Please Note
This section includes information about a feature that may not be available for your account and the included screenshots may look slightly different from your portal experience.
To use and enforce the ‘Validate PO Number Format’ policy, it will need to be toggled on and one or more PO number formats will need to be created and set to active.
Format Builder
Customers who are not familiar with the use of regular expressions, also known as regex, can easily define a PO number format with the ‘Format Builder.’ This is the default approach and offers plenty of customization to define complex PO number format patterns.
Create a PO number format
To create a PO number format using this option a user will (after clicking ‘Add Format’ on Purchase Policies page):
- Click the ‘Add Segment’ button to create the first segment of the PO number format
- Choose a segment type and define the segment type options and values
- Click the ‘Apply’ button
- Continue adding segments until the entire pattern is complete
- (Optional) Define a future start date, an ending date, or a reference label
- Click ‘Add Format’
Understand the Segments
A PO number format segment is simply a part if the entire whole. Building a PO number format in segments will require you to think about how your required PO number formats are put together and what kinds of options and variability need to be considered. Are there of your PO numbers that include:
- only numbers? See ‘Number Quantity’ segment type in next section
- a strict sequence or series of numbers (like 1-99)? See ‘Number Sequence’ segment type in next section
- only letters? See ‘Letter Quantity’ segment type in next section
- both a mix of letters and numbers? See ‘Number/Letter Quantity’ segment type in next section
- an exact or strict arrangement of characters or symbols? See ‘Exact Match’ segment type in next section
Here is a diagram that shows two sample PO numbers with each of the segments color coded. Sample PO #1 includes 2 segments and Sample PO #2 includes 3 segments:
What are the Segment Types?
Each segment type can be used multiple times to define a single PO number format. Example: an ‘Exact Match’ segment may be used to ensure PO numbers start with the letters ‘ABC’ and then again as the last segment to ensure that PO numbers end with the numbers ‘2024.'
Number Quantity
This segment type defines a set of numbers. Options include:
-
Exact Quantity: The pattern is looking for an exact amount of numbers. An example:
- Sample PO Number: ABC123
- This type and option could be used with the value ‘3'
-
Variable Quantity: The pattern is looking for a variable range of numbers. An example:
- Sample PO Number: ABC1
- Sample PO Number: ABC12
- Sample PO Number: ABC123
- This type and option could be used with a value of ‘1’ to ‘3’ and would be looking for one or more numbers together and up to a maximum of three and all three examples would be a match
Number Sequence
This segment types defines a strict sequence of numbers. Some examples include:
- 1-1000
- 301-599
- 0-999
Letter Quantity
This segment type defines a set of letters. Options include:
-
Exact Quantity: The pattern is looking for an exact amount of letters. An example:
- Sample PO Number: ABC123
- This type and option could be used with the value ‘3'
-
Variable Quantity: The pattern is looking for a variable range of letters. An example:
- Sample PO Number: A123
- Sample PO Number: AB123
- Sample PO Number: ABC123
- This type and option could be used with a value of ‘1’ to ‘3’ and would be looking for one or more letters together and up to a maximum of three and all three listed examples would be a match.
-
All Letters, LowerCase Only, or UpperCase Only: The pattern will look for all letters (both uppercase and lowercase), lowercase letters only, or uppercase letters only. An example:
- Sample PO Number: ABC123
- Sample PO Number: Abc123
- Sample PO Number: abc123
- If the option was to look for UpperCase Only, then only this first example PO number would be a match as it using all uppercase letters
Number/Letter Quantity
This segment type defines a set of both letters and numbers together (alphanumeric chararacters). Options include:
- Exact Quantity: The pattern is looking for an exact amount of letters/numbers (same functionality as the ‘Exact Quantity’ option for Number Quantity and Letter Quantity)
- Variable Quantity: The pattern is looking for a variable range of letters/numbers (same functionality as the ‘Variable Quantity’ option for Number Quantity and Letter Quantity)
- All Letters, LowerCase Only, or UpperCase Only: The pattern will look for all letters (both uppercase and lowercase), lowercase letters only, or uppercase letters only (same functionality as the ‘All Letters, LowerCase Only, UpperCase Only’ option for Letter Quantity)
Exact Match
This segment is looking for an exact arrangement of characters (letters, numbers, symbols). An example:
- Sample PO Number: ABC-123
- Sample PO Number: ABC123
- Sample PO Number: Abc-123
- If the value given was ‘ABC-’ then the pattern is looking for an exact match of the uppercase ‘ABC’ letter characters followed directly by a dash (-). Only the first example PO number would be a match as the second sample does not include the dash and the third example does not include an uppercase ‘B’ and ‘C’ character
Building an Example Pattern
Building a PO Number Format pattern using the Format Builder is best explained using a few examples:
Example A
If a company needed to enforce a PO format pattern that always included three uppercase letters followed by a variable amount of two to eight numbers, then a simple pattern can be created using only two segments:
- Segment 1: a ‘Letter Quantity’ type with the option ‘Exact Quantity’ and a value of ‘3.’ The option for ‘UpperCase Only’ Letters is also selected to ensure that the first 3 letters are always uppercase.
- Segment 2: a ‘Number Quantity’ type with the option ‘Variable Quantity’ and a value range of ‘2-8.’
An illustration of this example:
Example B
If a company needed to enforce a PO format pattern that always started with ‘KC-’ (to signify the Kansas City office) and then included exactly three numbers followed by a variable amount of four to six alphanumeric characters (where all letters are lowercase), then a simple pattern can be created using three segments:
- Segment 1: an ‘Exact Match’ type with the value ‘KC-’
- Segment 2: a ‘Number Quantity’ type with the option ‘Exact Quantity’ and a value of ‘3.’
- Segment 3: a ‘Number/Letter Quantity’ type with the option ‘Variable Quantity’ and a value range of ‘4-6.’ The option for ‘LowerCase Only’ Letters is also selected to ensure that the letters in this segment are always lowercase.
An illustration of this example:
