That might work. I have to think it through, but it certainly seems possible. We do have different approvers for each project, but it's not one-to-one. Each approver may be working on several projects, and the absolute number of projects is not that high. Again, I have to think out the logic, but if it works it would solve several big issues for me.
Thanks!
Lynn Thomas
Senior Engineer
SAIC
317-357-4041 X255
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
I'm on 8.03.405A, and have run into something that I suspect is
unusual at least. We're doing government contract work on multiple
projects/contracts. I can generally manage segregating inventory by
getting creative with warehouses, but purchasing is something else again.
We have a plethora of buyers, all of whom may be handling any variety
of purchasing tasks for any number of projects/money pots. All our
purchases, whatever the dollar amount, require approval. But, the
approval authority varies according to whose money pot we're draining.
Problem: I have to specify an approver for POs that exceed the
buyer's limit [which I've set to $1.00 so that all orders require
approval] but it seems like I can only list one per buyer. Our
reality is different, and I rather doubt I'll persuade the assorted
Powers to change our reality.
Oddly, this isn't an issue in the Requisition process, since I've made
approval a mandatory step and one gets a drop-down list of approvers.
But Vantage doesn't allow requisitions of stocked, quantity-bearing
parts, which will present its own problems to our production managers,
meaning a problem for me. At least one of them won't listen to the
end of the sentence about automatic generation of suggestions, for one
thing, although that's a management issue, not a Vantage issue.
Second thing is that we might very well want/need to buy something
that we `keep in inventory' because it's paid for from another money
pot. It also might not be for a production job, but perhaps for some
development work in the labÂ….
We have a contractual obligation to keep project stuff separated, even
identical items. In theory, a government contract manager _could_
come in and demand to see `her' project's parts, and expect that they
not be mixed in with anyone else's project's parts. This is
warehousing, mostly, but it plays into MRP as well, since I need
Vantage to ignore inventory belonging to another contract. Oh, and
let's make it even more interesting: I'm working with two plants.
I'm already Multi-Company for other reasons.
I've set up a 'Generic Buyer' but I wonder if I'd be better off using
the head person and then creating lots of authorized users for
her...but that doesn't solve the problem of variable approval
authorities. The User Guide and system Help don't tell me quite
enough to figure it out, or to decide on a customization approach.
In summary, I need to be able to select the approving authority on
Purchase Orders, and to requisition stocked parts.
Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but this is what I set
up. I setup a buyer (who is not a buyer but one that will do all
approvals). I took this approach because that is the only way for
this individual to show up in the 'Approvers' list. I assign this
buyer as the approver to all my buyers. I then assign 'Authorized
Users' (non buyers) to the approver. Authorized Users are pulled
from those who have a Vantage logon. In the absense of the main
approver, those selected Authorized Users have the ability to approve
on his/her behalf.
Ok, it sounded a lot better in my head then it did on paper. Let me
know if you have any other questions on this setup.
Jeff
--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "Lynn Thomas 83" <thomasl@...> wrote:
>
> I'm on 8.03.405A, and have run into something that I suspect is
> unusual at least. We're doing government contract work on multiple
> projects/contracts. I can generally manage segregating inventory by
> getting creative with warehouses, but purchasing is something else
again.
>
> We have a plethora of buyers, all of whom may be handling any
variety
> of purchasing tasks for any number of projects/money pots. All our
> purchases, whatever the dollar amount, require approval. But, the
> approval authority varies according to whose money pot we're
draining.
>
> Problem: I have to specify an approver for POs that exceed the
> buyer's limit [which I've set to $1.00 so that all orders require
> approval] but it seems like I can only list one per buyer. Our
> reality is different, and I rather doubt I'll persuade the assorted
> Powers to change our reality.
>
> Oddly, this isn't an issue in the Requisition process, since I've
made
> approval a mandatory step and one gets a drop-down list of
approvers.
> But Vantage doesn't allow requisitions of stocked, quantity-bearing
> parts, which will present its own problems to our production
managers,
> meaning a problem for me. At least one of them won't listen to the
> end of the sentence about automatic generation of suggestions, for
one
> thing, although that's a management issue, not a Vantage issue.
> Second thing is that we might very well want/need to buy something
> that we `keep in inventory' because it's paid for from another money
> pot. It also might not be for a production job, but perhaps for
some
> development work in the labÂ….
>
> We have a contractual obligation to keep project stuff separated,
even
> identical items. In theory, a government contract manager _could_
> come in and demand to see `her' project's parts, and expect that
they
> not be mixed in with anyone else's project's parts. This is
> warehousing, mostly, but it plays into MRP as well, since I need
> Vantage to ignore inventory belonging to another contract. Oh, and
> let's make it even more interesting: I'm working with two plants.
> I'm already Multi-Company for other reasons.
>
> I've set up a 'Generic Buyer' but I wonder if I'd be better off
using
> the head person and then creating lots of authorized users for
> her...but that doesn't solve the problem of variable approval
> authorities. The User Guide and system Help don't tell me quite
> enough to figure it out, or to decide on a customization approach.
>
> In summary, I need to be able to select the approving authority on
> Purchase Orders, and to requisition stocked parts.
>
> Does anyone here have any ideas?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Lynn Thomas
> SAIC
>
I haven't tried this, but in theory it should work.
You could treat buyers as positions instead of people, and have the
approval tree be based on the group that position buys for. Then
regardless of the name on the suggestion, the buyer can change the
listed buyer on the suggestion before he generates the PO. The result
is that the PO is created by buyer gvtcontractgroupa, and approvals
will be requested by the approver for gvtcontractgroupa.
This wouldn't be practical if you have a different approver for every
project, but if we are talking about a few groups that have static
approvers, it might work.
Good Luck!
Craig
--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "Thomas, Lynn A." <thomasl@...> wrote:
>
> That might work, actually. I have to think on it a bit to make sure
I have the logic straight in my head, but it sounds like it's the right
direction.
>
> Thank you!
>
> Lynn Thomas
> Senior Engineer
> SAIC
> 317-357-4041 X255
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>