How to make a purchase

All purchases of technical equipment, both capital and noncapital, must be arranged through SCS Facilities if the cost, including shipping, exceeds $1000.

Our Glossary defines several of the terms below.

On this page:

If you are purchasing a computer
Before you purchase...
Making a purchase
About the purchasing process
Receiving your purchase
Installation-request forms

If you are purchasing a computer

If you are purchasing a PC, see our recommended PCs page for tested configurations that work well in our environment. With other configurations, you may encounter support issues under both Windows and Linux. In particular, some varieties of PC hardware do not work well under Facilitized Linux. If you are upgrading a Linux host, please see the Fedora-compatible hardware page to minimize potential problems. [offsite link, will open in a new window]

For questions regarding a computer purchase or upgrade, please contact <help@cs.cmu.edu>.

Before you purchase...

Please have all necessary supporting documentation in place before placing your order.
If your equipment purchase will exceed $2500 and you are buying with government funds from a nonpreferred vendor
or
if your equipment purchase will exceed $5000 and you are buying with University funds from a nonpreferred vendor,
you must obtain competitive bids and complete pages one and two of the Purchasing Checklist and Bid Summary form [offsite link, will open in a new window]

Making a purchase

To purchase items through SCS Facilities technical procurement, send email to <purchase@cs.cmu.edu> with the following information:

The product/part you wish to purchase, including the name of the vendor and any quote you may have received for the item.
The quantity of the product/part that should be purchased.
An Oracle string for the purchase. Note: Capital equipment purchases cannot be made on Oracle strings that are within 90 days of their final close.
The timeframe in which you need the item.

About the purchasing process

The purchasing process consists of the following steps:

SCS Technical Procurement verifies that the vendor is in the University Oracle database.
We create the Purchase Order (PO) document
We submit PO for University approval. The funding source determines the approval path (Business Manager, Office of Sponsored Research, etc).
Once approved, the PO returns to us, and we then FAX it to the vendor.

Receiving your purchase

When your order has been received (and tagged, if its value exceeds $1000), you will receive e-mail notifications with the pick-up location. Purchases must be picked up within 30 days unless special arrangements have been made with us, or they will be returned to the vendor.

Purchases may be picked up between the hours of 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM, Monday through Friday.

If you have purchased a computer ...

... your notification will include the following additional information:

The CMU asset number of the host (if the cost exceeded $1000)
The URL for the Netregister form you will need to obtain an IP address for the host
The URL for the software installation form (PC and Macintosh versions) to request installation of an operating system and application software

Depending on what services you want, you should perform one the following actions:

If you want SCS Facilities to build your new machine with the standard Facilities environment for your chosen OS and to install it on the SCS network, complete both the Netregister and software installation forms.
If the machine will reside on the SCS network, but you will install OS and application software yourself, you need complete only the Netregister form.
Fill out neither form if you do not want Facilities to install the host and it will not connect to the SCS network.

All laptop purchasers must fill out an off-campus equipment authorization form [.pdf] before receiving their machine.

Installation-request forms

SCS Netregister form: This form is used to obtain an SCS hostname and IP address for a machine.
SCS PC host installation form: This form is used to request the installation of a PC that runs Windows, Linux, or dual-boots both of those operating systems.
SCS Macintosh host installation form: This form is used to request the installation of a Macintosh