Frequently Asked Questions: Migrating to Intelligent Business Rules

Overview

Intelligent Business Rules is a component of GHX My Exchange Orders that replaces legacy Order Intelligence. Suppliers use it to set rules that:

  • Enrich or correct order lines automatically

  • Release parked orders for processing in their organization’s ERP systems

  • Stop or reject orders they cannot receive electronically

After your organization migrates to Intelligent Business Rules, you will see the following main menu options when you log in to My Exchange Orders.

Parked POs

Where do I find my parked POs?

Use the Parked POs Quick Clicks to filter the complete parked PO list or use the search field or Advanced Search to search by PO number.

How do I review my parked POs?

After finding your Parked POs, click the link in the PO # column to open the Manage Purchase Order screen. Click the appropriate action button in the Purchase Order Details section. There are four available order-level actions.

Order-Level Action When to Use What Happens
Release PO Use when you want to accept the PO as it is and return the document and its saved mappings back through the business rules processing for outbound delivery. Reprocesses the entire PO through your business rules logic and releases it to your ERP system.
Force Release PO Use when you want to deliver the PO as it is without any further business rules processing.

There are three options*:

  • Deliver the order without Item Map, Global or Validation Rules updates – Delivers the original inbound PO version without Intelligent Business Rules changes to your ERP system.

  • Deliver the document as parked not including new mapping changes – Delivers the PO version as it stands in its current state to your ERP system. Any changes made to item mappings while managing the PO will be dropped and not executed.

  • Deliver the document as parked including new mapping changes – Re-runs the catalog validation and item mapping logic and delivers the PO document in that state to your ERP. New item maps are executed for order line updates if they were added. No parking conditions will be evaluated so the PO will not park again. (This is the most commonly selected option.)

*To set one of these Force Release PO options as your organization’s default, contact support@ghx.com.

Stop PO

Use when you want to stop a PO without having a notification sent to your trading partner.

Typically used by European (EU) organizations since they do not have trading partner relationships on the Exchange.

May be used by North American (NA) organizations when they are cleaning up duplicate orders, for example.

Stops the entire PO from reaching your ERP but does not send a POA (Purchase Order Acknowledgement, EDI 855) response to the buyer.

The outcome for the PO document itself is the same when using Stop PO and Reject PO; the latter is simply more conducive for buyer visibility among NA organizations.

Reject PO

Use when you want to reject a PO and have a notification sent to your trading partner.

Typically used by NA orgs since they transact with an active, integrated buyer community on the Exchange.

You are required to include a rejection reason that specifies correction needed by the buyer for future orders. Example reasons for rejecting a PO: item on backorder, not in stock, no longer carried, obsolete, or needs to be directed to another department.

Stops the entire PO from reaching your ERP and sends a POA (EDI 855) response to the buyer to update their MMIS. The rejection is displayed in My Exchange Orders.

To have a standardized list of rejection reasons configured for your organization, which can save your users time, contact support@ghx.com or your CSM.

See the Manage Parked POs topic in the product help for details.

When I am reviewing a parked PO, is it “locked” or can other colleagues process it?

When a user opens a parked PO and is actively managing it on the Manage Purchase Order screen, the PO is in a locked state. Intelligent Business Rules identifies the user who has the PO open for processing. When needed, another user may take control of that PO and change its state.

How do I reject a parked PO?

To reject a parked PO, open the Manage Purchase Order screen, click the Reject PO button, and type a reason. In My Exchange, the order status will be updated to PO Rejected. Your customer can see the order message (explaining the reject reason) in the PO View.

When you reject a PO line, the system generates a POA (Purchase Order Acknowledgement, EDI 855) for your customer and updates the line status in My Exchange.

Best Practice: Enter a reject reason for your provider user’s audit and visibility purposes. They will see this information in the POA and in My Exchange Orders.

How do I stop a parked PO?

There are two ways to stop a parked PO:

  • Option 1: Click the Stop PO button on the Manage Purchase Order screen

  • Option 2: Open the Parked POs Quick Clicks results

You would stop a parked PO when you want to hard stop that order. In this case, no POA (EDI 855) is automatically generated.

This is the same as the “Delete” action in Order Intelligence, but with the following added visibility:

  • A Stopped PO Quick Click filter on the Orders tab

  • The stopped reason

Best Practice: Typically, suppliers in the North American market reject (rather than stop) parked PO lines and they include a reason why they are rejecting the line. The stop action is best used when cleaning up orders (for example, duplicates).

What happens when I reject PO lines and release the PO?

When you reject one or more PO lines and then release the PO, Intelligent Business Rules releases the PO to the supplier, strips the rejected lines from the electronic file, and updates the status in My Exchange. In this case a POA (EDI 855) is automatically generated for the rejected lines.

What are the differences between the Release and Force Release actions?

Release a parked PO

  • You would release a parked PO when you want to reprocess the PO. This is the same as the

  • “Reprocess” action in Order Intelligence. This action loops the PO back through all the logic and sends it to the trading partner. It is possible this could result in the PO being re-parked.

Force release a parked PO

  • You would force release a parked PO when you want the PO to be delivered as it is. The PO will not be revalidated or re-parked. Because of this, suppliers need to ensure the information is correctly updated in their ERP.

  • This is the same as the “Release” action in Order Intelligence, but with the following additional options:

    • Deliver the order without item map, global rule, or validation rule updates

    • Deliver the document as parked and do not include new mapping changes

    • Deliver the document as parked and include new mapping changes

  • For detailed descriptions, see the table in the How do I review my parked POs? section above.

What advanced editing can I do on parked POs?

Beyond item maps, users may perform advanced edits when managing their parked POs. Summary level (or header-level) order edits can be made to specify changes to order type, ship to and bill to account numbers, and confirmation numbers (also known as the supplier’s sales order numbers). Users may also add order lines or re-sequence them when necessary.

See How do I add an order line to a parked PO? for details.

How do I add an order line to a parked PO?

Users who manage consignment orders can add order lines to parked POs. When a PO is identified as a consignment order type or is updated to a consignment order type, an Add Line button is enabled within the Purchase Order Details section of the Manage Purchase Order screen. Clicking Add Line allows users to manually enter the following order line attributes:

  • Line number

  • Supplier and buyer part number

  • Quantity

  • Unit of measure

  • Quantity of each

  • Item description

  • Unit price

  • Lot and serial numbers

  • Medical reference number

  • Physician name

  • Procedure date

  • Consignment type

When the user saves and releases the parked PO, GHX updates the electronic document as specified and delivers it to the supplier’s ERP system.

How can I find details regarding my team’s parked PO activities at GHX?

Intelligent Business Rules provides a Business Rules Order Report. This report allows suppliers to search for and find POs that GHX processed that were impacted by business rules. This includes POs that were fully automated (touchless); rejected or stopped; and parked and subsequently released or force released.

The Business Rules Order Report includes links to the PO view for those orders. Suppliers can bulk download the report results to create periodic soft-copy backups, which ensures they have quick access when auditing order details or when investigating shipments or billing.

How do I set up parked PO notifications?

You can create new notifications within My Exchange’s Notifications application that are specific to parked POs.

To set up parked PO notifications:

  1. Click the solution selector icon in the main menu and select Notifications.

  2. Click Organization View and select your home organization from the list.

  3. Click New Notification. The New Notification screen opens.

  4. Define the following criteria:

    1. Notification Category – Select Parked PO

    2. Notification Name – Type a unique, descriptive name

    3. Business Process Type – Leave as Purchase Order (this is the transaction type)

  5. Configure other data attributes, as needed.

  6. Update the delivery details, including the recipient list.

  7. Click Save Notification.

  8. Inform teammates in the recipient list that they will begin receiving parked PO notifications from GHX.

How can I manually edit a unit price or quantity?

Manually editing a unit price or quantity is not standard or best practice in Intelligent Business Rules. The unit price is tied to consignment orders only. Therefore, you cannot edit the price at the line level unless the PO Type is a Consignment Order. Instead, best practice is to create an item mapping to correct line attributes that come in incorrectly with an order.

Creating an item mapping keeps you from having to make the same manual changes time and time again. In this way the item will be corrected automatically, which saves time and increases accuracy. Creating an item mapping also notifies the provider of the change and highlights the item in the exception management process.

Consignment management is available to organizations that subscribe to the Advanced Tier of Intelligent Business Rules. But even in that case, the best practice is still to create an item mapping.

Item Mapping and Business Rules

What is an item mapping?

Item mappings are used to correct various attributes on PO lines. They are generally catalog-based and they automatically enrich PO lines. The term item mapping is synonymous with item rules.

Item mappings can be created for individual part numbers and used to correct PO line items for one, multiple, or all trading partners.

Depending on your organization’s product configuration, you may see an item map setting of all buyers or PO sender details (including the buyer organization’s name and EID). Also, the item map creation can be per the PO’s buyer organization or as a global setting that includes all orders.

All Intelligent Business Rules customers can work with item mappings. They can be catalog specific or one-time corrections. In the case of one-time corrections, permanent rules are not created.

There are two tools you can use to process parked POs:

  • Click Catalog in the main menu and type a part number or item description to search your supplier catalog contents for the proper product cross reference

    Tip: You can choose to further enhance the catalog item replacement with other attribute updates, such as adding a GTIN.

  • Use the Item Map tab on the Manage Purchase Order screen to manually enter the from and to line data you want to change

    Tip: Select Map for this PO only from the drop-down list to make a one-time correction

See the Manage Parked POs topic in product help for details.

How can I see what our business rules did to an order?

To support investigations and data quality audits, you can view full audit details on the Manage PO and PO view screens. These order line level details clarify the data that was in the original buyer PO versus the data Intelligent Business Rules cleansed, enhanced, or altered.

The PO view shows order status information and includes a Full Document History section that you can expand or collapse. It also includes a list of changes at the order line level, changes at the document header level, validation rule execution, and user action audit details such as PO or line rejections. An example of the PO view follows.

User Access Levels

What user access levels are available?

Intelligent Business Rules user access levels are modeled after My Exchange and include the following user types: User, Manager, and Customer Admin. However, these levels are more complex because Intelligent Business Rules inherently requires some level of rule management and maintenance.

See the User Role Permissions topic in product help for details.

Catalog

Can I see my organization’s catalog?

Users that have the User access level have read-only access to their supplier catalog for visibility and reference while creating or managing their organization’s item mappings.

Users that have the Customer Admin access level can manage their catalog file in AllSource Prime.

Best Practices

What user preferences are best?

Depending on the type of work you do, when you log on you may want to view a list of orders that includes only parked POs. You can do this by switching the default landing page in your preferences.

To change your preferences:

  1. Click your user name.

  2. Select Preferences.

  3. Select Parked POs.

  4. Scroll down and click Save.The next time you log into the product, the orders list will be filtered using the Parked POs Quick Clicks.