September 2023

• News and updates
• CPO announcements
• Helpful tip
• Articles and resources
• Upcoming training
• Recognizing excellent service

Procurement professionals and agency leaders,

I would like to start by saying a big Thank You to everyone who joined and participated in our first instance of CP Listens. We have received a lot of positive feedback, and I love that you all are willing to dream with us to come up with the best procurement process possible. I am working with OMES Learning and Development to make sure we can get all CPOs CEU credit for attending these collaborative sessions in the future. The next CP Listens is scheduled for Nov. 1, 2023. We will soon send an email blast with more details for that session.

Over the last few months we have talked a lot about Celonis, our new process-mining tool, and I wanted to give you more perspective on what this software is instead of continuing to talk in the abstract. We have linked to a demo of Celonis under the Articles and resources section of this newsletter. We also mentioned Ironclad, which is another amazing tool to help OMES streamline and create efficiencies in our legal review process. I’ve linked that demo as well. We are so excited to have such an incredible trajectory to achieve our goals of improving our quality, velocity and efficiency.

Last, but certainly not least, CP teams had a phenomenal time at our third-annual State Suppliers Expo! Check out the News and updates section below for more about this event.

Warm regards,

Amanda L. Otis, Esq.
State Purchasing Director
Office of Management and Enterprise Service

Supplier Registration booth at the 2023 State Suppliers Expo. Photo courtesy of Circle House Media.

Central Purchasing successfully led the State Suppliers Expo through its third year, welcoming an impressive turnout of 479 companies interested in doing business with the State of Oklahoma.

Held at the Oklahoma City Convention Center last Thursday, Oct. 5, the event provided the opportunity for local, national and even global companies to build relationships across all areas of state government and receive education on how to navigate our state procurement processes. In all, our team was able to help 74 businesses sign up on site as new state bidders, providing even more supplier options for agency projects.

We were also thrilled to offer the first-ever CPO luncheon for agency certified procurement officers as part of this year's State Suppliers Expo. At the luncheon, we covered the latest state purchasing updates, including the new Teams channel for state CPOs to communicate with each other and share tools and resources. Most notably, we introduced Celonis and what agencies can expect as the state integrates this process- and data-mining software.

Those who attended the luncheon received one CEU credit, which will be reflected in their Workday@OK Learning transcript.

Next, we'll be turning our attention to our first-ever conference exclusively for Level 2 CPOs next month on Nov. 4. Hope to see you there! 

Janet Morrow speaks at the inaugural CPO luncheon at the 2023 State Suppliers Expo. Photo courtesy of Circle House Media.

We heard you! The Supplier/Payee Registration process continues to evolve as we incorporate your feedback and move towards modernization and efficiency. Foremost, supplier registration and payee registration are together again! This reorganization allows us to streamline processes and create consistency and efficiency.

In order to improve the supplier/payee experience so that self-registration is truly a quick and easy process for all, we’ve been working behind the scenes to make some meaningful changes. To date, we’ve:

• Eliminated 26 fields of information from what we previously required.
• Changed to simple verbiage that is easy to follow.
• Reduced and combined options to eliminate confusion.
• Removed requirements from the registration process that were repeated at the CPO buyer level, such as COI and SOS.
• Updated training materials to reflect all changes.

As we move forward, there will be changes in processes and previously allowed exceptions. We are transitioning payees to utilize the self-service eSupplier Portal. We appreciate your patience and cooperation as we work to make that happen and strive to best meet your needs!

Review the latest announcements for certified procurement officers.

When attaching a contract to a requisition, the supplier location on the requisition must match the supplier price location on the contract. The price location is located on the line details of the contract under the Pricing Information section as shown below:

• Demo: Transform Your Contracts into Insights with Ironclad AI
• Demo | The Celonis Execution Management System

Oct. 24 – Protests and Evaluations with Tim Tuck, Teresa Terry, Rhonda Spain.

Nov. 2 – Inaugural CPO II Conference (for CPO IIs only).

Nov. 30 – What’s New in CP (leadership).

Dec. 14 – Ethics (TBD).

Step-by-step video(s) and user manuals available in Workday@OK Learning for agency CPOs using PeopleSoft strategic sourcing for solicitations.

Course title: OMES | CPO - eProcurement Training for State Agencies; Using PeopleSoft Strategic Sourcing for Solicitations.

She is also an active member in both NASPO and MMCAP purchasing groups. She is very family oriented and enjoys spending time with her children, pets and in her flower garden.