3.3.5 Line Items Related to Purchase Orders

I am thoroughly confused as to what I am supposed to do with these line items, (also, for consistency's sake, "Confirmed" and "Confirm" seem to be used interchangeably in the instructions in this and the previous exercises).

 

I pasted the instructions in blue, and my understanding in black.

 

Line Items: 

  • Submit Purchase Order Request? 
  • PO Submitted
  • Confirmed PO Delivery 
  • Confirmed Purchase Order Receipt

These four line items work together to trigger an order for products to be sent to the Distribution Center. 

 

Okay.

 

When a Product Supply Manager wants to request more product, the first step is to select the Submit Purchase Order Request check box. 

 

Makes sense.

 

Then, the PO Submitted, Confirm PO Delivery, and Confirmed Purchase Order Receipt take the value of the number of product SKU units ordered and add to the inventory value for the week the shipment will arrive (based on number of weeks in the Shipping Method Weeks line item).

 

Does not make any sense.

 

The manager requests to make a purchase... but there's no mention of the request being approved, an order being placed, or any process for confirmation of a PO delivered or received? Shouldn't these all be manual boolean entries?

 

Are we setting up the system to assume these things are happening? Isn't that the opposite of confirmation?

 

Other Formula Hints: 

  •  OFFSET the value between when the order is placed and when the order will be delivered at the Distribution Center. 
  • Boolean-formatted line items cannot be used with OFFSET functions. Use the PO Submitted line item to set the value to 1 if the Boolean is TRUE, and 0 if it is FALSE (IF/THEN function). 
  • Set the Confirmed PO Delivery line item to use the PO Submitted 1 value and OFFSET it based on the number of weeks between the order and delivery.

    For example, if a PO Submitted has a value in Week 1 and the Shipping Time Weeks has a value of 2, there would be a value of 1 in the Confirmed PO Delivery line item in Week 3.
  • Use the OFFSET function and reference the Shipping Time Weeks line items (should pull the value from the periods prior).
  • The Confirmed Purchase Order Receipt line item references the order amount (Suggested Order Amount for the Month). 
    • If the Confirmed PO Delivery line item value is greater than 0, then OFFSET the value for the Suggested Order Amount for the Month line item by the number of weeks for shipping. 
    • IF Confirmed PO Delivery > 0 THEN OFFSET(Suggested Order Amount for the Month, -Shipping Time Weeks, 0) ELSE 0