Purchase Plan Advisor: prepare draft buying plans from purchase demand

Purchase Plan Advisor organizes completed Purchase Demand recommendations into a proposal that buyers can review and use to create draft Purchase Plans.

The Agent reduces the work of selecting, grouping, and checking recommended purchases. It does not make a final buying decision. A buyer chooses which proposed quantities to use, reviews the resulting Purchase Plans, and separately decides when to lock them and create purchase orders.

How Purchase Plan Advisor fits into purchasing

Purchase Plan Advisor works after the Purchase Demand Review playbook:

1. Purchase Demand Review determines what may need to be purchased and when.
2. Purchase Plan Advisor prepares a proposal from the completed Purchase Demand results.
3. A buyer selects proposal lines and creates one or more draft Purchase Plans.
4. The buyer reviews and edits the draft plans.
5. The buyer separately locks approved plan lines and creates purchase orders through the normal purchasing workflow.

The proposal is advice. It is not a Purchase Plan, a purchase order, or committed purchasing intent.

Two ways buyers can create Purchase Plans

Create a plan directly from Purchase Demand

A buyer can open Purchase Demand, enter Planning Mode, select exact demand rows and quantities, and create a new draft Purchase Plan or add them to an existing draft plan. Use this path when the buyer wants to control the selection from the beginning.

Start from an Advisor proposal

Purchase Plan Advisor prepares a proposal first. The buyer reviews its suggested lines, quantities, suppliers, and dates, then chooses what to place into one or more draft Purchase Plans. Use this path when the buyer wants a structured starting point for a larger set of demand.

Both paths create the same buyer-owned draft Purchase Plan. Plans created from the Advisor use the normal Purchase Plan screen and can be edited, expanded with additional demand, locked, and used to create POs in the same way as plans created directly from Purchase Demand.

Plans created directly by buyers also inform future Advisor proposals. When a plan can be matched to the same demand, the Advisor shows Existing Purchase Plan coverage and reduces the amount still available to plan. The Advisor never overwrites a buyer-created plan.

Who can use this playbook?

• Your company must have the Ops Agents feature.
• The Purchase Demand Review and Purchase Plan Advisor Agents must be active for the selected entity.
• Users need access to PO Planner to view Advisor proposals and create draft Purchase Plans from them.
• Administrators need Ops Center Admin to install, configure, dry run, and activate Agents.

Set up the Purchase Plan Advisor

1. Select the entity where purchasing demand will be reviewed.
2. Open Ops Engine > Agents.
3. Confirm that Purchase Demand Review is installed and active.
4. If Purchase Plan Advisor is not listed, click Start from template and select it.
5. Open the new Agent and complete its required dry run.
6. Review the readiness results, save the Agent, and activate it.

Purchase Plan Advisor requires a current, completed Purchase Demand run. It waits for that result instead of preparing a proposal from incomplete demand.

Where to find proposals

Purchase Plan Advisor Insight

1. Select the correct entity.
2. Open Ops Engine > Insights > Purchase Plan Advisor.
3. Open a proposal to review its lines.

The Insight menu item appears when the Purchase Plan Advisor Agent is active. The proposal list shows its status, planning window, Purchase Demand run, lines remaining to plan, proposed value, and last update.

Ops Center

When a proposal has quantities available to plan, the Purchasing area of Ops Center can show Purchase Plan Advisor proposal ready for review. Open the item to go to the proposal.

Purchase Plans

The Purchase Plans page includes a link to Purchase Plan Advisor proposals. A Purchase Plan created from a proposal also links back to its source proposal.

Understand the proposal summary

• Status shows whether the proposal is active, partially planned, planned, superseded, or dismissed.
• Lines remaining to plan counts proposal lines that still have quantity available.
• Proposed value estimates the value of the quantities still available to plan when purchase costs are available.
• Suppliers counts the suggested suppliers represented by the remaining lines.
• Existing-plan warnings counts lines for which matching Purchase Plan coverage was found.
• Planning window shows the date range covered by the source Purchase Demand run.

Understand proposal lines

Each line presents a purchasing suggestion and the quantity that is still available to place into a plan:

• Part identifies the item and shows its description.
• Supplier is the suggested supplier from Purchase Demand. No supplier means the buyer must choose one later.
• Facility identifies where the demand applies.
• Needed By is the earliest date represented by the recommendation.
• Order By is the suggested order date. A past date is brought forward to the current company date.
• Proposed is the quantity originally prepared by the Advisor.
• Already Planned is quantity already covered by active Purchase Plans that can be matched to the same demand.
• Remaining to Plan is the maximum quantity currently available to create from this proposal.
• Create Plan Qty is the quantity the buyer chooses to place into a new draft Purchase Plan.

You may create a plan for less than the remaining quantity. The unused quantity stays available on the proposal until it is planned, dismissed, or replaced by a newer proposal.

Create draft Purchase Plans from a proposal

1. Open an active proposal.
2. Select the lines you want to use.
3. Review each Create Plan Qty. The quantity must be greater than zero and cannot exceed Remaining to Plan.
4. Choose how to create the plans:
   • As one plan creates one draft plan for all selected lines.
   • By supplier creates a separate draft plan for each supplier.
   • By facility creates a separate draft plan for each facility.
   • By order date creates a separate draft plan for each proposed order date.
5. Click Create Purchase Plan.
6. Open the created Purchase Plan and review its supplier, quantities, dates, costs, and demand sources.

Plans created from a proposal are ordinary buyer-owned draft Purchase Plans. They can be edited through the normal Purchase Planning workflow.

How existing Purchase Plans are handled

The Advisor checks active Purchase Plans that are linked to the same Purchase Demand sources. When matching coverage exists, the proposal shows Existing Purchase Plan coverage with the plan name, status, owner, and quantity already planned.

• A fully covered line cannot be selected.
• A partially covered line can be selected only up to its remaining quantity.
• The system checks coverage again immediately before creating a plan.
• If another buyer has planned the demand since the proposal was opened, the available quantity is reduced and the buyer is asked to review it.

A manually entered Purchase Plan line may not identify the exact demand it covers. The Advisor does not guess based only on the part number. Review existing Purchase Plans before creating a new plan when you know that manually entered lines may cover the same need.

Refresh or dismiss a proposal

Refresh coverage

Click Refresh coverage to check the proposal against current active Purchase Plans. This updates Already Planned and Remaining to Plan. It does not rewrite plans or add new Purchase Demand recommendations to the same proposal.

When a newer Purchase Demand run completes, the Agent can prepare a newer proposal. An older open proposal is then marked Superseded.

Dismiss remaining proposal

Click Dismiss remaining proposal when no further plans should be created from the proposal. Dismissing it closes only the remaining advice. Purchase Plans already created from it are not changed.

Proposal statuses

• Active: quantities are available for buyer review.
• Partially transferred: some proposed quantity has been used to create Purchase Plans and some remains.
• Transferred: no proposed quantity remains available to plan.
• Superseded: a newer proposal is available from more recent Purchase Demand results.
• Dismissed: a user closed the remaining proposal without creating more plans.

What the Agent does not do

• It does not create Purchase Plans until a user selects quantities and clicks Create Purchase Plan.
• It does not change or delete an existing Purchase Plan.
• It does not lock a Purchase Plan.
• It does not create or change a purchase order.
• It does not send supplier email.
• It does not treat proposal value as committed cashflow.

If you do not see a proposal

• Confirm that you selected the correct entity.
• Confirm that both Purchase Demand Review and Purchase Plan Advisor are active.
• Confirm that Purchase Demand has completed a run with recommended quantities greater than zero.
• Ask an administrator to confirm your PO Planner access.
• If the Agent was just activated, complete or refresh Purchase Demand first, then allow the Advisor to prepare its proposal.

If a quantity changed while you were reviewing

Another Purchase Plan may now cover some or all of the same demand. Reload the proposal or click Refresh coverage, then review the updated Remaining to Plan quantity before trying again.

Tips for buyers

• Refresh Purchase Demand before a major planning session so the Advisor receives current recommendations.
• Review lines with No supplier before locking any resulting Purchase Plan.
• Use By supplier when buyers work supplier by supplier, and By order date when timing is the main concern.
• Review existing-plan warnings before selecting quantities.
• Open the resulting Purchase Plans and verify demand sources before treating them as buying decisions.

Related topics

• Purchase Plans: create and manage buyer-owned buying plans
• Purchase Demand Review playbook: prepare buyer recommendations
• Purchase Demand and Purchase Plans: plan what to buy and when
• PO Planner: plan what to purchase
• Ops Center: work your daily priorities in one place