Table of Contents:
4: Messaging/Notification Changes
5: User Notification and Configuration Changes
8: Improvements to Variation processes
9: Improvements to Order Escalation processes
10: Improvements to the Claim/Invoice processes
12: Improvements to Gateway Imports
Summary:
This release has been a long time in planning, implementation, and delivery as it involved a large number of low-level technological upgrades and improvements that enable us to reduce technical debt and provide solid foundations for new development, as well as enable us to give ConSol a face-lift .
Technical Changes
A number of different Technical updates were applied as part of this project. They are summarised as follows:
- Resolve Low-level Pentest finding (missing Security Headers)
- Limited WAF functionality applied - limited country access to Australia & India
- Maintain and extend PVT testing suite
- Background geocoding updated to newer api
- Update to react 19 for maps, survey and gallery
- Implement ARM Architecture
- Upgraded primefaces to primefaces 15.0.16 and jquery to jquery 4
Search field changes
Searches are used widely throughout ConSol. In this release, we have improved the way you can search for Project Views, Orders and Invoices by updating the search filters and results and providing more flexible interrogation methods for each data type.
- On all Search screens, the filter criteria has been split into sections.
- The top section provides the ability to search by Ids. These are ‘exclusive searches’, meaning that if you input a specific Project View ID, Order Id or Invoice Number, all other filter criteria are ignored and specific matches for these ids will be returned. The Id fields will allow multiple ids to be entered and searched for, using ‘^^’ as the separator between id (note: order searches will allow multiple order ids to be entered using ‘^^’, commas or blank space as the separator). If multiple Exclusive Search fields are populated, only records that match ALL specified criteria are retrieved.
- The Supplier Reference field at order level is now available to all suppliers, and the order search fields for suppliers have been expanded to enable Exclusive searches by Supplier Reference.
- The middle section presents the fields that are most frequently used in searches, and some default criteria have been applied to eliminate the risk of users running an unlimited search that could retrieve tens of thousands of rows.
- For Project Views and Orders, a third ‘Advanced Search’ section is available. This section needs to be expanded to access some additional filter criteria.
- For order searches, you can view additional details for each order that meets the search criteria by clicking the expand icon next to the action buttons and the information icon in the Status column.
- If the search criteria specified on Search screens are too broad, ConSol will retrieve large numbers of results. When this occurs, only the first 500 of these results are returned. The information bar above the results on the search screen explains this. It is advisable to use the filter criteria to refine the search to retrieve less than 500 rows so that filters and sorts can be effectively applied.
- For each of the major Entities in ConSol (Project View, Order & Invoice), some default search criteria have been put in place. When using MyWork or our ‘Find’ options, clicking submit without making any other selections will apply the following search criteria:
| Entity | Default Search |
| Project View | On Find screens: All active Project Views available to my resource / workgroup with a start date within the last five years. |
| Order | On Find screens: All active Orders available to my resource / workgroup with a start date within the last five years. |
| Invoice |
On Find screens: All active Invoices available to my resource / workgroup with an Issue date within the last five years.
|
We have introduced additional operators on many of our search fields to assist you to more effectively refine your searches.
| Operator | Applies to Field type | Function |
| Equals |
String Date * Currency Attribute |
The user-input search value must match exactly the value recorded in the data
|
| Has Value |
String Date Currency Attribute |
No user-input search value is required. Search will retrieve all records that have a non-null value for the selected field |
| Has No Value |
String Date Currency Attribute |
No user-input search value is required. Search will retrieve all records that have no value for the selected field |
| Contains | String | The user-input search value must exist somewhere in the value recorded against the field. The search is not case-sensitive. |
| Starts With | String | The user-input search value is at the start of the value recorded against the field. The search is not case-sensitive. |
| Ends With | String | The user-input search value is at the end of the value recorded against the field. The search is not case-sensitive. |
| < |
Date * Currency |
The user-input search value must be less than the value recorded against the field |
| <= |
Date * Currency |
The user-input search value must be less than or equal to the value recorded against the field |
| > |
Date * Currency |
The user-input search value must be greater than the value recorded against the field |
| >= |
Date * Currency |
The user-input search value must be greater than or equal to the value recorded against the field |
| Between |
Date * Currency Attribute |
The value recorded against the field must be between the two user-input search values. This search is inclusive of the specified search values. |
| Range (Days) | Date | The value recorded against the field must be within the range defined by the user-specified search value (number of days) before and after the stored value |
| Range (Weeks) | Date | The value recorded against the View Entity field must be within the range defined by the user-specified search value (number of weeks) before and after the stored value |
| Range (Months) | Date | The value recorded against the field must be within the range defined by the user-specified search value (number of months) before and after the stored value |
| Range (Years) | Date | The value recorded against the View Entity field must be within the range defined by the user-specified search value (number of years) before and after the stored value |
| Range (Percent) | Currency | The value recorded against the View Entity field must be within the range defined by the user-specified search value (percentage) less than and greater than the stored value |
| Range (Value) | Currency | The value recorded against the View Entity field must be within the range defined by the user-specified search value (dollar value) less than and greater than the stored value |
* For Date/time fields, fuzzy logic is used and the operator only uses the date component in searches
Fields that allow users to pick from a defined list of coded values will have these values either presented in a dropdown or will open a popup for more complex searches.
Text fields in the Search criteria of all Find screens and worklists default to using a 'Contains' operator. This means that the text the user elects to search by can be any part of the field.
Some search fields are conditional and are disabled until another field has been populated. A question mark is displayed against the disabled field to explain what conditions have to be met for it to become available.
Find searches default to presenting results as a list of PVs, Orders or Invoices which can now be sorted by column. However, users can elect to change this to have results presented in a worklist view for orders and invoices or a map view for orders.
Search results on Find screens can now be actioned, depending on the user's profile. This means a user with the appropriate profile can now Acquire, Takeover or Action Project Views, Orders or Invoices retrieved from a Find search.
Find Project View, Find Orders, Find Invoices and Find Contracts searches default to retrieving Active records. The default Sort for results is by Order Priority followed by SLA status.
The display of data from searches and most worklists has been standardised so that the same columns of information are consistently available.
Most columns in the search results can now be sorted, and users can toggle between ascending and descending sorts. If a column is selected for sorting, the label changes colour and the direction of the sort is displayed.
The Assigned To column generally displays the current work item owner (ie the person who acquired the item for actioning). If this column is not populated for any order, it means that the order has not yet been acquired by any user or ownership has been released.
The Information icon in the Status column on Order search results displays the following additional information: Order Description, Service Category and Attribute details.
The Search Orders and Search Invoices menu options have been removed. Users can now display the results of any ‘Find’ task in a worklist layout via the “Worklists” button. Note: Progress Payment Claims for part payments will be found by using Find Invoice searches.
The Find Project View by Orders menu option has been replaced with the option to search by Order ID (s) from the Find Project View menu.
To facilitate access to search results, the search criteria on Find Project View, Find Orders & Find Invoice screen will automatically contract after the search has been initiated.
A Return to Search button is now available on screens actioned from search result lists. Clicking on the button will return the user to the previous search.
When the assigned owner of a Project View or Order views the record (from a VIEW screen), they are able to edit details.
Worklist changes
Some significant changes have been made to how worklists are presented in ConSol to not only provide a face-lift but to optimise access to actionable work.
- The Worklist -> All and Worklist -> Viewable options now display the worklist categories on separate tabs, enabling users to easily identify areas that may require action (count of actionable items on tab header) without needing to scroll. Users will still need to determine whether they are opening worklists for items needing action by them (Worklist -> All) or items that are currently ‘on the other side of the fence’ (Worklist -> Viewable).
- A last refreshed message is now displayed at the top of the Worklist All and Worklist Viewable screens to advise users as to when the worklist counts were last refreshed. The refresh occurs automatically when you first access the menu option. If however, the user notices that the screen has not refreshed in the last minute or so and is not reflecting expected information, a new Refresh All button has been provided to force an immediate refresh.
- Users are able to access Project Views, Orders, and Invoices directly from the links in the worklist results
- Searches can now be applied to worklists, allowing refinement of the number of rows retrieved in large searches, and for specific work to be targeted.
- For worklists with more than 500 items retrieved by the default search, only the first 500 rows, sorted by SLA status, will be displayed. To target specific work for actioning, use filters to reduce the returned list size to less than 500 rows.
- On Worklists where Search criteria have been applied to limit the results, the Reset Search button restores the default search criteria and clicking Search again presents the default worklist results.
- For worklist results, users are able to sort the information by clicking on the column that they wish to sort by. The column label changes colour and the nature of the sort (i.e. ascending or descending) is displayed.
- All Users with the correct Invoiced Entity/Workgroup membership now have the ability to View an order retrieved on a worklist. The workitem owner is able to additionally action the order and users who are configured to be supervisors can also take over the order.
- For Manager Approval worklists, manager users can now easily distinguish between Financial Escalations, where the order value requires their approval, and Ask an Expert escalations, where a question needs to be answered. An icon is displayed in the status column to differentiate between financial escalations
and Ask an Expert escalations
.
Messaging/Notification Changes
This release provides all users with the ability to better control the notifications they receive from ConSol. These notifications occur as emails and/or as messages in their Inbox.
- ConSol messaging has expanded from an ‘all or none’ function (i.e. operational notifications were either enabled or not) to a more granular control where messages related to specific activities could be enabled or disabled. Please regularly review your My Details screen to confirm that your details, configuration and notification settings are correct.
- The Messaging tab on the Customer Configuration screen (available to System Administrators) has been significantly changed to provide a simpler, more intuitive screen. This screen sets the messaging defaults that will be applied to all new users. The following summarises the changes that have been made:
- The Messaging tab has been split into two sections: Contract Notifications and Operational Messaging and External Notification (email) options. Within each section, a list of activities is displayed, and the System Administrator can elect what the default company notification stance should be. For Contract Notifications, this determines whether Contract Manager and Compliance Office receive email notifications on contract and compliance expiration. For Operational notifications, the System Administrator can set the default for receiving inbox messages and/or email notifications for specific order activities.
- The Operational notification triggers have been made more granular to enable specific messaging trigger points to be controlled by users. Users can refine their settings to differ from the company defaults.
- When new customer users are created in ConSol, their messaging configurations are automatically set to the company defaults. New supplier users will have no default messaging preferences set. Individual users can then elect to modify their own settings to determine which actions they would like to receive emails for and which actions will generate an inbox message. After this release, users saving any changes on their My Details screen will store the current messaging settings as their personal preferences.
- On Customer users’ My Details screen, the more granular notification trigger points are presented. Users can compare their saved personal preferences with the default company settings and can manually reset to those settings, if they wish. The screen will highlight those operational actions where a user preference for messaging has not been saved. Once the user views the messaging tab, the current notification selection will be saved as the user’s preferences, even if no changes were made on the messaging tab and the user was on another tab when they updated their details.
- Supplier users will now start receiving user and workgroup notifications in their Inbox (available from the landing page or the Inbox menu option).
- Operational emails sent to users now use a new template, making them branded and consistent. They have been reviewed and updated to provide more succinct and meaningful Subject lines and some basic order information in the body of the email.
- Both Customer and Supplier emails will now be targeted to a user if they are specified on the order. This means, for example, that Variation and EOT requests will go to the Contract Administrator user on the order and responses to these requests will go to the Supplier Operations user who made the request. If a specific user is not identifiable on the order, the emails will go to all users configured as supervisors in the workgroup.
User Notification and Configuration Changes
For System Administrators and HR Administrators, User Notification Management for new users in ConSol has been optimised for both suppliers and customers. New Customer users created from the Create User button on the User List screen automatically inherit customer default settings.
New Customer users created using the Create User button automatically inherit customer default settings. These are not editable by the Administrator during the user creation process but can be refined by the new user when they log in.
New Customer users created using the Copy User button automatically inherit the original user’s personal notification settings. These are editable by the Administrator during the user creation process so they can be reviewed and re-set to the company defaults, if appropriate.
New Supplier users have their notification settings turned off by default but these can be enhanced by the Administrator during the user creation process.
When configuring Roles and Workgroups for Customer users, Administrators can now set Authority Delegations levels that can be applied to all workgroups that the user belongs to for that role. This will remove the need to copy or re-enter the delegation level multiple times.
Invoiced Entity constraints are being applied when HR Administrator users are editing users who belong to Invoiced Entities other than those that the HR Administrator belongs to. The HR Administrator can only affect change to workgroups they have access to. The user’s personal details can be updated but a warning is displayed advising that these changes may impact other Invoiced Entities. Note: Company System Administrators are not subject to this constraint
Users are required to regularly verify and confirm their details when they log onto ConSol. This confirmation must be provided within two minutes of their log in attempt. If not verified within this time, the user is returned to the login screen.
Users can view their notification setting from the My Details screen opened from the Users menu. From this screen, they can adjust the settings to match their own preferences.
Face-lift and GUI Changes
The changes in technology that have been incorporated in this release have facilitated a number of screen updates that provide not only a ‘fresh new look’ but also enabled functionality improvements to streamline operational processes.
- New screen layouts and colours to improve clarity and readability for users
- Improved display on login screen
- Reorganisation of landing screen to focus on News and Alerts
- New default font used throughout ConSol
- Redundant or defunct options have been removed from menus. The following menus and search options have been removed from ConSol:
- All - Worklist ->Search Orders
- All - Worklist ->Search Invoices
- Customer -> Worklist -> Direct
- Customer -> Orders -> Find Service Request
- Customer -> Project View -> Find Project View by Orders
- Customer -> Users -> Find Persons
- Supplier -> Orders -> Find Service Requests
- Supplier -> Orders -> Reinstatements
- Supplier -> Orders -> Find Project View by Orders
- Supplier -> Invoices -> Invoices from last 2 months
- The following menu options have been renamed:
- Customer -> Invoices -> View Approved Invoices ⇒ Customer -> Invoices -> Download Approved Invoices
- Improved controls on many data entry screens (i.e. better date pickers, improved search popups and explicit field IDs).
- Copy ID function available on many screens to copy Project View Id, Order No, Invoice Number and populated attributes
- Existing milestone functionality has been removed pending a rework to extend milestones to include order dependencies.
- The length of Attribute Names has been extended to enable more meaningful values to be recorded.
- Additional constraints have been added to ensure the Reopen button only shows on orders when the logged in user has the correct profile (ie owner or supervisor) to carry out this action.
- The Fax Header and Fax Trigger requirements have been removed when uploading a new Form. This means that these fields are no longer present on Order screens. The Fax number requirements have also been removed from User screens.
Operational Screen Changes
Operational Screens for Project View, Orders and Invoice have been optimised. The following changes have been made:
- Supplier users are no longer able to view Refused Orders. Once refused, the order is returned to the Customer for reallocation.
- Quote functionality is under review and the button to initiate new Quotes has been removed.
- The Copy Order button is now only available from View Order screens. This means that the Save and Copy button has been removed from actionable screens.
- Order quantity fields can now store values with up to 6 decimal places, providing greater precision for order value calculations. If the ‘rate x quantity’ calculation results in more than 3 decimal places due to the increased granularity on the quantity field, the order value is rounded to 3 decimal places at each item line, while the order value summary at the bottom of the screen is rounded to 2 decimal places. When claims are made against an order, the resulting invoice values are rounded to 2 decimal places.
- The Wrong Workgroup button has been removed from the Categorise Order screen as users are able to change workgroups directly from the Details tab.
- The Modify Details button has been removed from Customer and Supplier screens as users who should be able to change order details according to their profile have the ability to do so on the Details tab. Relevant fields will be editable on this tab.
- The Supplier Reference field at the order level is now available to all suppliers.
- The Summary section (banner) at the top of the Order screen has been streamlined by not displaying attribute fields unless they have a stored value.
- The information displayed on the Details tab of the Order screen is laid out in a more tidy presentation with attributes now grouped in their own section.
- The History tab on orders is no longer showing all history notes by default. Copies of Inbox Messages and Workflow ownership notes are configured to not be automatically displayed but can be selectively made visible using the Note Type selection in the Filter History section.
- The Print History option has been removed from the History tab
- History notes with a Note Type of General are automatically flagged as Viewable by the current Provider on the orders. This View Access can be changed by the customer owner.
- For Customers and Suppliers, the Notes tab has been removed from Project View, Orders and Invoice screens with users now able to add Notes from the History tab. This enables users to immediately see any new notes have been added.
- Adding an Incident on the Supplier Performance tab on Customer’s Order screens is now handled via in-line editing . All incidents raised against the order are automatically shown, with the data able to be sorted by any of the displayed columns.
- Template Order Details on the Project View Details tab are presented in logical sections.
- Filters are now available on the Orders and Invoices tabs of the Project View screen to enable searches for particular orders or invoices assigned to the Project View.
- The Print Orders link has been removed from the Project View screen. User are able to screen print if hard copies of order information is required. Please contact our Support Desk for assistance.
- The View Invoice screen no longer displays as a Tax Invoice however, all relevant details are displayed or available on the Details tab.
- For Telstra, the results retrieved in the PMO search popup on the Order screen are now able to be sorted by any of the displayed columns. The search has been optimised to retrieve results more quickly.
- Orphan orders are orders created without an identified Project View. Up until the Categories stage of the order lifecycle, the Project View can be added, edited or removed. When attempting to assign a Project View to an orphan order, the Project View selector popup is opened with the filter pre-populated with some mandatory conditions from the order. The Project View to be associated to the order needs to belong to the same Invoiced Entity and workgroup stream and must have a service window that can encompass the order.
- An order can only appear on the Orders Requiring Dispatch worklist if there has been an issue with data when using our bulk data creation tools (ie Gateway). Due to improved validation on our New Order screen, orders manually created will not be able to arrive at this stage.
- The View Approved Invoices menu option has been renamed to Download Approved Invoices to be consistent with action available from the screen that is opened.
- Significant changes have been made to the Supplier's Order in Progress screen.
- The order banner at the top of the screen has been neatened by not displaying attribute fields unless they contain a value.
- The order of Action buttons at bottom of the screen has been changed
- The View/Print links have been removed
- Variation and Progress Claim Requests are initiated from Radio buttons at the top of the Items tab.
- The Modify Details button has been removed - Attributes that are able to be updated by the Supplier are editable on the Details tab.
Improvements to Variation processes
Improvements have been made to the Variation process for both Customer and Supplier:
- For Suppliers, Variation Requests are initiated from a Radio button at the top of the Items tab on the Order in Progress screen. Clicking on this button takes the user to the Variation Items Not Yet Submitted screen where the Requested Quantity column for each item is now editable. The default value shown is the customer approved order quantity for the item. This can be adjusted by typing in a new value - the quantity fields now accept values with up to 6 decimal places. Changes can be saved for later submission, or the user can click on the Request Variation button at the bottom of the screen. Note: Providing a reason for the variation is mandatory.
- Upon submission of a Variation Request, the Supplier user is presented with a View screen of the Request from which they are able to immediately recall the request, if required. The Recall button is available on the Verify Variation (View Only) screen and on the Viewable Request for Variation worklist at any time until the customer has actioned the Request.
- On the Customer’s Verify Variation screen, only varied or new items will have an Accept checkbox displayed against them for the customer to accept the variation on each item. The Variation Request can only be Approved if all acceptance checkboxes against items have been ticked.
- Unnecessary action buttons have been removed from the Customer’s Verify Variation screen. The user can Submit a Response back to the Supplier if they wish to dispute any aspect of the request, Stop the Order if they no longer require the work, or Approve the request. If they have insufficient delegation to approve the value of the request, the Approve button is replaced by a Financial Escalation button.
Improvements to Order Escalation processes
Escalation is the process of engaging someone with more expertise or authority to assist with determining next steps. In ConSol, there are two escalation processes available:
- The first enables a user to engage with a manager or subject-matter-expert (SME) to seek clarification or approval before undertaking the next action on the order they are working on. This is triggered from a button now labelled Ask an Expert (Old Label: Escalate to Manager).
- The other escalation process is automatically triggered in ConSol when a user is responding to an order with a financial value, but the value exceeds the user’s delegation limit - in this case, the user can record the action they propose to take, but ConSol requires the user to initiate Financial Escalation so that an Approval Manager with the necessary financial delegation level can confirm that the order with that value can proceed.
The buttons that trigger the two escalation processes in ConSol have been relabeled to make it easier for users to identify the correct process to use. The Escalate to Manager button is now labelled Ask an Expert as it initiates a request to a recognised SME / Manager to provide advice or an answer to a question before the user can progress the order. The Send for Approval button is now labelled Financial Escalation to trigger escalation of the order to a workgroup or manager when its value exceeds the delegation level of the current user.
- There are four trigger points for Financial escalation in ConSol where the value of the order is checked against the delegation level of the user actioning the order. These are: Transmitting Orders, Approving a Variation Request, Verifying a Claim for Payment and Approving an Invoice Request.
- If the user believes that the order should proceed but they do not have sufficient delegation authority, their Accept button has been replaced with a Financial Escalation button. Clicking on this button opens a pop-up from which the user can determine which approval workgroup (mandatory) and which approval manager (optional) the order/invoice should be sent to for financial approval. When they click on Submit, the order/invoice is sent to the nominated approval workgroup/manager, and the order is then moved to a ‘Requiring Manager Approval’ worklist for action. Note: This is denoted by a
icon in the status column on Find screens and worklists for Orders Requiring Manager Approval. Escalating the order/invoice at this point assumes that the original user was happy for the order/invoice to be approved
- If the escalated order exceeds the Approval Manager’s delegation level, they can click on the Financial Escalation button to send the order to another Approval Manager. They can elect to send the order to a linked workgroup or return it to their own workgroup for action by another member with a delegation level higher than their own. If there is no-one in their own workgroup with sufficient delegation level, they will only be able to send the order to the other linked workgroup.
- For Approval Managers, actioning a "financially escalated" order opens a "Respond to Financial Escalation" screen where they can Reject the order or Approve it if it is within their delegation limit. If they do not wish to do either of these actions, they can return to the previous screen to action another order.
- For customer users, at most points in the order life-cycle, they are able to Ask an Expert for advice or guidance before progressing the order. They do this by clicking the Ask an Expert button, which opens a popup where they can ask their question, then select the manager workgroup their expert belongs to (mandatory) and the specific expert they want a response from (optional). The order is then moved to the ‘Orders Requiring Manager Approval’ status and is available on that worklist for action. Note: This is denoted by a
icon in the status column on FInd screens and worklists for Orders Requiring Manager Approval.
- For Customers, actioning a Manually Escalated order opens a Respond to Ask an Expert screen where Manager/SMEs can view the question they are being asked and provide a response or they can return to the worklist to action another escalated order. If they make a response, the order is available on the requestor’s Manager’s Response to Escalated Order worklist. Once the response is acknowledged, the order returns to the status it was at before Ask an Expert was initiated.
Improvements to the Claim/Invoice processes
Within ConSol, Suppliers can submit interim requests for payment while they are still working on an Order. These requests are called Progress Claims. When all work on an Order has been done, the supplier will submit a Final Claim for any outstanding costs.
Once the Customer verifies these claims, they convert into invoice requests, allowing the supplier to specify the invoice number and upload a copy of the invoice document before submitting it to the customer.
Some Suppliers have been configured to enable ConSol to generate an RCTI (Recipient-Created Tax Invoice) for them. For these Suppliers, once a Claim has been verified by the Customer, the RCTI is system-generated, submitted and automatically approved. This streamlines the invoicing processes significantly.
The following summarises the changes that have been made to the Claim and Invoice processes:
- For Suppliers, Progress Claim Requests are initiated from a Radio button at the top of the Items tab on the Order in Progress screen. Clicking on this button displays the fields for inputting the mandatory Start and End dates that define the period that the claim encompasses - these mandatory fields are now displayed above the items. It also makes the Claimed Qty column and Items Details field in the items table editable. The Qty field defaults to the outstanding quantity for each item (i.e., the difference between what was originally specified on the order and what has already been claimed and delivered).
- Users can adjust the Claimed Qty to record what they wish to claim in the defined period. Users can also add additional items if required. Two fields appear under the items table and update dynamically when the Claimed Qty values change. The user can save these changes for later submission by clicking on the Save Order Items button. Saving the Order Items prior to submission will update the Claim Total shown at the bottom of the screen.
- When initiating a Claim Request from an Order in Progress or Submit Final Claim screen, three blank slots for new items are automatically presented for new items to be specified. Unrequired slots can be left blank, and additional slots can be added if required. If a new item has been erroneously added during a Claim Request screen, the user can clear the item ID on unsubmitted items, which clears the whole item row.
- Claims can only be made against unconsumed items already on the order or new items. An item is consumed when the ordered or requested quantity has been fully claimed and delivered. (i.e., no outstanding quantity remains on the item).
- When saving the items on a new Claim Request, the claim period dates are now also saved. When reopening a saved claim, the saved dates are restored but can be changed. The saved claim values are summarised as Unsubmitted Claim Total at the bottom of the screen. If this screen is actioned again at a later time, the saved claim quantities and values are displayed. To remove the Saved Claim, just clear the restored Claimed quantity values and click the Save Order Items button again.
- If there is any value entered into the claimed qty fields this will be regarded as a claim. Note: zero entered into the Claim Qty field is regarded as a valid claim - the field must be empty if no claim is being made against the item
- When ready to submit the claim, the user can click on the Submit Progress Claim Request button at the bottom of the screen for immediate submission. The user is then taken to the Order’s Project View screen.
- The submitted Progress Claim Request can be viewed from the Supplier’s Progress Claim Requests Submitted for Approval (View Only) worklist, where it is displayed with a status of Invoice not yet generated. When viewing the progress claim, it is presented as an invoice request for what was claimed. The Progress Claim Request can also be accessed from the Find Invoice search menu.
- Submitted Progress Claim Requests are presented on the Customer’s Progress Claim Request Submitted for Approval worklist for approval. Actioning these requests opens the Verify Progress Claim Request screen where the customer’s Verifier user clicks the checkbox against the claim items that they approve. If all available checkboxes are ticked, the order can be approved/progressed. If any of the items are not ticked, the Progress Claim Request will have to be disputed.
- If a Progress Claim is disputed (ie not all of the checkboxes are ticked), the claim is returned to the Supplier Operations user’s Progress Claim Disputed by Customer worklist. When the user actions an order from this worklist, the Order in Progress screen is opened with the Items tab in focus , displaying a red cross against the disputed items. The customer’s Reason for Dispute can be viewed on the History tab with a note type of Disputed Claim. The user can elect to Cancel the Progress Claim Request
- If there is any value entered into the claimed qty fields a check box will appear. Advise users not to enter anything if nothing needs to be claimed for that item. (Note: zero entered into the Claim Qty field is regarded as a valid claim - the field must be empty if no claim is being made against the item)
- If a Progress Claim has been approved by the Customer, the Supplier will now have to provide an Invoice number and submit the Invoice Request from their Requests for Invoice worklist (Traditional invoicing method) or the Invoice will be automatically submitted for them and approved if they are configured for RCTI.
- When an order has been marked Work Complete from the Order in Progress screen, the Submit Final Claim screen is now automatically opened. The Progress Claim radio button on the items tab is replaced with a Final Claim radio button, which is selected by default. The user can enter final claim quantities against any items that have not been fully consumed or against any new items.
- The Final Claim details can be saved for later submission to enable the user to attach all necessary documentation. If the user determines that more work is needed to complete the order, they can elect to mark the order as Work Not Complete which will return the order to Work in Progress. New items that were added on the Submit Final Claim screen prior to the reversal of the Work Complete action are retained on the order with no Order Qty to reflect that they have not been confirmed by the customer.
- From the Submit Final Claim screen, after they have confirmed the claim they are making by updating the Claimed Quantity on existing items and adding any additional items, the user can click on Submit Final Claim. This submits the Final Claim to the customer for verification. The Supplier user can recall this submission by clicking on the Recall button on the Verify Final Claim (View Only) screen displayed immediately after submission, or accessed later either from the viewable worklist or the FInd Order screen.
- After the Final Claim has been submitted by the Supplier it will appear on the Customer’s Verify Final Claim screen. The verification user can only accept the Claim if all checkboxes against claimed items are ticked. If any checkboxes are not ticked, the claim can only be disputed. From this screen, the user can also elect to Ask an Expert to help determine what action they should take. Disputed Final Claims are returned to the Supplier’s Work Completed - Docket Disputed by Customer worklist. A disputed Final Claim be resubmitted or removed by the Supplier.
- If the Customer’ s verification user ticks all claimed item checkboxes to verify the claim, they can either Approve the Final claim if they have the appropriate delegation level or they click on the Financial Escalation button to send the Claim to an Approval Manager to confirm the spend.
- Once the Claim has been approved by the Customer, the Supplier will have to provide an Invoice number and submit the Invoice Request from their Requests for Invoice worklist (Traditional invoicing method) or the Invoice will be automatically submitted for them and approved if they are configured for RCTI.
- If an invoice document needs to be uploaded against the submitted invoice request, the supplier user can search for and action the new Invoice Request from the Find Invoices search screen using the Invoice Number. From the Review Invoice screen, the invoice can be uploaded from the Documents tab.
- Unless configured for automatic approval on their contract, Traditional Invoices submitted by Suppliers will have to be approved by Customer Accounts users to be available for payment. These invoices will be on the Customer’s Invoices Submitted by Supplier for Approval worklist and can be approved by users with the appropriate delegation level or financially escalated to an Approval Manager for approval. Alternatively the invoice can be rejected (with a reason) back to the supplier or the user can raise a question to an Expert before determining their course of action.
- From the Customer’s Invoices Submitted by Supplier for Approval worklist, the user can Print, Reject, Ask an Expert or Escalate for Financial Approval if they do not have sufficient delegation to approve the invoice. If they do have sufficient delegation, they can Print, Reject, Hold, Ask an Expert or Approve the invoice request.
- Once the Invoice has been approved, it can be found using the Find Invoices search, For Customer accounts users, the Pay and Close button will be available when actioning Approved Invoices (If turned on for the company).
- Suppliers are able to upload their Invoice Documents from the View Invoice screen, accessed from Find Invoice searches or Invoice worklists.
- Users with sufficient delegation level to approve an invoice can move the invoice to a Hold status, to be actioned later. Customer accounts users are able to Approve, Approve - Pay and Close or Reject invoices at Held Status (If these features are turned on for the company).
- From the Customer’s Manage Invoice screen, users are able to Reset Approved Invoices back to a Not Yet Submitted status with the Supplier, or Pay and Close the approved invoice (If turned on for the company).
MyWork Changes
The following changes have been made to MyWork screens:
- MyWork entity filters have been reorganised to take up less screen space so that the action buttons are visible on screen without scrolling.
- Default value in Start Date filter has been set to 5 years ago
Improvements to Gateway Imports
The following improvements have been made to the Gateway Import tool:
- The Gateway importer has been extended to allow suppliers to import claims and invoices using this bulk importer tool. If interested in this feature, please contact the Support Desk to enable a new import template to be created.
- The Phone number validator in Gateway has been improved to allow more robust phone number matching and a wider range of phone number patterns to be accepted.