items from the Admin team. However, it can also be enabled to allow field users to purchase themselves (see Permissions in the Configuration & setup).

Configuration & Setup

Click to view details

• Decide what model to use:
  First of all you need to decide what if the model will be Procurer Team purchasing for the Field users or if any users (PMs/Procurers/Field Users) will be purchasing. Based on this, you will need to set up the different types of users with their own set of permissions and grids.

• Licence:
  A site Licence for Advanced Procurement is required and a Role Licence. Check exact licence requirements navigate to Job Procurement first, then select Page Parameters on the User profile options at the top right.

• Control Parameter:
  Job Procurement functionality has two versions, the initial one (legacy), and the current one (version 2) which is more advanced and manages the interaction between the Field Procurement users and the Back office Procurement users in a smarter and more controlled way, so both sides know when an action has been triggered by each other. The new version is enabled by default with the control parameter 'BETA FEATURE - Job Procurement Enhancements'. Enabled by default in all new implementations.

• Enhancements on the latest version of Job Procurement Lists (vs Legacy):

  • Better collaboration when multiple users are working with the same List. Details of the last updated date and by whom are recorded. Also users can communicate with comments on each line, and these comments can be actioned and flagged as done by another user. New Comments in the list are highlighted which makes it easy to identify. The List is also highlighted in the List screen when it has been updated.

  • More restrictions available for Field users, if required, to:

    • limit ability to edit line details that have been edited by someone else

    • limit ability to Purchase

    • prevent them from opening PO or Inwards goods (so they cannot see costs)

    • can only see unnaproved lines on List screen, and approved lines on Procurement screen. Cannot approve lines.

    • have limited tabs and custom grids.

  • Price Requests can be sent to Suppliers, and these Prices can be imported to update the corresponding Procurement List line.

  • New Grids in Grid Management.

• Permissions:
  It is recommended to search within a Role for the keyword 'Procurement' in the Permission name or permission details and you will get the up-to-date list of permissions for the module. Below is the current list of permissions and what each one is used for. Some of them are included by default in some roles. If no limitations are required for Field users, the easiest way to set up a user to use Job Procurement is by adding all the Procurement permissions on the role, that way you ensure all functionality will be available. However, when you want to start limiting what a field user or other users can or cannot do, you need to make decisions about what permissions are they allowed to have on their roles.

  • The permission ‘Procurement Lists’ will display an entry on the Job ellipsis.

  • ‘Job Procurement Edit and Purchase’: Without this permission a user can only edit This Qty and the new Comment fields and [Save]. They are not able to edit other fields, nor perform other actions. This permission is granted to the ‘General’ role by default for backward compatibility with the Legacy model.
    Some field users might only be allowed to edit This Quantity, but not the $ Value, indicating the Purchasing team that a quantity needs to be purchased. In this cases, this permission should not be assigned.

  • ‘Job Procurement View PO Details’: Allows PO to be opened from the Summary Tab drill-down.

  • To enable the [Procurement] button on the Procurement tab, users need these permissions (together with ‘Job Procurement Edit and Purchase’) to be able to create POs/Stock requisitions or Purchase Requisitions respectively:

    • ‘Procurement uses PO’

    • ‘Procurement uses PR’

  • To enable import options on the [Import] button, there are specific permissions:

    • Run wbImportProcurementLines

    • Run wbImportProcurementListLines

    • Run wbImportProcurementListPriceRequestCheck - Price Request Check

    • Run wbImportProcurementListPriceRequestUpdate - Price Request Update

• Settings:
  'Job Procurement Tabs': use this setting if you wish to hide some of the tabs. If empty, all tabs will display.
  'Procurement Layout': This defines the global grid and/or individual grid for those users that require the field grid. A record for each field user will need to be created to indicate they will be using the field grid. Normally the back office grid is defined globally and individual users that require a different grid will have the Field grid. By default, all users with access to Job Procurement will use ProcurementDetailList, unless specified otherwise with this setting.
  Valid values are: ProcurementDetailFieldList
  ProcurementDetailList

• Grid Management:

  • Back office functionality:
    From Grid Management use Grid Job Procurement Approval List for the List tab,
    Job Procurement Detail List for the Procurement tab,
    Procurement Summary List (same grid for office users and field users)
    to select the columns relevant to your operations, and the preferred column widths.
    When using Stock Requisitions, the Location column must be enabled on the grid, for a Stock Requisition to be created. If this column is not enabled, the Stock Requisition will not be created.
    
    

• Field Procurement functionality:
  From Grid Management use grid:

  • Job Procurement Approval Field List for the List tab,

  • Job Procurement Detail Field List for the Procurement tab,

  • Procurement Summary List (same grid for office users and field users)

to select the columns relevant to your operations, and the preferred column widths. These grids are intended to support a field-based view with fewer grid columns, as this might be opened on a smaller device.

Open

List tab & Procurement tab have their own grids

Make sure to use grids: Job Procurement Approval Field List, Job Procurement Detail Field List, Job Procurement Approval List, Job Procurement Detail List

And not the legacy ones: Procurement Approval List, Procurement Approval Field List

Screen Guide

From the Procurement List screen create a new list with the [New Job Procurement List] button. Or open an existing one by selecting the Description field. A useful filter in this screen is the Highlighed = Yes, which will reduce the list to only those blue highlighted lists, which means they require action from the Procurement Team. The Lists turn blue when a comment or a quantity to be purchased has been updated on the Procurement tab, or when the latest comment has not been marked as Done.

The simplified process starts with a user Creating a list and adding the lines on the List tab. These lines can be manually entered, imported from an Excel spreadsheet, or created from an approved Workbench Budget. Once all the details are entered, each line can be approved at different times, and as they are approved they display on the Procurement tab, where they can be purchased by creating a Purchase Requisition, a Purchase Order, or a Stock requisition if the Stock module is enabled, and there is stock for it in the yards/stock locations. As the lines are purchased, the History tab will display the list of all the documents generated to purchase these lines with direct links to them, their approval status, and some other relevant details. The Summary tab offers a great less crowded view to assist the users in understanding what is remaining to be purchased on each line.

With an Item code that is entered with Activity Code and no Catalogue item, you can later specify the Catalogue Line and Supplier when creating a Purchase Order. Remember that a PO for an Item must reference a Catalogue item from a specific supplier.

When importing lines from a Budget, any line with the same Item, LineRef, Activity, Work Centre, the system will consolidate these lines into one Procurement line with a reconciliation screen to show the source (Budget Details column in the List screen).

• The History tab lists all Purchase Requisitions (PRs), Stock Requisitions (SRs), and Purchase Orders (POs) created from this Procurement List with hyperlinks to each document.

• This can be filtered to find a specific document as per usual.

• To see PRs, SRs, and POs for a specific procurement line item, use the link from the Procurement tab Requisitioned or Ordered value respectively.

Communication between Field users and Office Staff

In those cases where Procurement Lists will be used by both Office staff and field staff, or even when there will be more than one person working and updating the Procurement List, there is a great mechanism to communicate and know that the lines or the List has been updated.

The column Last Comment can be used for communicating, and every time a new comment is added the field is highlighted in yellow and the latest comment will display. It could be an indication from a Field user to purchase something or to make some changes, and the user in the back office that processes and actions the instructions in the comment will mark the individual comment once it has been done.

Latest comments is always at the top of the list. Each comment has the details of the person who created it and a date, and the person who marked it as complete and a date.

The Procurement List will also be highlighted in blue on the Procurement List screen to indicate a new comment has been added.

Price Requests from Suppliers

Typically before approving an item (in the List tab), the procurement team will contact a few different suppliers to get prices and decide whom to buy from. To facilitate this process there is a way to prepare a list of items that need to be priced to send to the supplier. The supplier would then return that same file with the populated prices.

In the Apply filter button, there is the Excel Export (Price Request) option, which will export the filtered items after selecting a Supplier. The spreadhseet will have all items with no rate in them, and the Supplier AP Account populated. This wil be used and it is a mandatory field for when importing these price updates back into the Procurement List.

Once the Supplier returns the file, it can be first imported using Price Request Check, which will validate that there are no extra lines that do not exist in the Procurement List. And once satisfied with that check, the file can be imported using Price Request Update, which will update all the values wih those in the file.

Additional rules:

• Duplicate validation:
  When creating a new line in the List to procure, the system will validate that the same line doesn’t already exist. Procurement lists can be extensive and it is easy to enter a duplicate line without noticing it. The system will validate Item + Code + Activity + Work Centre. For those lines that are only Activity and Work Centre and a description, the validation will ignore the Item and check the other fields. An example of the error validation is below.