PO Maintenance Within NOVA

Learn about:

• How to perform PO maintenance in NOVA
• Which tabs to use for each task
• How to upload and enrich the template

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Walmart suppliers will know that the retailer has begun using a new app in Retail Link for creating and maintaining purchase orders. In this article, we will go over how to perform PO maintenance in NOVA.

Both Walmart and Sam’s Club suppliers use NOVA to manage their purchase orders. For this article, we will go over how to maintain POs for Walmart.

PO Maintenance in NOVA

The PO maintenance portion of NOVA is where you can modify existing purchase orders in several ways:

• Header Update: Change the Must Arrive By Date (MABD) for specific purchase orders.
• Line Edit: Change the order quantities for specific PO line numbers.
• Add Line: Add a line item to an existing purchase order. 
• Cancel and Reactivate Line: Remove or reactivate specific line items from an existing purchase order. This tool allows you to remove individual lines without canceling the entire purchase order.
• Cancel and Reactivate Order: Remove or reactivate the entire purchase order, including all individual line items.
• Comments: Add notes to the purchase order.
• Allowances: Review allowances and discounts on the purchase order.
• Retransmit to Supplier: Request to send the PO back to the supplier. This tool will send a new EDI message.

PO Maintenance screen within NOVA

Suppliers can perform PO maintenance within NOVA or by using the PO Maintenance template. To use the template, click the Templates button and select PO Maintenance Template. Download this file to your computer and fill out the form with your required changes.

There are several tabs and multiple columns to update. This file is very similar to the PO Create template that we discussed earlier. 

Directly under the column headers, there is a row of data highlighted in orange. This row is a sample entry and can help explain what information the system is requesting in that column. Other color-coding is as follows:

• Green: Required fields to be completed by the supplier
• Dark Blue: Optional fields
• Light Blue: Grocery suppliers only
• Gray: System-generated data. NOVA will complete these fields once the app processes the PO.
• Orange: Sample data

Header Update

Suppliers can use the header tab to change Must Arrive By Dates for the entire purchase order. Enter the PO details as they appear in the original PO, and simply change the appropriate date columns.

PO Maintenance Template – Header Update

Line Update

Suppliers can use line update to change quantities on a specific line of the PO. For example, if Walmart ordered ten items, but your minimum order for the product is 20, you would change the VNPK’s orders by inputting the original amount and then the number you would like the system to change it to.

PO Maintenance Template – Line Update

Add Line – No Distribution

This tab is for adding a line to an existing PO where no distribution changes are necessary. You must complete all green and blue areas on this tab.

PO Maintenance Template – Add Line, No Distribution

Add Line – New Distribution

This tab allows you to add a line item to an existing PO and assign specific distribution details. You must complete all green and blue areas on this tab.

PO Maintenance Template – Add Line, New Distribution

Cancel and Reactivate Line

This tab allows you to cancel or reactivate specific line items on an existing purchase order. You must complete all green and blue areas on this tab.

PO Maintenance Template – Cancel and Reactivate Line

Uploading the PO Maintenance template

Once the PO Maintenance template is complete, return to the NOVA PO Maintenance page. Click on the blue Order Maintenance button. From the window that appears, select the type of maintenance that you would like to upload. Click Continue to move to the next screen. Upload the completed PO Maintenance template to send the information to Walmart. 

Once the system receives the uploaded file, the form below will populate with the information you just uploaded.

Uploading your PO Maintenance file

Enrich the data

Once the file uploads with no significant errors such as Edit Reason or other mandatory criteria missing, you will be allowed to Enrich the file. Click on the Enrich button to continue. 

Enrich the PO Data

Submit

After you have enriched the file and there are no other significant errors such as “PO Already Canceled” or “PO Is Not Able To Update,” you will be able to submit the file. 

Submit the PO Data to Walmart

Results

After submitting the file, NOVA will go to the Results page. Here you will see the status of your request. If the Request status reads “Submitted” but not “Complete,” click on the NOVA logo or click on the Advanced Search and then on the NOVA logo again to refresh the page. 

Results of PO Maintenance Submission

Once the page refreshes you will be able to see the results on your request. Results can be:

• Submitted: Walmart is reviewing the change requests.
• Executed: Walmart has made the requested changes.
• Rejected: Some or all of the requests have failed in the system.
• Failed: The entire request has failed, and you will need to resubmit the request.

Conclusion

PO maintenance can be tricky, but with NOVA, suppliers can update and request changes to purchase orders. Suppliers can use the PO Maintenance tool to update MABDs and item quantities, add lines to POs, or cancel POs.