Introducing Sourcing Template Administration

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to describe the standard SAP Ariba Sourcing event templates

Introducing Managing Sourcing and Event Templates

Prelude to Sourcing Template Administration

The learning objectives from ARSX280 Managing Project Templates are prerequisites for this course, so you have a foundation of how project templates work within SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing.

​We learned that template administration is important because all projects are created from a template.

Templates provide the initial specifications for a project and are designed to standardize project creation, enforcing business practices by requiring and restricting specific project contents and actions.

Full sourcing projects are based on the project workspace template architecture, and in this course, we will further explore sourcing-specific template attributes and guided sourcing event templates.

Identifying Sourcing Templates

Sourcing Template Types

In guided sourcing, template administrators configure or modify templates for the following types of sourcing projects:

Create New Project Template Screen is open. The Project Field displays the Full Project or Quick Project options.

  1. Full Project Templates
    • Support all project management features, including phases, tasks, project documents, and project teams.
    • Can contain multiple events.
    • May contain multiple subprojects with events that share planning and savings tracking information.
    • Enable multiple users to work on the same documents or events with defined roles and processes, as well as tasks.
  2. Quick Project (Single-event) Templates

    When a project owner creates an event, they must select the event type. The event templates displayed will match the event type specified during template creation.

    • An event is an RFI, RFP, or auction that you use to solicit pricing and other sourcing information from suppliers.
    • Can contain only one event.
    • Define the rules and types of information for events, such as pricing terms and bidding rules.
    • Can be used to populate event content, such as bidding information automatically.
    • Single-event projects provide limited project management features.
    • Many users typically refer to single-event projects simply as "events" because most of the project features are hidden.
    • In the classic user interface and in templates, single-event projects are referred to as "quick projects."

Standard Guided Sourcing Templates

​SAP Ariba deploys new Strategic Sourcing realms with one standard Full Project Template and one Sourcing Request Template out of the box.

The Ariba Strategic Sourcing Template page is open to the standard Sourcing Request and Full Sourcing Project templates.

On sites with guided sourcing enabled, SAP Ariba provides the following standard event templates:

  • Request for Information - Guided Sourcing Template
  • Request for Proposal - Guided Sourcing Template
  • Request for Proposal with Total Cost - Guided Sourcing Template
  • Reverse Auction - Guided Sourcing Template
  • Total Cost Auction - Guided Sourcing Template
  • Dutch Reverse Auction - Guided Sourcing Template
  • Japanese Reverse Auction with Bid Transformation - Guided Sourcing Template
  • Reverse Auction with Bid Transformation - Guided Sourcing Template
  • Dutch Reverse Auction with Bid Transformation - Guided Sourcing Template
  • Forward Auction - Guided Sourcing Template
  • Dutch Forward Auction - Guided Sourcing Template

The Ariba Strategic Sourcing Template page is open to the standard guided sourcing event templates list.

The defining attributes and characteristics of specific event formats, such as Bid Transformation, Alternative Responses, Total Cost, and the various auction types are described in ARS112: Working with Pricing Tactics and Response Options within SAP Ariba Guided Sourcing.

All of the standard templates are configured with:

  • Line Item definitions
  • Lot Types and term attributes
  • Surrogate Bidder project group
  • A required Approval for Publish task that applies for members of the Junior Sourcing Agent, by default
  • An Approval for Award task that prevents an award from being created until the award scenario is approved.

It is strongly recommended to copy the standard event templates when template creators are ready to create new event templates of their own, so that the above configurations are inherited for all projects.

The Templates page is open to the guided sourcing templates. The Copy option is highlighted within the Action menu when selecting a template.

Converting Classic Event Templates into Guided Sourcing Templates

Alternatively, template administrators can convert a classic event template into a guided sourcing template.

Setting the template property Guided Sourcing Template to Yes converts a template used for a classic sourcing event to a guided sourcing template. If you do this, any event rules that are not editable for guided sourcing templates are set to the values listed in Guided Sourcing RFI and RFP Event Rules under the section Rules you cannot edit in guided sourcing RFI and RFP templates.

Summary

  • Single Event Templates are RFIs, RFPs, Auctions, or Forward Auction types with pre-configured rules and content.
  • Full Project Templates support all project management features, including phases, tasks, project documents, multiple events, and project teams.
  • There is one full project template and one sourcing request template out of the box.
  • It is recommended to copy event templates and not create them from scratch.
  • Converting classic event templates into guided sourcing event templates is done by copying a classic template and enabling the Guided Sourcing Template field.

Learning

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