Getting Started with PeopleSoft eSupplier Connection

This chapter provides an overview of PeopleSoft eSupplier Connection and discusses PeopleSoft eSupplier Connection integrations and implementation.

PeopleSoft eSupplier Connection Overview

In today’s business world, relationships between you and your suppliers are closer and more critical. Clear communication with suppliers about what you need and when you need it is a basic business requirement. PeopleSoft eSupplier Connection makes strategic information from back-end enterprise management systems available to suppliers, thus improving business collaboration, supplier response capability, and employee productivity. This internet-enabled collaboration enables buyers and sellers to work interactively, sharing the same view of data across the Internet. The benefits include faster and more accurate decisions, which result in improved customer service from suppliers, lower inventory in the supply chain, and total cost optimization.

Your suppliers can use PeopleSoft eSupplier Connection’s self-service web applications to view and modify their own business information (company address, phone, and contact data) at their convenience. They can change or add office locations and change or add information about the individuals in their organization that handle your business relationship.

PeopleSoft eSupplier Connection also enables your suppliers to review schedule, invoice, payment, order, and receipt activity as well as view their account balances and the invoices related to those balances.

Suppliers can also provide you with transactional information, online and in realtime, by responding to request for quotes (RFQs), creating Purchase Order Acknowledgments and entering Advance Shipping Notices.

Before your suppliers can use the self-service transactions, they need access to the system. PeopleSoft self-service security for suppliers enables suppliers to give their own employees access to vendor self-service transactions, and frees your administrators from this task. At the same time, your employees retain the power to maintain vendor employees if necessary. Of course, you always control which suppliers have access to your PeopleSoft site, and which data they can view and change. You can also use PeopleSoft self-service security for suppliers to enable transaction access that matches the needs of different functional roles within the vendor organizations.

PeopleSoft eSupplier Connection is a supplier-based internet application that is both simple and easy to understand for the casual user. Suppliers need not be familiar or trained in using PeopleSoft software to use PeopleSoft eSupplier Connection.

PeopleSoft eSupplier Connection Integrations

PeopleSoft eSupplier Connection integrates with PeopleSoft Purchasing, PeopleSoft Payables, and PeopleSoft Supply Planning.

We discuss integration considerations in the implementation chapters in this PeopleBook

PeopleSoft Purchasing and PeopleSoft eProcurement

PeopleSoft eSupplier Connection uses PeopleSoft Purchasing information for the purchase order, purchase order schedule, and receipt inquiries. This includes purchasing information created from integrations with PeopleSoft eProcurement or PeopleSoft Strategic Sourcing.

PeopleSoft Payables

Your suppliers can use PeopleSoft eSupplier Connection to retrieve information from PeopleSoft Payables about existing invoices, receipts, payments, and account balances using the review activity pages.

PeopleSoft Supply Planning

If you have PeopleSoft Supply Planning installed, suppliers can use the View Schedule transaction to view Planned Purchase Orders updates.

PeopleSoft eSupplier Connection Implementation

PeopleSoft Setup Manager enables you to review a list of setup tasks for your organization for the products that you are implementing. The setup tasks include the components that you must set up, listed in the order in which you must enter data into the component tables, and links to the corresponding PeopleBook documentation.

Other Sources of Information

In the planning phase of your implementation, take advantage of all PeopleSoft sources of information, including the installation guides, table-loading sequences, data models, and business process maps. A complete list of these resources appears in the preface in the PeopleSoft Enterprise Application Fundamentals 8.9 PeopleBook,with information about where to find the most current version of each.