Factorio Forums

1. Plop down a blueprint with stuff you don't have in inventory. (eg wood poles)

2. Apply upgrade planner which upgrades the items that you don't have (eg wood poles) to items you currently have in inventory (eg steel poles) to the ghosts, before the items are placed

3. The bots won't place the steel poles from your inventory, but require that they'll be placed by bots from the network with items from chests.

Look this gif for an example with belts: https://gfycat.com/thriftygentleeagle
Notice that he has some blue belts in inventory, but those are not placed.

I would expect the bots from my inventory to fly out and place the upgraded items from my inventory as soon as I apply the planner.

Is this a bug or working as intended?

Working as intended. The first logistic network that the system finds sends robots to work on the ghosts. The game doesn't care that you're also standing there if it found robots in another network that could do the job as well.