Change Orders in Oracle Fusion Purchasing (Part -2)

 Change Order Flow

The system allows for only one pending Change Order for each Order/Agreement, and they are also used for Order/Agreement cancellations as well.  All changes to Orders/ Agreements, whether done using user pages or other APIs (PDOI or PO Change API) follow the exact same Change Order processing flow.  This is summarized as:

1. User submits the completed Change Order for approval.
2. The Buyer Approves the Change Order. Fusion Approvals Management (AMX) will determine the approval routing for the Change Order based on the rules it has defined (specific attributes are provided for this).Buyers will have access to the Change Order summary page that lists all the pending Change Orders.   Approval can be done using either the approval notification (via email or the Worklist) or from the approval page that can be accessed from the Change Order summary page.  Approvers can perform approval/rejection at summary level or line level.
3. The Supplier Acknowledges The Change Order (optional step).  Suppliers need to perform acknowledgment only when the Requires Acknowledgement flag is set on the Change Order. Suppliers can accept or rejectthe Change Order. (Note: document signing is not yet part of the functionality).
4. Apply The Change Order to the original Order/Agreement. Once all approvals and the supplier acknowledgment are obtained the system will apply the Change Order details to the current Purchase Order/Agreement.For External Change Orders, the revision of the purchase order will then be incremented. 
5. Once complete, the Change Order is archived.

Change Order Configuration

There are two basic setups needed to complete Document Change Order processing, Templates and Approvals.

Change Order Templates

Before the processing can take place, the Procurement Applications Administrator needs to setup something called Change Order Templates.These should be defined for each Document Type (i.e. Standard Purchase Order, Blanket Purchase Agreement or Contract Purchase Agreement),and there can only be one active template within each Business Unit (but there can be many inactive ones).

The template contains lists of Attributes that represent the data values or fields on the Order/Agreement. These attributes are divided by the tabs header, line, schedule, attachments and contact terms.

As shown above, for each applicable attribute there is a Revise Document check box shown on the template page. This signifies that if the change
is made to this attribute and the template being used has that box checked, upon approval the Order/Agreement will have its revision number
incremented and therefore be re-communicated with the supplier.

Change Orders that are set to create a new revision may also be known as External Change Orders and have supplier visibility, whereas Change Orders
where no revision was made may be known as Internal or Administrative Change Orders and the changes are not explicitly shared with suppliers.

Change Order Approval Process

As with all Fusion Applications, the approval process of Document Change Orders is executed outside of Procurement functionality, within the Human Workflow and Approvals Management (AMX) components of the middleware stack.