E-Procurement

Delegating Approval Authority

Are you an approver of requisitions and will be out of the office for an extended period of time? If this is the case, use the following steps to delegate your approval authority to another user so your agency can continue to make purchases in your absence. To delegate approval authority, click on the ‘Preferences’ link from the NC E-Procurement homepage and select ‘Delegate Your Approval Authority’. The user will need to select a user from their Entity in NC E-Procurement to approve the requisitions as the ‘Delegate’. Next, select the dates to be absent from the office. Delegation approval flows are automatically created to require approval from the user’s supervisor and the user to whom approval authority is being granted. Approvals are required before the delegation is effective and the request is not activated until it is fully approved. Additionally, the Delegated Approver can only approve items received during the delegation time period.

Note: When entering the dates the user will be away, be sure to end the delegation on the day the user intends to return to the office. For example, if the user will be out of the office from Monday, December 20th through Friday, December 24th, the user should enter the start date as Monday, December 20th and enter the end date as Monday, December 27th, since this is the date that the user will actually return to the office. Example: E-Procurement Approval Flow

Frequently Asked Questions - E-Procurement

e-Procurement General Information

E-Procurement Buyer's Log-in

Vendor Terms of Use Agreement

Searching for Registered Vendors

Registered Vendors may be found by visiting the NC E-Procurement website at http://eprocurement.nc.gov/. Click ‘Registered Vendor Search’ from the menu to the left, and then click the large words ‘Search for Registered Vendors.’ This will bring up a pop-up window in which you can search a database of all registered vendors.

Note: The Registered Vendor Search is different from searching for vendors within the State Term Contract Catalog Search, also found on the menu on the NC E-Procurement Website. The catalog search only lists those vendors that have been awarded a State of North Carolina term contract. If you do not find a vendor within the catalog search, check the Registered Vendor Search listed above. For those vendors not listed in the catalog, you will need to create a non-catalog item to make purchases.

Search for Vendors Registered on E-Procurement

Viewing State Contracts within the NC E-Procurement Catalog

Viewing State of North Carolina term contracts for catalog items is easy, whether viewing them while logged into the Ariba Buyer interface (https://buyer.nc.gov.com) or publicly on the NC E-Procurement Home Page (http://eprocurement.nc.gov).

Log into Ariba Buyer and click ‘Catalogs’ under ‘Explore.’

Note: You can alternatively search the public catalog by clicking the ‘State Term Contract Catalog Search’ menu option on the NC E-Procurement Home Page.

Search by ‘Keywords,’ ‘Contract ID,’ ‘Supplier,’ etc. to find products listed in the catalog.

Note: If you do not see the search field you wish to use, click the ‘Options’ link found next to the ‘Reset’ button to add or remove search fields.

Once you have some results, you can click the scroll contract icon to view the actual contract.

Viewing the contracts is important, as they often contain important data regarding how to set up requisitions for making purchases from the contracts. This is especially true if the price of the catalog listing is ‘$0.00,’ as the contract will include instructions on how to set up a non-catalog item to purchase from the contract.

Note: Contracts are also listed on the Division of Purchase & Contract’s website at http://www.pandc.nc.gov/numlistt.asp

Understanding Units of Measure

From ‘Each’ to ‘Dollar’ to ‘Foot per Second,’ NC E-Procurement offers a variety of ‘Units of Measure’ from which users can select when entering Non-Catalog orders. Sometimes, choosing a unit of measure can be tricky, which results in a ‘Unit of Measure not valid’ error message. Whatever the unit of measure chosen, there are a few basic rules that can be followed to ensure that the correct unit of measure is selected. These rules utilize two basic principles: Service v. Good and Non-Blanket Orders v. Blanket Orders. Below is a table that outlines which units of measure should be used with which type of order.

Note: Selecting a commodity code will set the ‘Item Classification’ to reflect a good or a service. Check this field if you feel that you have entered the unit of measure correctly but are still receiving an error message.

Non-Blanket Good

· Set the quantity to the total number of units to order

· Set the unit of measure to anything except dollar (DOL) and hour (HUR).

· Set the price to the price of the individual unit

Blanket Good

· Set the quantity to the total dollar amount of the order

· Set the unit of measure to dollar (DOL)

· Set the price of the item to $1.00

· Mark the blanket purchase indicator to ‘Yes’

Note: The tax field should be set to ‘Other’ and the additional costs set to ‘$0’. Taxes should be included in the total value.

Non-Blanket Service

· Set the quantity to the total dollar amount of the order