Configure the Purchase Order Status Setup Table

Review the configuration of the "New" PO Status on the Setup Tables.  Confirm the value of the following fields on the "New" PO Status:

• Sort Order = 1
• Include in MRP = TRUE
• Active = TRUE 

Purchase Order Types specify the business rules that should be followed when procuring an item from a supplier. 

Confirm that the Purchase Order Types that are used for purchasing items using DemandCaster are configured to meet your requirements using the following selection on the Unit Price Option:

• Unit Price Option:
  • If no value is selected, the last purchase price for the Part, Part Op, Supplier combination will be used 
  • If Master Pricing is selected, the effective Master Price for the Part, Op, Supplier combination will be used

For each supplier that DemandCaster is going to create a purchase order for, it is necessary to specify the default Purchase Order Type that should be used to create purchase orders for the supplier.  The defaults for each supplier are defined in the Purchasing Defaults section of the supplier record. 

PO Release Status

The PO Release Status setup table needs to be reviewed to ensure that the Release Status that is used specified that the Purchase Release is firm/frozen has the following flags enabled:

• Include in MRP = enabled
• Default = enabled
• Approved = enabled
• Open = enabled

Release Type 

The Release Type setup table has to be setup with a new "Daily" Release Type. See example below. 

For a user to create a purchase order in Plex, the user’s profile must be setup with the necessary information that will enable the purchase requirements sent by the users to be successfully created as purchase orders in Plex. 

The following fields in DemandCaster for the user need to be reviewed and modified if necessary to ensure that they match the fields for the user in Plex:

• First Name in DemandCaster must match the First Name in Plex
• Last Name in DemandCaster must match the Last Name in Plex
• Plex User Id: must match the user id field in Plex

User profile in DemandCaster

User Profile in Plex

DemandCaster will add purchase releases to existing blanket purchase orders if a PCN has setup blanket purchase orders to buy an item from its supplier.  When a user attempts to send an approved suggested order for a purchased item to Plex, using the Download to ERP button, the reverse ETL process first checks to see if there is a valid purchase blanket order for the selected supplier and item, and if a valid blanket purchase order is found, the suggested order is added to the existing blanket purchase order as a new purchase release.  If a valid blanket purchase order is not found by the reverse ETL process, a new purchase order is created and the suggested order is added as a purchase release to the new purchase order.

Rules for Selecting Blanket Purchase Orders

The selection of the blanket purchase order that will be used to place a purchase release to a supplier is based on the following fields in Plex:

• Blanket Order,
• Blanket Effective Date, and
• Blanket Expiration

The Blanket Order checkbox field must be selected on the purchase order for the purchase order to be considered a blanket purchase order by the reverse ETL process.  

The rules shown in the table below are utilized to select the blanket purchase orders to be used for placing the purchase release.  If multiple blanket purchase orders exist, the earliest valid blanket purchase order will be selected.

Required DemandCaster System Settings

The setting: Purchase Order Date Used for Blanket Order Assignment determines if the purchase release order date or purchase release due date is used to select the blanket order that is used for placing the release.