ASL – Sourcing in Procurement

ORACLE WHITE PAPER | OCTOBER 2014

Disclaimer
The following is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended for information
purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any
material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The
development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for Oracle’s products
remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.

ASL-SOURCING IN PROCUREMENT
Table of Contents

Disclaimer 1

Executive Overview 2

Introduction 2

Important Sourcing terms in Oracle Purchasing 2

Approved Supplier List (ASL) 2

ASL Attributes 2

Global & Local ASL 3

Sourcing Rules 3

Assign Sourcing Rules 3

Requisitions created from a planning run (MRP): 15

Requisitions created manually by requesters: 15

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Executive Overview
Sourcing is a function with major importance within the broader context of Oracle Advanced Procurement. In fact, it
is a subset of procurement with strategic significance. Sourcing sets the stage for the buying company’s purchase
for direct and indirect materials, and involves high-level, company-wide approaches to obtaining materials and
services, identifying and evaluating potential suppliers to address those needs, negotiating and implementing
contracts with selected suppliers, monitoring and improving ongoing supplier relationships.

This white paper focuses on the features that Sourcing provides in the Advanced Procurement module of Oracle e-
Business Suite. It outlines the road map towards implementing Sourcing and describes the Sourcing cycle with
related setup steps in detail. It also discusses the new Sourcing feature in Oracle e-Business Suite (Advanced
Procurement) called Automatic Sourcing.

Introduction

Oracle Purchasing enables users to automatically source items from suppliers based on sourcing rules and
purchase agreements. The business requirements for Sourcing are:

• Automatically default suppliers and pricing information on requisition lines

• Source the item from negotiated purchase agreements
• Reduce manual intervention

Sourcing in Oracle Advanced Procurement can be implemented to the requisition, that is created either in Oracle
iProcurement, or core Oracle Purchasing. The only difference lies in the setup techniques. The setup steps or
methodologies for both modules are discussed in this whitepaper.

Important Sourcing terms in Oracle Purchasing

Approved Supplier List (ASL)
All procurement organizations maintain lists that associate the items and services they buy from the supplier
organization. Data stored in a global repository containing relevant details about each item/supplier/supplier site
relationship, is known as an Approved Supplier List (ASL). This repository includes information about every
suppliers with business statuses ranging from ‘Approved’ (the supplier has demonstrated the ability to satisfy
rigorous quality, cost, and delivery requirements over a sustained period) to ‘Debarred’ (the supplier is
temporarily/permanently disallowed on purchase orders due to performance failure, ethics violations, etc.) or ‘New’,
if you have never placed a purchase order with the supplier.

ASL Attributes
For each ASL entry, ASL attributes specify the Release Generation Method, (Purchasing) Unit of Measure, source
Blanket Agreements and Catalog Quotations for automatic reference during document creation.

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Global & Local ASL

Global ASL entries are valid for all Inventory Organizations. Local ASL entries are specific to a single Inventory
Organization.

Sourcing Rules

Sourcing rules define inventory replenishment methods for either a single organization or all organizations in the
enterprise. They describe sourcing supply; for any organization, they answer the question “Where do I get part A
from?”. The user defines rankings and percent allocation for replenishment sources in the form of Sourcing Rules.

Assign Sourcing Rules

Sourcing rule must be assigned to a particular item and/or organization. These assignments are grouped together in
assignment sets. This is where various sourcing strategies define a particular supply chain network. In an
assignment set. Sourcing can be assigned at different levels, as follows:

• An item across all organizations

• A single item in an inventory organization

• A category of items across all organizations

• A category of items in an inventory organization

• All organizations

Setup for Sourcing

Sourcing setup in Oracle Advanced Procurement is accomplished using the following steps. An important
prerequisite for Sourcing is that items and suppliers should be defined.

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Define items

Assign Items to Inventory organization(s)

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Create suppliers and supplier sites in the Suppliers window

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Supplier Site

Steps to implement Sourcing:

Create a Blanket Purchase Agreement

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BPA Header

BPA Line

When a blanket purchase agreement is approved (regardless of whether it a global or local BPA), a Global ASL and
Global Sourcing Rule are created. If the buying organization needs to generate a local ASL and Sourcing Rule in
addition to a global ASL and Sourcing Rule for a Item–Organization combination, it is recommended to run the
concurrent program Generate Sourcing Rules and ASLs from Blanket Agreements. The concurrent program creates
a local ASL and local Sourcing Rule for the Item–Organization combination.

When users create Global Blanket Purchase Agreements (in HTML pages) using Buyer Work Center, they can
specify a lead time in the line details page. The lead time, when entered, is used to calculate the Need-By Date
when creating a requisition or purchase order. For example, when the lead time is 22 days in the GBPA, and when a
requisition is created referring to the GBPA, the Need-By Date in the requisition line is calculated as current date +
lead time (days). Please note that the lead time is not updated in the ASL, however, it is used to calculate the Need-
By Date.

Defining the Approved Supplier List

To define the Approved Supplier List (ASL)

1. Navigate to the Approved Supplier List window as follows: Navigate to Supply Base Management >
Approved Supplier List.

2. In the Organizations window that appears, select the Ship-To organization for which to define Approved
Supplier List (ASL) entries. This is also known as the owning organization.

An ASL can be created for either of the following:

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 • Item: assigns a supplier to a specific item.

• Commodity: assigns a supplier to a group of items belonging to a category (or commodity).

3. Select an item or commodity.

4. One of the following Business type can be selected:

• Direct (Supplier): This option is selected when the supplier sells his products or services directly to the
buying organization. Specify the supplier and supplier site.

• Manufacturer: This option is selected when the supplier does not sell his products or services directly
to the procuring organization, instead, sells it via distributors.

• Distributor: This option is selected when the supplier sells products made by manufacturers. A
distributor needs to be associated with manufacturer, which implies that a manufacturer should be
defined in the ASL before defining the distributor.

5. Select the supplier's approval status. Use one of the default statuses provided.

6. Navigate to the Record Details Alternate region. Select one of the following in Global:

• Yes -This ASL entry is valid for all inventory organizations in this operating unit.

• No -This ASL entry is local, which implies that it is valid only for the organization chosen in the
Organizations popup window, when the Approved Supplier List window is opened.

NOTE: IF TWO ASL ENTRIES EXIST FOR THE SAME ITEM OR COMMODITY: ONE GLOBAL ENTRY THAT APPLIES TO
ALLORGANIZATIONS AND ONE LOCAL ENTRY THAT APPLIES ONLY TO THE LOCAL INVENTORY ORGANIZATION, NOTE
THAT THE LOCAL ENTRY TAKES PRECEDENCE.

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Source document information can be specified in the Supplier-Item Attributes window.

To define the supplier and commodity or item attributes:

1. Navigate to the Supplier-Item Attributes window by choosing the Attributes button in the Approved Supplier List
window.

2. Choose the Purchasing Unit of Measure (UOM).

3. Select the Release Generation Method from the following options:

o Automatic Release/Review: Automatically generates releases, however, this requires a

separate step for approval. The Create Release Program concurrent program is used
to create releases in this case.

o Automatic Release: Automatically generates approved releases. This choice is not

available if encumbrance is turned on. The Create Release Program concurrent
program is used to create the release for this option.

o Release Using AutoCreate: Release is created by the CREATEPO workflow and

Create Release Program is not required.

NOTE: If Requisition Line(s) are for a one-time item then the Release Generation Method is not taken into
consideration, and the requisition is a candidate for Automatic creation by the CREATEPO workflow. This occurs in
the workflow (CREATEPO) after the workflow has verified that the Requisition has the required information for
automatic release creation.

4. One of the following attribute groupings can be selected from the Alternate region:

a. Enter a unique Seq (Sequence) Number. Sourcing picks up the document as per the sequence, i.e. if
there are two documents specified in ASL with sequence numbers 1 and 2, the document with
sequence number 1 is used, regardless of whether it is a Blanket or Quotation.

b. The following document types can be selected:

• Blanket Purchase Agreement

• Contract Purchase Agreement

• Quotation

Note: A requisition with a quotation as a source document can be created to a standard purchase order. A
requisition with a blanket purchase agreement as a source document can be created into a release (unless the ASL
is setup for this item as a Cosigned Inventory item. If this is the case then a Standard PO is created instead of a
Blanket Release). A requisition with a contract purchase agreement as a source document can be created into a
standard purchase order.

c. Select a Document Number.

d. Select a Line Number. The Status and Effective Dates for the document, if any, are displayed.

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Defining a Sourcing Rule
Users define a Sourcing Rule for an Effective Date–Supplier combination. There are no items specified in the
Sourcing Rule. Some points to keep in mind while defining Sourcing Rules:

• There can be more than one Sourcing Rules for the same supplier. The system displays the error:
“Assignment combination already exists”; the system thus prevents the user from assigning more than one
sourcing rule for the item-sourcing rule combination.

• The Generate Sourcing Rule concurrent program updates existing Sourcing Rules with the following
conditions:

o The sourcing rule is not assigned to any other item.

o The Blanket Purchase Agreement Start Date and End Date are not null.

o If the update requires extension of any existing effective period in the Sourcing Rule, there can
be only one supplier/site for that effective period and must match the supplier/site on the blanket
purchase order.

o The blanket effective periods do not overlap multiple effective periods in the Sourcing Rule.

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To define a Sourcing Rule:

1. Navigate to the Sourcing Rule window.

2. Enter a unique Sourcing Rule name.

a. Indicate whether this sourcing rule is used for all organizations (global) or a single organization
(local).

b. If the sourcing rule is local, enter an organization name; otherwise, the current organization will
be the receiving organization.

3. Enter effective dates. A start date is mandatory, but entering an end date is optional.

4. Enter an allocation percentage 100%.

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To assign a Sourcing Rule:

1. Navigate to the Sourcing Rule/Bill of Distribution Assignments window.

2. Enter an assignment set name and description.

Note: The assignment specified in profile option MRP: Default Sourcing Assignment Set is the only one used by
Purchasing during the sourcing process

3. Enter an Item/Category if the selection for the Assign To Type is Item or Item-Org.

4. Enter the sourcing rule as the Type.

5. Enter the name of the Sourcing Rule.

6. Save the window information.

The supplier-item combination is defaulted on the release that references the blanket purchase agreement.

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The Line details page of the release has the blanket purchase agreement details defaulted in the Source Document
region.

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Note: If the requisition does not have a supplier-agreement source. it is identified as an unassigned requisition in the
buyer queue. Thus buyers can take appropriate actions, such as autocreating it to a purchase order document. The
requisition is available in the Demand Workbench for buyers to convert it to a purchase order document.

Sourcing Cycle in core Purchasing

Quick Checklist for the Sourcing Cycle process:

1. Create a requisition for the item for which the Sourcing Rule and Approved Supplier List has been created.

2. The Supplier and Supplier Site get defaulted from the Sourcing Rule.

3. Navigate to Source Details Alternate region.

4. The Blanket Purchase Agreement, that was specified in the ASL, is now attached to the Requisition.

5. Approve the requisition.

Users can create requisitions in Oracle MRP or manually in Oracle iProcurement. The two types of requisition
creation and subsequent sourcing cycles are as follows:

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Requisitions created from a planning run (MRP):
When requisitions are created automatically from a planning run (as autocreated requisitions), the system looks up
the sourcing rule to identify the supplier and the allocation percentage to split the total demand for the item across
different requisitions. The autocreated requisition from the planning run defaults the required supplier-agreement
details from the Sourcing Rule and Approved Supplier List that is used to convert the requisition to a purchase order
document.

When MRP creates purchase requisitions for the demand, Rank and Allocation Percentage are used. Based on the
allocation percentage and rank, the MRP run will equally distribute the requisitions across different suppliers. These
fields are not used when requisitions are created manually by requesters. See: Defining Allocation Percentages
section in the Oracle Purchasing User’s Guide for more information.

Min-Max and Sourcing Rule are used if there are requisitions or purchase orders created by MRP. If the requisitions
are created from the MRP run, the system creates requisitions based on the Min/Max quantity definition. See:
Inventory Replenishment Requisitions section in the Oracle Purchasing User’s Guide.

Requisitions created manually by requesters:

When a requisition is created manually by a requester, the supplier–agreement details are defaulted from the
Sourcing Rule and ASL, and the defaulted supplier/agreement will be the first defined supplier. Please note that no
allocation percentage will be calculated in this scenario.

Converting a requisition to a purchase order is based on the supplier–agreement information in the requisition
document. Hence, the behavior in the application does not change when converting auto-created requisitions /
manually created requisitions into purchase orders. However, please note that the process of identifying and
defaulting the supplier-agreement information for auto-created requisitions / manually created requisitions will be
different from the processes outlined above in Requisitions created from a planning run (MRP) and Requisitions
created manually by requesters:

If the requisition does not have a supplier-agreement source, it is identified as an unassigned requisition in the buyer
queue. Buyers can then take appropriate actions, such as autocreating it to a purchase order document. The
requisition is available in the Demand Workbench for buyers to convert it to a purchase order document.

Note: If the requisitions are not available in the Demand Workbench, then users need to review the requisition to
identify the issue.

Note: The Supply Base > Supplier Statuses window populates the status of the ASL. Users can define the possible
supplier statuses and the transactions that are allowed on these statuses. For example, if the PO Approval action is
not allowed for the “Required Reapproval” status, the system identifies the next possible supplier to create a
purchase order.

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Run the Workflow Background Process with the following parameters:

• ItemType: PO Requisition Approval

• Process Deferred: Yes

• Process Stuck: No

• Process Timeout: No

This step is not required if you use the Create Documents workflow in Online Mode, which is determined if the value
of Requisition Approval workflow item attribute = “Send PO Autocreation to Background” is set to No. If the attribute
is set to No, the Create Documents workflow is completed in online mode. If the workflow item attribute is set to Yes,
it will be sent to the background and this step is required.

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Sourcing Cycle in Oracle iProcurement
Sourcing can also be used in Oracle iProcurement. The following document types can be created in Oracle
iProcurement with the help of Sourcing:

• A release from a BPA for a catalog item.

• A standard purchase order from a quotation for a catalog item.

• A standard purchase order from a contract purchase agreement for a catalog item.

• A standard purchase order from a contract purchase agreement for a non-catalog item.

Creating a Release from a BPA for a catalog item

The following steps are used to create a release from a BPA for a catalog item.

• Create one item.

• Create one BPA and ASL for that item and attach the BPA to the ASL for this item.

• Extract item, BPA and ASL in iProcurement.

Keep the following in mind while extracting the item, BPA, and ASL:

∞ Item List Price should be specified in Item Master in Purchasing tabbed region.

∞ Item should be attached to a category, which should be web enabled.

∞ The Category should be extracted before the Item.

∞ The ASL owning org should be same as the inventory organization specified in the Financial System
Parameters.

 Search for the item in iProcurement.

 Create a requisition in iProcurement for the item.

 Approve the requisition.

 Run the workflow background process (if Release Generation Method in ASL is
“Release using Autocreate” and if the Requisition Approval Workflow item attribute
“Send PO Autocreation to Background” is set to Yes. If “Send PO autocreation to
Background” is set to No, this step is not required.)

The CREATEPO workflow performs the following checks before creating a release. Wfstatus output for ItemType
CREATEPO provides the status of these activities.

∞ Does Req Line Have Enough Information To Create Document?

∞ Does The Req Line Have Valid Supplier Information?

∞ Does the Req Line Reference a Valid Blanket or Quotation?

Additionally, the system validates the Source document extracted for that item and the Release Generation Method
from the extracted ASL.

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If the requisition line(s) are for a one-time item, then the Release Generation Method is not considered and the
requisition is a candidate for automatic creation by the CREATEPO workflow.

If all the above conditions are satisfied, the release is created.

Creating a Standard Purchase Order from a quotation for a Catalog

Item

Perform the following steps to create a Standard PO from a Quotation for a catalog item.

i. Create one item.

ii. Create one quotation and ASL for the item. Attach the quotation in ASL.

iii. Extract item, Quotation and ASL in iProcurement.

iv. Search for the item in iProcurement.

v. Create a requisition in iProcurement for this item.

vi. Approve the requisition.

vii. Run the workflow background process.

Note: This step is required if the Requisition Approval Workflow item Attribute “Send PO Autocreation to
Background” is set to Yes. If “Send PO Autocreation to Background” is set to No, this step is not required.

The CREATEPO workflow performs the following checks before creating a release. Wfstatus output for ItemType
CREATEPO provides the status of these activities.

∞ Does Req Line Have Enough Information To Create Document?

∞ Does the Req Line Have Valid Supplier Information?

∞ Does the Req Line Reference a Valid Blanket or Quotation?

Additionally, the workflow validates the Source document extracted for the item. If all the conditions are met, the
standard purchase order is created.

Creating a Standard Purchase Order from a Contract Purchase

Agreement for a catalog item

i. Create one item.

ii. Create one contract purchase agreement and ASL for that item. Contract is not specified in ASL.

iii. Extract item and ASL in iProcurement.

iv. Search for the item in iProcurement.

v. Create a requisition in iProcurement for this item.

vi. Approve the requisition.

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 vii. Run the workflow background process.

NOTE: If the Requisition Approval Worlflow item Attribute “Send PO Autocreation to Background” is set to Yes. If
“Send PO Autocreation to Background” is set to No, this steps is not required.

The CREATEPO workflow performs the following checks before creating a release. Wfstatus output for ItemType
CREATEPO provides the status of these activities.

∞ Does Req Line Have Enough Information To Create Document?

∞ Does the Req Line Have Valid Supplier Information?

∞ Does the Req Line Reference a Valid Blanket or Quotation? (“No” in this scenario)

∞ Should Contract be used to AutoCreate Doc? (“Yes”, and will come from workflow attribute)

∞ Does Contract Info Exist in ReqLine? (“No” because the contract is not extracted)

∞ Is Contract Required on the ReqLine? (This needs to be set in the workflow attribute as “No”)

∞ Does Contract Exist and Allow Creation from Contract? (“Yes” because the contract exists in Purchasing)

Now as it gets the details from the source document in core Purchasing, the workflow creates a standard purchase
order.

Creating a Standard Purchase Order from a Contract Purchase

Agreement for a Non Catalog Item

i. Create one contract purchase agreement in core Purchasing.

ii. Create one non-catalog requisition in iProcurement.

iii. Specify the supplier and site (should be same as in the contract purchase agreement).

iv. Approve the requisition. Run the workflow background process.

NOTE: If the Requisition Approval Workflow item attribute “Send PO Autocreation to Background” is set to Yes, this
step is required. If “Send PO Autocreation to Background” is set to No, this step is not required.

The CREATEPO workflow performs the following checks before creating a release. Wfstatus output for ItemType
CREATEPO provides the status of these activities.

∞ Does the requisition line have enough information to create the document?

∞ Does the requisition line have valid supplier information? (As provided while creating the requisition)

∞ Does the requisition line reference a valid Blanket Agreement or Quotation? (not applicable in this
scenario)

∞ Should Contract be used to autocreate the document? (workflow attribute)

∞ Does Contract Info exist in ReqLine? (“No”, because the Contract PO is not extracted)

∞ Is Contract required on the ReqLine? (workflow attribute)

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 ∞ Should Non-Catalog Request AutoSource From Contract? (workflow attribute)

∞ Does Contract exist and allow creation from contract? (Yes as it is available in Purchasing)

PO Create Documents Workflow in Sourcing

The PO Create Documents Workflow is used in Sourcing to create the releases from BPAs and standard purchase
orders from Quotations automatically. The wft file involved is poxwfatc.wft. Follow the steps in order to configure the
PO Create Documents Workflow.

1. Open the Workflow file in Workflow Builder.

2. Expand Attributes.

3. Double Click on the attribute ‘Is Automatic Creation Allowed?’

4. Specify the Value as ‘Y’.

Following attributes need to be set for A) Generating Release from a BPA in Sourcing

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 Sr No Attribute Name Value Required

1 Is Automatic Creation Allowed? Y Yes

2 Should Workflow Create The Release? Y Yes

3 Is Automatic Approval Allowed? Y Optional

If the Attribute ‘Is Automatic Approval Allowed’ is set to Y, releases that are created will be automatically submitted
for approval. Whether the Release is approved automatically or not depends on the approval authority of the buyer
when the release is created. If the Buyer does not have the approval authority, the release will be forwarded to the
next approver in the Buyer`s Approval Hierarchy. The status of the release will be In Process.

Generating Standard Purchase Orders from Quotation

Sr No Attribute Name Value Required

1 Is Automatic Creation Allowed? Y Yes

Generating Standard Purchase Orders from a Contract Purchase

Agreement in iProcurement

Sr No Attribute Name Value Required

1 Is Automatic Creation Allowed? Y Yes

2 Should Contract be used to autocreate Doc? Y Yes

3 Should non-catalog requests be auto sourced from Y Yes

contract?

4 Is Contract Required on Requisition Line? (This is N No

an optional item attribute – it can be setup to Yes or
No and the system can still create PO`s from
Requisitions that have contracts steup

The attribute SEND_CREATEPO_TO_BACKGROUND should be set to Y if the PO Autocreation has to be sent to

Background.

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Advanced Features of Automatic Sourcing
Oracle Purchasing enables the automatic creation of Sourcing Rules, Sourcing Rule Assignments and Approved
Supplier List entries during Blanket Agreement approval. The system automatically creates the relevant entries,
when the Blanket Agreement is approved.

Use the profile option PO: Allow Auto-generate Sourcing Rules and ASL. The default value is “None”. In order to
activate this feature, the profile option value needs to be set to either “Create Only” or “Create and Update”. If the
value is set to “Create Only” then the “Enable Automatic Sourcing” checkbox and the “Release Generation Method”
dropdown are displayed, and can be updated in the Approval Options window.

If the value is set to “Create and Update”, then the “Enable Automatic Sourcing” checkbox, the “Update Sourcing
Rule and ASL Entries” checkbox and the “Release Generation Method” dropdown are displayed, and can be
updated in the Approval Options window.

Note: If the Archival mode being used for Blanket Agreements is "Archive on Print", this feature cannot be used and
the new fields and checkboxes would not be visible in the Approvals window. Users must select "Archive on
Approve" to use this feature.

The Sourcing Rule Name Prefix can be customized. The prefix value is read from the activity attribute "PO Sourcing
Rule Name Prefix" in PO Approval Workflow. The default value is "PURCH".

Note: The new Sourcing Rules will be assigned at the Item Level and will be added to the assignment set that is
specified in the profile option "MRP: Default Sourcing Assignment Set". The ASL that is created will be a Global
ASL.

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This process will update existing Sourcing rules if the following conditions are met:

• The Sourcing Rule is not assigned to any other item.

• The Blanket Purchase Agreement Start and End Dates are not null.

• If the update requires extension of any existing effective period in the Sourcing Rule, there can be only one
Supplier/Site for that effective period and must match the supplier/site on the blanket purchase agreement.

• The blanket effective period do not overlap multiple effective periods in the Sourcing Rule.

The process will try to create or update Approved Supplier List entries even if Sourcing Rule creation/update
previously failed for the Blanket Agreement line item.

For exception reporting, run the Purchasing Interface Errors report with a source type ASR -Automatic Sourcing
Rule Builder to view the exceptions that occur during the creation of sourcing rules and/or approved supplier list
entries.

Steps to implement Automatic Sourcing

1. Create an Item.

2. Set the Profile Option PO: Allow Auto-generate Sourcing Rules

3. Set the Profile Option MRP: Default Assignment Set to the Set in which Sourcing Rule will get attached.

4. Create a Blanket Purchase Agreement. Ensure that the effectivity dates are specified.

5. Approve the BPA. In the Approval window, select the Create Sourcing Rule checkbox, and select the
Release Generation method.

Note: Please note that this checkbox is enabled when the profile option PO: Allow Auto-generate Sourcing Rules is
set.

6. Run the Workflow Background Process for item type = PO Approval (even if the system is set up to use
PO approval in online mode, the background process must be run to create or update the ASL / Sourcing
Rules for the data on the Blanket Purchase Order submitted for approval).

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 7. The ASL is automatically generated with the document attached in the Attribute. The Release Generation
Method has also been populated automatically.

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 8. The Sourcing Rule is also generated and attached to the assignment set specified in Profile Option MRP:
Default Assignment Set.

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 9. The Sourcing Rule will show the same Supplier/Supplier Site with 100% allocation and the same effective
dates as that of the Blanket Purchase Agreement.

Please note that closing a line on a contract/agreement does not expire the sourcing rule automatically. However,
the agreement line is expired; thus, the system does not pick up the supplier-agreement combination when
defaulting the details in the requisition document. Hence, closing a line in the agreement ensures that the
agreement- line number combination is not defaulted during requisition creation; however, the sourcing rule does not
expire automatically.

Tables used in Sourcing

1. PO_APPROVED_SUPPLIER_LIST

2. PO_APPROVED_SUPPLIER_LIST stores the relationship between an item or commodity; a supplier,

distributor, or manufacturer; ship-to organizations; and approval/certification status.

3. PO_ASL_ATTRIBUTES PO_ASL_ATTRIBUTES stores all information for the supplier/item/organization

relationship defined in PO_APPROVED_SUPPLIER_LIST. This information is maintained separately to
allow each organization to define its own attributes, even if using a Global ASL entry for the supplier/item
relationship and approval status.

4. PO_ASL_DOCUMENTS PO_ASL_DOCUMENTS stores sourcing references to supply agreements,

blanket agreements, and catalog quotations associated with particular suppliers and items in
PO_APPROVED_SUPPLIER_LIST.

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 5. PO_ASL_STATUSES

6. PO_ASL_STATUSES stores the user-defined approval/certification statuses for the ASLs.

7. PO_ASL_STATUS_RULES PO_ASL_STATUS_RULES stores the business rules associated with each

defined ASL status.

8. MRP_SOURCING_RULES MRP_SOURCING_RULES stores sourcing rule names and descriptions. The

Define Sourcing Rule form populates this table.

9. MRP_ASSIGNMENT_SETS MRP_ASSIGNMENT_SETS stores information about Sourcing Assignment

Sets. The Define Assignment Sets form populates this table.

10. MRP_SR_ASSIGNMENTS MRP_SR_ASSIGNMENTS stores the assignment of sourcing rules or bills of

distribution to items, organizations, category, or at the global level. The Assign Sourcing Rules Form
populates this table.

11. PO_ASL_ATTRIBUTES_VAL_V (view) PO_ASL_ATTRIBUTES_VAL_V is a view used by the Create

Documents workflow that is created from table PO_ASL_ATTRIBUTES and table
PO_APPROVED_SUPPLIER_LIST

Summary
Oracle Purchasing provides great flexibility in implementing Sourcing. To use this feature successfully, your
business needs and supply chain strategy should be identified correctly. With the setup and different techniques of
Sourcing outlined in this paper, you have greater flexibility than ever before to make this feature suit your business
processes.

By implementing the sourcing functionality, an organization enables users in the purchasing department to focus on
securing the best deals for the organization.

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ASL-Sourcing in Procurement
October 2004
Author: Nandini Basu & Rajiv Arora (CPIM)
Contributing Authors: Mike Williams, Linda Johnston, Lisa Oinonen, Starr Smelley, Kishan Marla, Pratima Mahtani