Describing SAP Ariba 2311 Release Features

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to Describe new or changed features for SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network in the SAP Ariba 2311 release.

IG-44085: Support for Sending Attachments with Supplier Bids and Buyer Awards from SAP Business Network Discovery to the SAP ERP System

Technical Details

  • Applicable Products
    • SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network
  • User Type
    • Buyer
    • Supplier
  • Enablement Model
    • Automatically on
  • SAP Ariba Solution Integrations
    • SAP Business Network Discovery
    • SAP Business Network

Note

The feature applies to SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network, Release 1908 (Q3 2019, SP06), and later.

Description

This feature supports sending supplier bid and buyer award attachments with quote message documents from SAP Business Network Discovery to the SAP ERP system through SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network.

Customer Benefits

  • Suppliers can send single or multiple attachments at the line-item level with supplier bids.
  • Buyers can add a single attachment at the header level while awarding the supplier.

Prerequisites

Ensure that the Document Management System (DMS) is configured on your SAP ERP system.

Restrictions

  • When the outbound document attachment URL contains special characters, buyers must ensure that:
    • The attachment URL is encoded using the UTF-8 compliant character set.
    • http:// is not encoded in the URL for attachments.
  • The size of a single attachment for individual line items must not exceed 10 MB. If you add multiple attachments at the line-item level, the total size of all the attachments combined must not exceed 100 MB per RFQ posting.
  • If you send attachments with duplicate file names, one of the file names will be appended with an underscore1(_1). For example, if you send two attachments as <file name>.<format>, the file names at SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network would be <file name>.<format> and <file name>_1.<format>.
  • If you send an attachment with a space in the file name, the space is replaced with an underscore (_) at SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network.
  • The following characters are not supported in the file name for attachments:
    • Space (SP, ASCII value 32)
    • Horizontal tab (HTAB, ASCII value 9)
    • Linefeed (LF, ASCII value 10)
    • Carriage return (CR, ASCII value 13)
    • Colon (:)
    • Characters which do not have an ASCII value within 33-126

Feature Details

Previously, buyers integrated with SAP Business Network Discovery through SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network could send attachments only while creating a request for quotation (RFQ) event and not while awarding suppliers. Suppliers could not send attachments while responding to those RFQ events via supplier bid.

Now, as part of this feature, suppliers can send attachments while responding to an RFQ posting, that is, a supplier bid. Also, buyers can send attachments while awarding the supplier.

IG-44634: Content Transformation as a Service

Technical Details

  • Applicable Products
    • SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network
  • User Type
    • Buyer
  • Enablement Model
    • Customer configured
  • SAP Ariba Solution Integrations
    • SAP Business Network

Note

This feature applies to SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network, Release 1911 (Q4 2019) (SP 0007) and later.

Description

With the content transformation service, buyers on SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA who have a license to SAP Integration Suite can transform their transactional data to meet the data format standards of SAP Business Network. The service transforms both inbound and outbound transaction documents, and reuses the mappings of SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network.

For example, you can use the content transformation service to transform the outbound IDoc documents from SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA into cXML output supported by SAP Business Network.

The feature uses the Cloud Integration capability within SAP Integration Suite. Cloud Integration provides a set of tools and applications that help you perform end-to-end tasks on development and deployment, packaging and publishing, accessing, and editing the integration content. For more information, see Development for Cloud Integration.

The content transformation service packages the transformation capabilities of SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network as a service. You don't have to use SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network. However, the input to the service must be in the SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network add-on format. SAP recommends that you install the latest version of either of the following to meet the input format standards of the content transformation service:

  • SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network, add-on for SAP ERP
  • SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network, add-on for SAP S/4HANA

Integration Flow Templates

To use the content transformation service, you must implement the supporting integration flow templates in SAP Integration Suite. The integration flows call the transformation service and route the transformed documents to and from SAP Business Network. You can customize the integration flow templates for an integration scenario. In SAP Integration Suite, you can find the package, SAP Ariba Content Transformation Service Template iflows. The package consists of artifacts that contain the integration flow templates for integration scenarios with SAP Business Network.

For example, to transform IDoc documents from SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA into cXML documents supported by SAP Business Network, you must download and configure the artifact, SAP Ariba Transformation Service Template - IDoc to cXML for the required document type.

A value mapping artifact that contains the mappings of SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network is also available in the package. The value mapping artifact contains the cross reference parameters, custom parameters, lookup table, and UOM values that you must configure for the content transformation service.

The authentication between SAP Integration Suite and the content transformation service is enabled through OAuth. You need to create OAuth2 Client Credentials and configure the artifact for authentication provided in the package. After the configurations are deployed, the OAuth2 Client Credentials are used to authenticate all communications with the content transformation service. For more information, see Configuring an Artifact for Authentication.

For more information on the artifacts, see Artifacts in the SAP Ariba Content Transformation Service Template iflows Package.

High-Level Steps About Setting up the Content Transformation Service

StepWhere to Perform This StepWho Can Perform This StepWhere to Find the Information to Perform This Step
Install the SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network add-on for SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA.SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANABuyerHigh-Level Steps About Installing SAP Integration Suite, Managed Gateway for Spend Management and SAP Business Network
Configure the SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network add-on for SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA.SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANABuyerHigh-Level Steps About Configuring SAP Integration Suite, Managed Gateway for Spend Management and SAP Business Network

Create an instance with a service key in your SAP Cloud Integration subaccount.

Note

After you create a service key for API in SAP BTP Cockpit, click the newly created service key to avail information such as Token Service URL, Client ID, and Client Secret. You can use this information to create OAuth2 Client Credentials.

SAP BTP cockpitBuyerCreate an Instance in SAP Cloud Integration Subaccount
Create OAuth2 Client Credentials used for authentication between SAP Integration Suite and the content transformation service.SAP Integration SuiteBuyerDeploying an OAuth2 Client Credentials Artifact

Create new user credentials with the Type as User Credentials for:

  • Outbound communication (from backend system to SAP Business Network)

    Note

    Enter your ANID in the User field.

  • Inbound communication (from SAP Business Network to backend system)

    Note

    Enter your backend user ID in the User field.

SAP Integration SuiteBuyerDeploying a User Credentials Artifact

Download the SAP Ariba Content Transformation Service Template iflows package to your design workspace.

SAP Integration SuiteBuyerWorking with Prepackaged Integration Content
Configure the artifact for authentication between SAP Integration Suite and the content transformation service.SAP Integration SuiteBuyerConfiguring an Artifact for Authentication
Configure the artifacts for inbound and outbound communication.SAP Integration SuiteBuyer

Configuring an Artifact for Outbound Communication

Configuring an Artifact for Inbound Communication

Configure cross reference parameters, custom parameters, lookup table, and UOM values in the value mappings.SAP Integration SuiteBuyerConfiguring Value Mappings

Customer Benefits

With the content transformation service, buyers on SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA who have a license to SAP Integration Suite can leverage the service capability instead of investing resources into building these mapping transformations from scratch. The supporting iflows that are provided can be customized to the needs of the buyer.

Prerequisites

  • If you are on SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA, SAP recommends that you install and configure the SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network add-on.
  • You have a license to SAP Integration Suite.
  • You have the necessary permissions to configure SAP Integration Suite. See Initial Setup and Involved Roles.

Restrictions

  • Service procurement is not supported.
  • SAP Ariba Discount Management and SAP Business Network for Supply Chain are not supported.

Feature Details

Changes to Existing Functionality

Previously, buyers on SAP Integration Suite had to use SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network to transform documents flowing between SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA and SAP Business Network. Now, the content transformation service provides the transformation capabilities of SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network.

IG-45703: End of Support for SAP Ariba Cloud Integration, Ariba Network Integration for SAP Business Suite 1.0, and SAP Ariba Integration Toolkit

Technical Details

  • Applicable Products
    • SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network
  • User Type
    • Buyer
    • Supplier
  • Enablement Model
    • Automatically on
  • SAP Ariba Solution Integrations
    • SAP Ariba Integration Toolkit
    • SAP Ariba Integration for SAP Business Suite 1.0 (Business Suite Add-On) (BSAO)
    • SAP Ariba Cloud Integration

Description

This feature indicates the end of support for the following integration solutions:

  • SAP Ariba Integration Toolkit (ITK)
  • All versions of SAP Ariba Cloud Integration
  • Ariba Network Integration for SAP Business Suite 1.0 (Business Suite Add-On (BSAO) up to SP22)

SAP Ariba had announced retirement of the above-mentioned integration solutions in the SAP Ariba 1802 release. There will be limited support provided for the integration solutions till the end of support date, that is, 31st December 2023. Therefore, it is recommended that you transition to SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network before that.

Feature Details

Changes to Existing Functionality

  • Now, ITK is not available in the SAP Software Download Center. For ITK, SAP Ariba Cloud Integration, and Ariba Network Integration for SAP Business Suite 1.0 (Business Suite Add-On (BSAO)), there are no new releases planned nor will there be any enhancements to the latest release. Until 31st December 2023, only critical security issues will be addressed. After that, bugs will not be fixed, nor will any new features be released.
  • All the relevant product documentation for the ITK, SAP Ariba Cloud Integration, and BSAO integration solutions will be available only till 31st December 2023.

User Tasks

Note

We understand that even five years since the original communication of end of support, some of you may still have not been able to migrate from the legacy components (ITK, SAP Ariba Cloud Integration, and BSAO) to either SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network, or to SAP Integration Suite. Starting 1st January 2024, an SAP development partner will be able to provide support and maintenance for these legacy components. You can contact the SAP development partner in early October 2023 to establish a direct contract with them.

Related Resources

Information about all the new or changed features in the SAP Ariba 2311 release is available in What's New in SAP Procurement and SAP Business Network.

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