Create Departments​

​Requisition Departments

A department can represent a group of users organized however an agency wishes – e.g., by the agency’s organizational structure, by location, etc. Generally, Requisition Departments are not required, unless you want to:

  • Automatically generate requisition numbers according to a specific format, you must create Requisition Departments.
  • Restrict approvers so that they can approve only certain requisitions, create requisition departments and then enable the Restrict Approval by Req Department setting on the Agency screen.

Users not added to any departments have access to all departments. Users not added to a specific department will not see that department when creating requisitions or purchase orders.

Using Requisition Departments, you can sort or filter requisitions on the Status screen by department, and you can sort the Purchasing reports (in the Purchasing application) by department.

Purchase Order Departments

Generally, Purchase Order Departments are not required. Purchase orders can be assigned to departments so they are organized or categorized for your purchasers.

  • To automatically generate purchase order numbers according to a specific format, then you must create Purchase Order departments.
  • Purchase order departments are not used for approval processes. However, a Purchasing administrator can enable PO Approver Required on the Agency screen and then assign a user(s) as PO Approver on the User Maint screen for the respective user(s).

Create a Requisition or Purchase Order Department

1. From the Purchasing main menu, select Administration.

2. Click the Agency tab, and then click the Department tab.

3. Select either Req Departments or PO Departments.

4. Type a three character department code in the Code field.

5. Type a name for the department in the Department field. Do not use special characters or symbols, including &,',“,<,and \.

6. To enable automatic numbering for requisitions and/or purchase orders, check the Auto check box. Leave it unchecked if you want requisition or purchase order numbers to be entered manually.

  • Enter the automatic numbering format according to the Format notes. (See below)

7. Click Add.

Figure 1 - Department tab

List of departments entered on the Agency screen 

Add Users to a Department

Users not added to any departments have access to all departments. Users not added to a department will not see the department when creating requisitions or purchase orders.  NOTE: You can also add users to departments on the User Maint screen.

1. Select either Req Departments or PO Departments.

2. Click Select next to a Department.

3. Choose a user's name from the drop down menu.

4. Click Add.

Figure 2 - Add users to a department

list of users on the Agency Department screen 

Automatic Requisition or Purchase Order Numbering

When automatic numbering is enabled, requisition or purchase order numbers will be automatically generated when the requisition is marked as “Itemize Complete” or when the purchase order is marked as “Ordered”.

You must specify the format of the automatically generated numbers. The Format notes legend on the Departments tab defines the variables to use for the automatic numbering.

Figure 3 – Format notes
automatic numbering format notes highlighted on the department screen

The following examples for calendar or fiscal year 2018 demonstrate the results of the formatting:

Format Automatically generated number
​DSAyy999​DSA18999
yy-99918-001
​ffff9999​20180001
​WRKy9999 ​WRK80001

Examples of Departments

Below are three examples of departments.

Figure 4 - Requisition department example

list of requisition departments 

Figure 5 - Purchase Order department example

list of Purchase order departments 

Figure 6 - Requisition department example

list of requisition departments