Project 50 Forward Procurement Systems Initiative Announcement

The Project 50 Forward Procurement Systems Initiative team is excited to announce the issuance of the first Purchase Orders through our new eProcurement system, SciQuest. The goal of the new eProcurement system, dubbed "WolfMart", is to make ordering faster and easier than ever before as well as to create a unified portal from which to order from State, IDC, and RF fund sources. It will provide users an on-line shopping experience similar to that of other eCommerce sites (Amazon, Priceline, etc.) as well as include intuitive electronic order routing of approvals (workflow) and automated Accounts Payable settlement. The team, in conjunction with the Strategic Sourcing initiative team, has worked to include the highest volume vendors in the automated system and will continue to add new vendors as the system rolls out.

The Procurement Systems Initiative, part of a five year examination process by the Research Foundation of SUNY, SUNY, and several campus’, provides an "all funds" solution to the day to day process of ordering goods and services required for the operation of the University. The new system will replace the paper-based RF procurement process, provide end users with the ability to track their orders through both the NYS and RF purchasing cycles and support to the University’s on-going effort to strategically use its spending power to cut our costs, support minority and women owned business entities and be more environmentally friendly.

After a series of focus groups involving end users from the varied departments and schools on campus to determine likes and dislikes of the existing systems, as well as determining "wish list" attributes that they would like in any new system, the Procurement Initiative team worked on the integration points to feed required information into the existing RF and SUNY systems and began testing. Thorough testing allowed for confirming that the integration was a success and that the product was ready to "go-live." The first purchase orders were pushed through the system on November 14, 2011. The Procurement Office will continue to process orders natively through WolfMart as the pilot phase begins.

Starting November 28th, the pilot phase begins. This will consist of fifteen campus departments utilizing the WolfMart system to place requests, requisitions and purchase orders. They will start utilizing the workflow functionality of the system to get orders approved by supervisors, route special orders for other reviews (such as radio-isotopes to EH&S, work orders to CPDC, etc.) and place orders directly with vendors where no Purchasing intervention is required. After a successful pilot phase, campus-wide roll-out is to commence in January 2012, culminating in a campus-wide implementation by June 30, 2012. The roll-out will be accompanied by intensive training and support to those departments making the transition, along with additional testing to exploit the wide range of features and process improvements that SciQuest product can offer us. It is hoped that we start the 2012/2013 fiscal year with 100% utilization of WolfMart by the campus community.

As the planned goals and objectives of the implementation are reached and as we start new planned phases of the process, the Procurement Office will provide updates.