Release date: 25 March 2025 

Enhancements to Procurement Planning, Advanced Evaluations and Advanced Contracts

We’ve introduced a formal "Cancel" workflow for Procurement Plans for audit integrity and upgraded our notification system to make life easier for approvers in VendorPanel. 

New: Procurement Plan Cancellation 

This feature replaces the need to delete plans or leave them in a "zombie" state. 

How it works:

• Staff (with write access) can now select "Close Procurement Plan" from the "More Options" menu. This ensures that plans that do not proceed are accurately reflected in reports without losing historical data. 

• To cancel a plan, users must provide a "Cancellation Reason." This reason is permanently stored, creating a clear audit trail of why a procurement activity was halted. 

• If a plan is in an active approval workflow when cancelled, the system automatically notifies current approvers and voids in-progress requests, preventing wasted effort. 

• If a plan is closed because it is being managed as a contract in a third-party system, the status is automatically set to "Awarded" to ensure spend reporting remains accurate. 

• Cancelled plans become read-only to prevent accidental changes, but Administrators can reopen them at any time to restore their previous status and clear the cancellation reason. 

Email Notification Enhancements 

We’ve overhauled the email for Approvers to provide an "at-a-glance" experience. 

• Approval emails now include critical metadata such as Department Name, Scope of Works, Total Budget, and Vendor Details, so approvers don't have to log in to the system to understand what they are signing. 

• Every notification now features a summary, clearly showing who has already approved, who is currently pending, and who is up next in the chain. 

• Submitter notes are now displayed in full, ensuring the "Why" behind a request is never lost. 

This enhancement applies to Procurement Planning, Advanced Evaluations and Advanced Contracts modules.