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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2023-06-23
Setup Considerations: Catalog Items

Setup Considerations: Catalog Items

You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration and use of catalog items. It explains:
  • Why to set them up.
  • How they fit into the rest of Workday.
  • Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.
  • Security requirements and business process configurations.
  • Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.
Refer to detailed task instructions for full configuration details.

What It Is

Catalog items, which use supplier contracts for primary pricing, represent specific items in a catalog offered by suppliers.
You can also enable suppliers to load supplier catalogs onto your Workday tenant.

Business Benefits

With supplier catalog items, you can:
  • Organize your supplier information by supplier, with each supplier catalog containing catalog items that your company can procure.
  • Enable requestors to browse supplier catalogs for requisitions.
  • Improve supplier collaboration by enabling suppliers to load catalog items.
  • View all supplier item information in your tenant with the
    Supplier Catalog Work Area
     report.

Use Cases

  • Enable a supplier to load their own catalog onto your Workday tenant, which improves the collaboration process.
  • Workday automatically sources requisitions with catalog items to purchase orders, reducing buyer workload.

Questions to Consider

Questions
Considerations
Do you currently use or plan to use purchase items?
On purchase item tasks, you can associate supplier item information to the purchase item on the
Supplier Information
 tab. With purchase items, you enable requesters to browse generic items they can easily recognize. Workday populates the correct supplier information on requisitions and purchase orders based on your purchase item setup.
How does your company use supplier contracts?
To use supplier catalog items in Workday and on procurement transactions, you must add the supplier catalog to a supplier contract type that's enabled for catalog items.
When you add a catalog item to a transaction document, Workday populates the supplier contract. This ensures contract pricing is primary pricing.
How do you set up and update supplier item information?
When your company uses supplier catalog items and purchase items, you must update the item information separately, which increases the workload for item administrators.
You can associate purchase items to catalog items during the catalog load, which enables the catalog item for Workday Inventory.
You can also use the
Edit Tenant Setup - Financials
 task to enable the editing of catalog items on purchase item tasks when you can add catalog items on the
Supplier Information
 tab. Then Workday synchronizes catalog item data when you edit it on either purchase item or supplier catalogs tasks.
How do you want to secure catalog items?
You can use segmented security for the
Catalog Load
 business process when you have segmented security in use for the associated supplier contract.
Do you use Inventory?
To use the
Put Away Inventory
 task, you must associate catalog items to purchase items during the catalog load or on purchase item tasks.
When you run the
Put Away Inventory
 task, Workday converts the catalog item to the associated purchase item.

Recommendations

Set up purchase items before you load the supplier catalog items. This enables you to associate purchase items to catalog items during the catalog load.
Add catalog items on the
Supplier Information
 tab on purchase item tasks so you can:
  • Associate multiple catalog items to a purchase item in 1 place.
  • Populate catalog items with a sourcing priority of 1 on procurement transactions when you select the purchase item.
  • Use the
    Put Away Inventory
     task.
On the
Edit Tenant Setup - Financials
 task:
  • Restrict unit of measure (UOM) selection on spend transactions, ensuring users only use UOMs you set up.
  • Enable the editing of catalog item information on purchase item tasks to consolidate item data entry.

Requirements

To load supplier catalogs on Workday, you must set up and associate supplier contracts to the supplier catalog.

Limitations

When you don't enable the editing of catalog item data on purchase item tasks, you must edit catalog item and purchase item information separately and consistently to avoid data discrepancies.
You can't use the
Advanced Pricing
 table, which enables you configure alternative pricing by supplier contract, company, location, and ship-to location for purchase items.

Tenant Setup

On the
Edit Tenant Setup - Financials
 task you can enable:
  • Restricted units of measure (UOM) selection on spend transactions, ensuring users only use UOMs your company has set up.
  • The editing of catalog item information on purchase item tasks to consolidate item data entry.

Security

Configure the
Catalog Load
 business process in the Supplier Contracts functional area.
To use segmented security, associate the contract security segment to a segment security group configured on your
Catalog Load
 business process.

Business Processes

Use the
Catalog Load
 business process to route approvals and tasks to administrators when a worker initiates the
Catalog Load Request
 task.
When you edit catalog item data on purchase item tasks, updates don't use the business process.

Reporting

You can use the
Supplier Catalog Work Area
 report to drill into catalog items by supplier catalog. You can edit or view all supplier information in your tenant.
You can use these report data sources in custom reports:
  • Catalog Item
  • Item
  • Purchase Item
  • Unit of Measure Conversion Factor
You can use the
Supplier Item Import Request
 report data source in custom reports for supplier item web services.

Integrations

You can use these web services to mass load or update catalog items on a supplier catalog:
  • Get Catalog Load
  • Import Catalog Load
  • Submit Catalog Load Request
When you enable the editing of catalog items on purchase item tasks, you can also use these web services to mass update catalog items:
  • Get Supplier Items
  • Import Supplier Items
The
Import Supplier Items
 web service is an initiating action on the
Update Supplier Items Event
 business process.

Connections and Touchpoints

To use the
Put Away Inventory
 task when you procure catalog items, associate catalog items to purchase items. When you receive a catalog item, Workday populates the associated purchase item on the
Put Away Inventory
 task.
Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships in your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.