Setup Considerations: Item Substitutions

Workday enables you to set specific substitute items for specific companies and exclude companies from using substitute items. We also enable you to restrict items to specific deliver-to locations.

The location-based substitute items appear in all places where items appear when sourcing requisitions to purchase orders, including:

Manual sourcing (individual and bulk)
Backorder work area
Automatic sourcing (scheduled and immediate)
Web items connected to purchase items

The purchase item substitute appears as an option in the Item field for manual sourcing and in the backorder work area.

For automatic sourcing (including automatic sourcing of web items), Procurement will take the highest priority substitute available. The hierarchy for an item substitute is:

Specific to Deliver-To Location
Specific to Deliver-To Location Hierarchy
Specific to Requesting Company
Specific to Company Hierarchy
Non specific (No company or location)

When substitute ordering dates are in effect, Workday doesn't automatically source the primary item if you don't specify active substitutes for the requisition company or location.

When a item substitute with a procurement usage has an ordering end date of today's date, Workday doesn't use the substitute on a purchase order if you create a requisition for the end of the date range.

You have 2 substitute items with unique priorities, both with procurement usage. Substitute item A has a

Priority

of

1

and substitute item B has a

Priority

of

2

. Workday takes the priority 1 substitute if all item attributes are the same.

You have 2 substitute items with unique priorities, both with procurement usage. Substitute item A and B both have a

Priority

of

0

. Workday routes the requisition for sourcing and requires manual sourcing. You can't submit the requisition with the original procurement item if the substitute is used.

You can configure substitute items with different base UOMs to help account for differences in item packaging. When you have substitutes with differences between the ordering UOM and the base UOM, Workday recalculates ordering quantity based on the item's conversion factor to preserve the requested base quantity for the transaction, minimizing over-ordering or under-ordering in the auto-sourcing process.

Example for item substitutes with different base UOMs:

You create a purchase item named
Primary - Exam Gown
with a
Base UOM
of
Each
and a secondary UOM of
Case
, with a conversion factor of 10.
You create a second purchase item named
Sub - Exam Gown
with a
Base UOM
of
Unit of One
and a secondary UOM of
Case
, with a conversion factor of 5.
You then set the items as substitutes of one another on the
Item Substitute
tab. Workday notifies you that the primary and substitute item conversion factors are different, but allows the configuration to continue.
You set up a stock request for 5 cases of the primary exam gown item and create a picking list from the stock request. The inventory site is set to pick substitutes first. The lines for the substitute exam gown are then picking listed with the
Quantity to Pick
as
5 Case
, even though the base quantity is different on the primary exam gown item. Workday preserves the requested quantity over the base quantity of items.

You can use requisition entities to hide substitute items from end users by configuring entities by requisition types. You can then add all applicable requesting entities to the items. Requesting entities are beneficial when you have end users that typically only select 1 type of requisition.

You can also use purchase item picking lists to restrict the substitute items to specific requisition entities.

For general purchase item information, use:

Get Purchase Items
Put Purchase Item

You can use substitute items in Workday Inventory when you perform inventory replenishment requisitions and when picking inventory:

In directed picking, picking picking lists have the specific substitute items and quantities to be picked.
For non-directed picking, Workday displays all substitute items on hand in priority order with available quantities.

When you define a substitute with an inventory usage and the substitute doesn't have any specific company or location information defined, but the substitute has inventory attributes for the same inventory site, then the substitute item isn't used when picking.

When you define a substitute with an inventory usage, specific company or location information, and the substitute item is assigned to the same inventory site, Workday uses the substitute item on a pick and doesn't use the requested item.

When you define a substitute with an inventory usage, specific company or location information, and the substitute isn't assigned to the same inventory site, then Workday doesn't use the substitute item in a pick.