How do I automate my WAWF DD250 Receiving Report?
Posted by Brian Aldridge on Tue, Oct 27, 2009
We get this question a lot.
D
epartment of Defense (DOD) suppliers who 1) submit lots of WAWF DD250 Receiving Report* transactions, and suppliers who 2) submit UID (Unique Identification) and RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) data with their DD250 are especially interested in automating their DD250. WAWF users have to wait for each WAWF screen, sometimes for quite a long time. Sometimes WAWF users get booted out of WAWF before their DD250 is finished, meaning that they have to start all over again.
We've heard many horror stories, like the supplier who spent 8 continuous hours on a Friday inputting RFID tag data, got booted out of WAWF before finishing, and then spent 6 hours on Saturday inputting the same tag data before getting booted out again.
The reason WAWF's web screens can be problematic is because the WAWF software application lives on some government web server somewhere and DOD suppliers connect to WAWF remotely. All communication between the DOD supplier's PC and WAWF goes across the internet. Any internet delays or disruptions between the DOD supplier's PC and WAWF cause problems. Since we can't have much impact on how well the internet works, what are our options?
The creators of WAWF knew that WAWF's web screens would not be adequate for everyone all of the time. So they built in another way to communicate with WAWF. DOD suppliers can submit DD250 (and other) WAWF transactions in a batch form. The way this works is that the supplier builds the DD250 transaction on their local computers. Then when they are ready to submit the transaction to WAWF, they just "push a button" and the entire transaction flies across the internet to WAWF. There are three major advantages to this approach:
- Faster and Easier - DOD suppliers can work with their DD250 data locally, on their own computers, until they are ready to submit to WAWF. They can draft the DD250, collaborate and share the DD250 data with co-workers, and then submit to WAWF when they are ready. No more back and forth with WAWF web screens. No more waiting on WAWF to respond. No more getting booted out of WAWF.
- Less data to enter - Since you are submitting the DD250 in a batch transaction, you may be able to build that batch DD250 with data from in-house computer systems. This means that if you already have some DD250 data in a usable electronic form you may not have to enter it again just to feed WAWF. The government is also increasingly making contract data available electronically. This means that there is a good chance that you can pull down contract/PO data from a government system, add your invoice number, ship date, UIDs, RFIDs, etc. and send the DD250 right back up to WAWF. While we are at it, it is very likely that you have UID and RFID data in an electronic format. Just add the already-electronic data to your DD250 before submitting. You may never have to type a UID or RFID for WAWF again!
- Since you have all the DD250 data on your local computers you can use that data in other ways-push it over to your labeling software to print shipping labels without having to type the data again, for instance. This is particularly critical as more and more suppliers are required to add UID data to shipping labels. The UID data is on the DD250; why not use that same data again to print shipping labels?
Frequently Asked Questions:
- Does the data post to WAWF the same as if I had used WAWF's web screens? Answer: Yes, exactly the same.
- Do the same notifications take place, particularly notifications for the government inspector? Answer: Yes, the notifications take place in the same way.
- What do I need to get started? Answer: You need software that knows how to build a DD250 and send it to WAWF.
*We know that technically a DD250 is the paper form that was replaced with the WAWF Receiving Report transaction. For simplicity, in this article we are just going to refer to the whole process as a DD250.