Creating Sections, Requirements and Questions

SAP Ariba recommends questions to include in a guided sourcing event based on event, item, commodity, region, department, and supplier data in the current event and similar past events, and on questions you asked in similar past events.

Information used to generate the recommendation includes item name; event name; department; commodity and region, both at the event and item level; and suppliers added to the current event.

If you've retrained the machine learning model, data used to make the recommendation also includes past experience with the model. For example, if the model recommends 10 questions and the user chooses only six of them, then the next time you retrain the machine learning model, this information is used to refine the model.

Play the video to see how SAP AI can be used to recommend content to your event.

Sections are used to organize information in the event and are helpful when you navigate and monitor the event.

You can create sections within both the Items that need quotes and Questions, requirements and attachments panels.

• Sections can be inherited from the template and can be edited or removed.
• In addition to any inherited sections, you can add your own.
• All sections are assigned numbers in the numbering schema.
• You can add any of the other content components inside a section, including another section called a nested section. To add a component within a section, select the checkbox next to the name of the section. Choose Add and choose the type of component that you want to add.

Sections require a Name and include the following settings:

• Team Access Control determines internal access.
• Description is where you can enter the main text and information with different fonts, colors, and sizes. This field is optional.
• Can participants see this section? can be changed to No if a section is internal only.

Questions can be added to an event to request supplier information.

• Response Type
  • Responses can be collected in various formats, including text, numbers, decimal numbers, percentages, quantities, money values, Boolean values, dates, and addresses.
  • Short and long answer text is also accepted.
  
• Is Response Required? - Choose whether a response is required from the supplier, owner, or neither. If a response is required, the supplier cannot submit the bid until the response is provided.
• See All Options

  The See all options hyperlink at the bottom of the menu expands the question creation to full screen, displaying all options.

  

The Requirement component allows you to include any items your suppliers will read but do not require a response.

• Requirements are statements added to an event to communicate information about your expectations.
• Reference documents can be attached when needed.

Sometimes, companies have internal information or instructions within events that should not be visible to participants. Text created in a template can include different fonts, sizes, and colors to draw project owners' attention to the fact that sections or text need to be updated within their event.

Set the font color, size, and highlight for your note to make a non-visible requirement. Then set Visible to Participant to No.

Attachments can be added to an event to provide additional information to participants.

• You can attach up to 10 files simultaneously from your desktop or the Sourcing Library.
• Can include attached reference documents.

Prerequisites, which are questions that suppliers must answer before seeing event contents or submitting responses. You can also configure a prerequisite so that an event owner must approve a supplier's response for the supplier to continue.

Prerequisite questions can act as gating questions to prevent participants from accessing the event or submitting a response until they have satisfactorily answered any prerequisite question.

• There are two options: Yes or No.
• If this is set to yes, participants cannot continue with the event until the project owner accepts their response.
• Participants see prerequisite questions and are prompted for responses during the Review and Accept Prerequisites phase, before they select lots for bidding.

  Regular questions (not prerequisite questions) are displayed to participants when they enter the event.

The Bidder Agreement is set as an access gate, preventing participation in standard templates. This is generally standard, legally binding language to participate in the event.

The bidder agreement text is maintained by Customer Administrators within the Branding Settings section under Customization Manager.

Conditions that are applied to questions, requirements or sections make them visible or invisible depending on a specific answer to a separate event question.

Initially, the participants cannot view content that is hidden by a condition. When the participants answer a question where their answer controls what other content will be displayed, the page refreshes and conditional content appears.

You can define the conditions at the event level or at the template level. The conditions applied from the template can be edited or deleted at the event level.

Conditions can only be based on answers to questions. No other content type can be used to create a condition.

When editing the event, follow the steps below:

1. Create a question.

   • Questions that have the following types of answers are not supported for creating conditions:

   • • Long answer
     • Address
     • Attachment
     • Product questionnaire
     • Factory
2. Select Manage Conditions.
3. Select Create New.
4. Next to Condition Name, Create a clear name of the condition and optional description.
5. Create a row to make new criteria based on your questions.
   1. In the Expression, select the and/or operator which will be used if multiple rows/questions are used within the expression.
   2. Select the question you want to apply the condition to and choose the answer value.
   3. Select Create.

See Defining or Editing an Expression for a Condition for more information about the expression builder capabilities and supported operators.

For a video demonstration on creating event requirements, questions, and visibility conditions, watch this video.