Skip to main content
Documentation
Documentation
Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2025-09-19
Steps: Automate Changes from Purchase Order Acknowledgments

Steps: Automate Changes from Purchase Order Acknowledgments

  • Enable Purchase Order Acknowledgements on the Edit Tenant Setup - Financials task.
  • Define valid substitute items for your purchase items on the
    Item Substitutes
    tab of the
    Create/Edit Purchase Item
     task.
  • Security:
    Process: Purchase Order - Mass Action
     domain in the Procurement functional area.
You can automate updates to purchase orders to take account of approved changes from the purchase order acknowledgment (POA). This process includes handling supplier-proposed item substitutions for enabled suppliers. You can also automate closing rejected purchase order lines when suppliers reject the purchase orders in the POA process. When you update purchase orders with change orders, you can also view changes your suppliers make to the purchase orders.
  1. Access the Create Supplier change related action from a supplier and select the
    Enable POA Item Substitution
    check box in the
    Procurement Setup
    section for each supplier you want to enable for this feature.
  2. Configure the
    Enable Automatic Updates from Purchase Order Acknowledgement
     service step on the
    Purchase Order Acknowledgement Event
     business process.
    You can only add this service step after the business process completion step. Workday identifies the POA line with approved changes to price, quantity, or unit of measure.
    You can select the
    Close Purchase Order Line on Rejection
     action when configuring the service step to enable Workday to automatically close rejected purchase order lines.
  3. To support item substitution through an EDI 855 integration, access the
    Maintain Item Identifier Types
     task and ensure the
    Supplier Catalog Number
     is configured for Integration Mapping (typically VC, VN, or VP).
  4. To support item substitution through an EDI 855 integration, access the
    POA System Integration
     and ensure the
    Supplier Catalog Number
     is configured for Integration Mapping (typically VC, VN, or VP).
  5. (Optional) Access the
    Maintain Procurement Conditional Rules
     task. Configure a
    POA - Prevent Change Order
     rule to add custom validations for substitutions.
  6. (Optional) Access the
    Acknowledged Purchase Order Lines with Changes
     report.
    You can view changes from your suppliers to the purchase order lines. You can also check the eligibility of the lines for automatic updates.
    You can copy and create a custom report from this report to filter certain types of changes and use this report as input for the
    Schedule Automatic Updates from Purchase Order Acknowledgements
     task. Example: You want to create change orders automatically when the line has quantity or unit of measure but not price. Create a custom report to filter unit cost changes and select the report as input for scheduling the task to automate quantity and unit of measure changes.
  7. (Optional) Access the
    Maintain Custom Validations
     report.
    You can add conditions in your purchase order custom validations to exclude change orders created automatically by the
    Schedule Automatic Updates from Purchase Order Acknowledgements
     task. By default, any custom validation for your purchase orders also applies to the change order when you enable Workday to automatically create change orders from your purchase order updates.
    Example: You want to require all change orders to have a
    Change Order Reason
     comment, but you don’t want to require these comments on the change orders that Workday automatically creates. You create a custom validation for purchase orders to require
    Change Order Reason Comments
    , and specify a condition in the custom validation to exclude change orders that are automatically created.
    Security:
    Set Up: Custom Validations
     domain in the Common Financial Management functional area.
  8. Access the
    Schedule Automatic Updates from Purchase Order Acknowledgements
     task.
    You can schedule a job to automate 1 or both of these actions at the same time:
    • Create and issue change orders.
      The change orders incorporate any updates to purchase order lines by suppliers.
    • Close purchase order lines after the purchase order is rejected in the POA process.
    You can also:
    • Process the updates to the purchase order lines automatically.
    • Use filters to exclude change orders that you don't want to update automatically.
Workday creates the change orders from the POA for approval. Workday also automatically closes purchase order lines from purchase orders rejected during the POA process.
You can configure purchase order acknowledgments to view item shortages from each supplier where quantity shortages exist. If you approve the changes with new quantities, you can automatically create the change orders. You can also set up condition rules to approve automatic changes to quantity, price, or unit of measure.
You can create a custom report with these report fields to view the POA information with changes and review any errors on the change orders:
  • Automatic Update has Errors
  • Change Order from POA
  • Error Message
  • Purchase Order Line