|
Enhanced
Penn Marketplace: January 5
An
enhanced version of the Penn Marketplace, the University's online
buying exchange, will be available to all users of the BEN Buys
purchasing system on Monday, January 5, 2004. The Marketplace
will have a new look and offer new features such as "individual"
and "University" favorites lists, new "quick order"
functionality, enhanced search tools, and online configuration capability
for researchers who would like to locate products containing specific
chemical structures.
The enhanced Marketplace will feature a
significantly larger number of items. More than 3 million products
and services from over 70 of the most commonly used University suppliers
will be available to provide traditional hosted content or new "punch-out"
functionality enabling users to link (or "punch out")
to specific Penn contract supplier web sites to shop. Dell, CDW
Government, and Newark InOne are among the suppliers with sites
to which it will be possible to "punch out."
A complete list of participating Penn Marketplace
suppliers is available in the Purchasing Services web site at www.purchasing.upenn.edu/buyinfo/suppliers/pm_suppliers.
Purchasing During the Upgrade: The
Penn Marketplace will be unavailable between December 31
and January 4, 2004. Note: Due to the
New Year's holiday, BEN Financials will also be unavailable on January
1. On December 31, January 2, and January 3, users will
be able to satisfy their procurement requirements by "free-forming"
their orders within BEN Buys. Departments should order critical
items prior to the break to ensure that they do not run out. However,
Purchasing Services staff will be available during the break to
assist faculty and staff as required. Winter break coverage
days and hours are posted on the Purchasing Services web site at
www.purchasing.upenn.edu.
User Preparations: In preparation
for the launch of the enhanced Penn Marketplace, all BEN Buys users
must:
- Complete mandatory online
training by December 18 in order to access the Penn Marketplace
on January 5, 2004. The turnaround time to re-enable Marketplace
access next year (once the training requirement has been satisfied)
cannot be guaranteed for users who do not complete the online
training by the December 18 deadline.
- Use one of the following web
browsers to complete the training: Internet Explorer (IE)
6.0 SP1 for Windows, Internet Explorer (IE) 5.x for Macintosh,
or Internet Explorer (IE) 6.0 SP1 with Virtual PC (also for Macintosh).
- Have new versions of JInitiator
and MarkView software installed on their computers by December
22.
- Have ChemDraw software installed
by December 22 if interested in developing chemical compound requirements
online and searching for products containing them in the Penn
Marketplace.
Users who have not heard from their Local
Support Providers (LSPs) by now about installing the required software
on their computers, should contact their LSPs right away.
Important: Unless the new version
of JInitiator is installed, certain components of BEN Financials,
including the Purchasing and General Ledger applications, will not
work after December 20.
In addition, please be advised that:
- In order to use BEN Financials
and Penn Marketplace, one of the versions of Internet Explorer
(IE) listed above is required; Netscape will no longer work.
- Windows ME and Windows 98
platforms will no longer be supported for BEN Financials or the
Penn Marketplace as of January 2004.
- Support for Windows NT will
end on June 30, 2004.
More information: on the enhance
Penn Marketplace can be found at: www.finance.upenn.edu/ben/benfin/faqs/launch/.
--Kenneth Campbell, Comptroller
--Robert Michel, Director, Purchasing Services
--Jeanne Curtis, Executive Director, ISC,
Administrative Information Technologies
Almanac, Vol. 50, No. 16,
December 16, 2003
|
|