Release 200.009.000
For the release 200.009.000 of maxflow® procurement, which we published in May 2022, we have made various small changes and corrections in addition to the following features.
Prioritization of the Documents
In the individual processing steps and in the monitor of maxflow® procurement, documents can now be manually assigned a priority. The priorities "Normal", "High" and "Very high" are available. By setting a priority, the responsible processors can see which documents are to be processed as a matter of priority.
The priority is set for the entire document, i.e. all processing steps, and can be changed again at any time. If a priority has been set, the respective line in the results list of the monitor will be colored according to its priority - red for priority "Very high", yellow for priority "High" and no color of its own for priority "Normal". In addition, when a task is executed, a message about the priority is displayed.
In addition to manually setting the priority in the monitor and the processing steps, the priority can also be set automatically by the escalation.
Optimization of Escalation Management
The existing escalation function in maxflow® procurement has been revised and now enables various control mechanisms for targeted escalation of documents and individual processing steps. With the new escalation management, the processing time of individual steps as well as compliance with delivery times can be monitored and escalated in a targeted manner. It also improves the turnaround times of critical purchase requisitions.
Delivery date: If the delivery date is about to be exceeded, an escalation can be activated. In the plant-dependent settings, a warning period in days for the delivery time can be defined per plant for this purpose. When this warning period is reached, e.g. three days before the latest order time (delivery date - procurement time) is reached, the priority is set to "high" in a first escalation level and both the current agents and a responsible escalation agent (e.g. supervisor) are informed by mail. If the latest order time or the targeted delivery date is reached, the priority is set to "very high" in the second escalation level and again the current agents and another escalation agent are informed by mail.
Processing time: In addition to monitoring the delivery date, an escalation can also be started if the processing time is exceeded. For each processing step, the maximum processing time in days can be defined in the configuration of the process steps. If 75% of the specified maximum processing time is exceeded, the priority of the step is set to "high" in a first escalation stage and both the current processors and a responsible escalation processor (e.g. supervisor) are informed by mail. After the maximum processing time has been exceeded, the priority is set to "very high" in the second escalation level and again the current agents and another escalation agent are informed by mail.
Factory calendar: For the calculation of the warning period for delivery date as well as for the maximum processing time, a factory calendar can be stored per plant so that weekends and holidays are correctly taken into account.
Escalation recipients: The recipients of the two escalation levels can be flexibly defined via a table area. The determination of the recipients can thus be controlled, for example, on the basis of document data, such as company code or vendor, but also on the basis of the current agents. It is also possible to define a waiting time between escalation emails.
Prioritization: The priority of a task, i.e. "normal", "high" or "very high", is displayed to the responsible agents in the maxflow® procurement Monitor so that the agents can process their tasks according to their priority.
Quick Changes
Quick changes allow several positions to be changed at the same time, which simplifies mass entry as well as the transfer of positions from OCI catalogs. Either the lines to be changed can be selected or generally all positions can be modified. The function can be used in the entry mask for BIT-purchase requisitions as well as in the steps.