One of the steps that can be included in the settings of a Procurement Process is a Procurement Timeline.

The purpose of a Procurement Timeline is to generate a list of events with a suggested scheduled date which will be based on the user's set Target Advertising Date on their Plan. A single Timeline can be applied to multiple processes.

You can find more information on using Timelines on a Plan here: Simple Timeline Builder.

These timelines are created and managed by System Administrators in the Procurement Planning settings. This is done from the 'Lists' section of the module settings, which can be accessed by following the below steps:

1. Navigate to the Procurement Planning module, either via the app launcher icon in the menubar or through the navigation tile on your Homepage.

2. Click on the Manage Module tab in the top right to open the module settings.

3. Select the Lists tab and then select the Procurement Timelines option to create new and manage your existing Procurement Processes.

Procurement Timeline settings

VendorPanel provides a default Timeline that can be used when first setting up the module. This can either be retained, overwritten or deleted.

Administrators can continue making changes to existing Timelines or create new Timelines as required.

1. To edit an existing Timeline click on its name in the list. To create a new Timeline, click on the + button on the right of the table. This will open up the process settings in a pop-up window.
   
   
2. Define a name for the Timeline in the Procurement timeline name field at the top.

Under the Schedule section, you will define your Procurement Events and when they will be scheduled and calculated using the Target Advertising Date that is set on the Plan by the user.

Please refer to the numbered items in the below screenshot with the descriptions below:

1. Here you can select whether you want the option to specify a specific day of the week for an event to occur.
   1. If this is enabled, the 'On a' column will be visible in the table and you can specify a day of the week an event will be scheduled on. If disabled, this column disappears.
   2. Specifying a weekday means that when generating a timeline, it will schedule the event to occur on the specified day of the week. The day of the week takes priority over the number of days (which is specified in the 'Scheduled date' column - see point 3 below). The number of days will be considered as a minimum number of days between the advertising date and the event.
   3. See example below:
      1. The 'Target Advertising Date' on the Plan is set to Monday the 1st of June.
      2. In the Timeline settings, the event is to be scheduled 7 days after the advertising date and is specified to happen on a Wednesday.
      3. In this case, the Wednesday will be prioritised and the event will be scheduled on Wednesday the 9th of June (9 days from the advertising date). This is because the 7 minimum days have passed and the event needs to be scheduled on a Wednesday.
2. Here is where you define the name of the event.
3. Here is where you define if the event happens before or after the 'advertising date' and how many days before/after.
4. If you've selected that events need to happen on a specific day of the week (see point 1 above), you can set the day of the week an event will be scheduled here.
   1. Please note that you can leave this field blank and if you do then the calculated date will only be based on the number of days set in the 'Scheduled date' column.
5. The Procurement Planning module links with the Go-to-Market module. When a Plan has been completed and approved, and an Advertising stage is required as part of the Process used, the Plan can be transferred to Go-to-Market to create a request. Some information from the Plan will pre-populate in the Request Wizard, including the Timeline Advertising Date and Closing Date, which will become the request open and close dates.
6. Here you will specify if you want the scheduled date calculation to skip over weekends. If enabled and an event is calculated to fall on a weekend, it will be set to the following Monday instead.
7. These table control buttons appear when you hover over the table, allowing you to add and remove rows.
8. When finished, click the Save button.

Mapped Procurement Processes

Below the Schedule table, you will be able to see which Procurement Processes are linked to this Timeline and you will be able to link new processes and unlink existing processes.

Within the settings of a Procurement Process, you can also manage which Timeline is linked to it. You can find information on how to manage Procurement Processes here: Creating and Managing Procurement Processes.

Deleting a Procurement Timeline

Deleting a timeline removes it from the list of timelines available to users when creating a new Plan. It does not remove/impact existing procurement plans using that timeline.

With the Procurement Process list expanded, click on the timeline you wish to delete – this will open the configuration details in a pop-up. Scroll to the bottom of the pop-up to find the 'Delete this record’ heading. Click on the heading, then on the ‘Yes’ button to confirm the action.