Dear Campus Community,

Supply Chain Management (SCM) has important updates and upcoming events to share with you.

This month's features:  

• BearBUY 25.3 Upgrade
• Bears that Buy Open Office Hours
• Coming Soon! Purchasing Assistant in BearGPT
• SCM Winter Break and Curtailment
• New: BioLegend Hosted Catalog Now Available in BearBuy
• Update: Home Depot Pro Punchout Deactivation and Transition to HD Supply
• Tariff Exemption
• Berkeley SCM Shines in UC Procurement FY25 Annual Report

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact the BearBUY Help Desk at 510-664-9000 (options 1, 2) or bearbuyhelp@berkeley.edu for immediate assistance.

Go Bears!

Thank you for your continued support, 

Supply Chain Management

The BearBUY 25.3 upgrade is now live as of today, Monday, November 17, 2025. This release doesn't include any new functionality yet. 

We have launched the Help Tools tile in BearBUY, listing all of our In-App guides:

New guides and tools will continue to be rolled out in the coming months to help users navigate BearBUY more easily.

Please join us for our next remote office hour tomorrow, Tuesday, November 18, 2025, from 10:00 a.m. to 10:50 a.m.

We encourage you to submit topics of discussion and/or questions in advance using this Google form.


Representatives from the Procurement, BearBUY Solutions, Account Payable, and BRS teams will be available to answer your questions and provide information about purchasing at the University of California, Berkeley. Open Office Hours will be held on the third Tuesday of each month from 10:00 a.m. to 10:50 a.m.

Instructions and Zoom URL:

• To attend office hours, you MUST first be signed in to your Berkeley Zoom account. Please see How to sign in to your UC Berkeley Zoom account.
• You don't need to register. Join the Bears that Buy Open Office Hours or enter the Meeting ID 99363039857 in the Zoom desktop client.

We’re excited to share a new feature coming to Procurement and BearBUY: An AI Assistant for Purchasing in BearGPT.  BearGPT operates under license from the secure confines of the UC San Diego Supercomputer Center and is built on OpenAI's dialogue-optimized large language model. This secure, on-premises hosting ensures UC's complete control over data usage and sharing.

The Procurement AI Assistant will be added to BearGPT to assist employees in purchasing goods and services, including finding contracts, FAQs, job aids, policies, and preferred suppliers. The AI Assistant should be able to summarize newsletters, job aids, policy documents, and contract data. For further assistance, BearGPT will direct users to contact BearBUY Help Desk at bearbuyhelp@berkeley.edu.

This AI Assistant will be live in BearGPT and accessible in BearBUY on December 1, 2025.  

NOTE: BearGPT is accessible only to faculty and staff, not to students. It is rated for P2 data; therefore, users must authenticate through CalNet to access BearGPT.

Business Services (BearBUY, Procurement, Business Contracts & Brand Protection, Property Management, and Library Bindery) will have limited staffing on 12/22/2025, 12/23/2025, and 01/02/2026. We will be closed for Winter Curtailment from 12/24/2025 through 01/01/2026.

The campus community is encouraged to submit requests for services and high-value orders (over $10,000) by 12/01/2025 for any goods or services required for research and operational continuity in December. Business Services will make every effort to complete work in the order submitted. During the curtailment period, self-service tools such as BearBUY, BETS, and BCMS will be available for use, although approvals will be impacted by staff availability.

Catalog orders that meet auto-approval thresholds will continue to dispatch normally in BearBUY. Orders requiring additional approval levels may be delayed based on departmental staffing levels across campus.

Emergency Life-Safety acquisitions and automatic approvals (such as catalog orders under $1,000.00) will continue to be processed over the curtailment periods.

If you have an emergency during this time, please email your assigned buyer and copy supplychain@berkeley.edu with the subject line "Emergency Acquisition," and be sure to include a description of the business need as well as a PO or Requisition Number. A buyer will contact you as soon as possible during regular business hours.

As a reminder: Only those emergencies necessary to protect the life-safety of the campus community will be processed. Departments must plan to obtain sufficient safety stock to maintain research continuity.

Please report any service issues or unscheduled downtime to bearbuyhelp@berkeley.edu. When checking Service Levels, please note a delay in turnaround time due to limited staffing.

For emergencies related to Moving Services and Property Management, please contact Eric Anglim, Director, 510-409-0044, eanglim@berkeley.edu; include a description of the emergency and return contact information.

Source: https://supplychain.berkeley.edu/news/supply-chain-management-winter-curtailment-2025

BioLegend offers a comprehensive range of high-quality research reagents, including antibodies, proteins, cell culture media, and assay kits. The BioLegend hosted catalog is now available in BearBuy, providing convenient access to these products through our procurement system.


• Returns: Supplier shall accept returns for all Products for full credit of the purchase price, regardless of the return reason, within 15 days of the confirmed delivery date.
• Discount: Product discount is 25% - and is tiered based on UC spend. The more we use this BioLegend catalog, the higher the discounts will be based on the UC spending tier.

The Home Depot Pro punchout tile in BearBuy is deactivated as of today, Monday, November 17, 2025. We regret that Home Depot Pro’s reorganization has created a temporary disruption in your shopping practices.

A new HD Supply punchout tile is planned to launch before winter break 2025, providing users with access to both the Home Depot Pro JanSan and HD Supply Facilities catalogs through a single, streamlined connection.

Tariff Exemption

Supply Chain Management has established a new website explaining the process for the duty-free application submission via the ITA-338P Form for potential tariff exemptions on equipment manufactured outside the United States.


Some scientific and research equipment could qualify for a tariff exemption on scientific/research equipment purchases. UC Berkeley departments may wish to voluntarily submit an exemption request to the federal government when the equipment purchase will be used for educational or scientific purposes and, importantly, the equipment has no equivalent manufactured in the United States for the applicant's intended use. 


The application process is complex and time-consuming and should only be considered for high-value equipment purchases imported from outside the United States. Departments will likely need to budget and pay the duty upon entry to the United States and seek a refund if the exemption is eventually granted. For more information on this process, please visit the Process for the Duty-Free Application Submission via the ITA-338P Form website.

UC Berkeley SCM Shines in
UC Procurement FY25 Annual Report

The UC Procurement FY25 Annual Report went live in October, and UC Berkeley Supply Chain Management (SCM) is featured front and center! See how supply chain activities involve more than just buying – it’s about driving sustainability, efficiency, and equity across campus.


Check out these notable FY25 Berkeley highlights worth your attention:


UC Berkeley SCM made big waves in sustainability and economic impact by:

• Showcasing sustainable travel in Berkeley’s second annual travel event with over 20 travel suppliers, campus organizations, and sustainability advocates
• Being recognized as an FY24-25 Sustainable Champion by the CPO Strategy procurement magazine
• Adding 37 fully electric and three hybrid vehicles to its transportation fleet
• Winning the world’s first Platinum rating under the STARS 3.0 sustainability framework
• Restoring critical campus watersheds with habitat restoration grant projects
• Increasing economic opportunity by piloting an innovative partnership between Fisher Scientific and Possible Missions, a small, woman- and minority-owned business

Order Status





If you need assistance with determining the status of your order in BearBUY, visit the How to Find the Status of Your Order page on the SCM website. 

Please note that your SCM assigned Buyer will not receive the requisition until it has been approved by the department Org Node approver.

Who is My Department's Assigned Buyer?



If you are unsure of how to start your purchasing transaction, contact your Buyer for assistance by using your Org Node and Department Name to find your assigned Buyer located in this matrix.

Contracts in BearBUY





If you need help searching for a contract and applying it to your cart in BearBUY, please view the Searching for Contracts and Applying a Contract to Your Cart in BearBUY job aid.

Whether you are an experienced or a new BearBUY shopper, it is always best practice to take the BearBUY: Basics for Shoppers training if you haven't already.

To take this ESSENTIAL training, please click on this course #: BEESS950-Online.