Summarizing SM Administration Tools

Users who are assigned to the SM Ops Administrator group will be able to import and export data within SM Administration.

Key tools within SM Administration that relate to setup include:

• Data Import/Export
• ERP Integration
• Mass Invite
• Inactive Suppliers

There are various supplier data imports within the drop-down menu related to the following supplier data:

• Supplier Data will create and update supplier organization records:
  • If you import supplier data with a new ERP vendor ID, the import operation adds the new supplier record to the database.
  • If you import supplier data with an existing ERP vendor ID and source system, but with a change to some other data, such as a different address, the import operation updates the existing supplier record with the new address.
  • If a data file contains an existing record with no changes, the import operation ignores that record.
• Supplier Contact Data are the individual personnel who are your company's points of contact with your supplier organizations. Any supplier management activity that involves a supplier-facing questionnaire requires at least one contact.
• Supplier Qualification Data - Category or supplier managers can manage supplier qualifications and disqualifications using projects that include questionnaires and approvals. They can disqualify qualifications defined by this data import, re-qualify disqualifications defined by this import, etc.
• Preferred Supplier Data - Category or supplier managers can manage supplier preferred levels using preferred supplier management projects that include questionnaires and approvals. They edit the preferred supplier levels defined by this data import using those projects.
• Supplier Purchasing Org Data - The purchasing organizations associated with your suppliers as they relate to SAP Ariba Buying solutions and guided buying.
• Custom Display Name Data - The custom labels you specify for registration and qualification statuses.
• Primary Supplier Manager Data - Primary supplier managers are internal users who are familiar with or responsible for particular suppliers.
• User Matrix (Buyer Category Assignment) - Assignments of internal users or global system groups to specific project groups in supplier management projects for specific combinations of commodity, region, and department.

ERP Integration Status includes:

• Integration Type
• Initial Supplier Synchronization
• Supplier Profile Update Synchronization
• Ongoing Supplier Synchronization
• Update Configuration Values
• Notification Settings

If ERP Integration is scoped, a technical implementation lead would set these configuration points.

• Users who are assigned to the SM Ops Administrator group will be able to import and export data within SM Administration.
• Key tools within SM Administration that relate to setup include: Data Import/Export, ERP Integration, Mass Invite, and Inactive Suppliers.
• Supplier Data imports

Once you inactivate a supplier, users in your site can no longer work with them.

Typically, you inactivate your suppliers when you are sure you don't want to work with them any longer. SAP Ariba Supplier Management solutions never outright delete suppliers. Instead, they mark deleted suppliers as inactive. Inactivation is a more permanent action than a block.

Inactive suppliers:

• Are no longer visible in supplier search results, including searches for available participants for sourcing events and available suppliers for contract creation.
• Cannot be edited or worked with.
  • Supplier profiles for inactive suppliers become read-only
  • Users can no longer edit internal registration questionnaires or initiate processes such as registration, qualification, or preferred supplier designation and levels.
  • Tasks associated with these processes also become read-only; users can no longer complete them.

Supplier inactivation and reactivation can occur in several different ways in SAP Ariba Supplier Management:

• A Customer Administrator can use the suppliers data import/export task to import supplier data in a csv file with the active column set to TRUE (active) or FALSE (deactivated). Blank values in this column are set to TRUE.
• If a supplier is marked with a delete indicator in an integrated SAP ERP system, and the supplier has already been synchronized with the ERP, SAP Ariba Supplier Management solutions automatically deactivates that supplier. If the delete indicator is removed in SAP ERP, SAP Ariba Supplier Management solutions reactivates the supplier.
• If the internal question includes a question about inactivating or deleting the supplier, a user answering the question inactivates the supplier. A template creator can also flag suppliers for deletion at the individual purchasing organization or company code level; these flags do not inactivate the supplier in SAP Ariba Supplier Management solutions.
• If a supplier is inactivated, a Customer Administrator can manually reactivate them.

Setting a supplier inactive is the way to retire a supplier from your system, since there isn't a way to delete a supplier organization that has been created.