Making Status Decisions for Process Projects

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to make a status decision for a supplier management process project.

About Status Decisions for Process Projects

Administrators can configure processes to set the final status automatically, based on the statuses of the included modular questionnaires. Alternatively, a decision-maker can review the process and set the status manually.

Decision-makers can update a process’s status at any time, unless the process has expired or a renewal is in progress. Changing a status decision is less complicated than renewing the process, which may require updating and re-evaluating process questionnaires.

For example, consider a qualification process where a critical questionnaire is about to expire, and the supplier hasn't updated it yet. In this case, a decision-maker can change the process status from approved to conditionally approved. If the supplier lets the questionnaire expire without updating it, the decision-maker can further update the process status to denied. This flexibility ensures that the process status accurately reflects the current situation.

While making a status decision, you can edit some of the questions in the process intake form and save the changes alongside your decision. This includes adjusting the process's expiration or reminder schedule. For example, if you conditionally approve a process, you might shorten the expiration schedule to prompt an earlier renewal.

Note

You can’t edit questions about the process's commodities, regions, and departments. The project owner sets those answers when they create the process, and they can’t be changed later.

Your organization's process setup determines the names of the statuses for each process, making them relevant to your internal workflows and terminology.

If the process is set up to allow decision-making in an external system, the SAP Ariba system will lock the Make decision button while external decision-making is in progress. Once completed, you can set a status for the process on the process details page.

In the Process status area of the details page:

You can view all decision-makers and their e-mail addresses, enabling you to contact a decision-maker if the decision is delayed or pending
Decision-makers can set the final status for the process project

Only processes for which you’ve made a status decision will appear on your Supplier Management dashboard: qualification processes under the Qualification tile and discontinuation processes under the Disqualification tile. Miscellaneous processes will not be displayed.

How to Make Status Decisions for Process Projects

If you're a decision-maker for a process, use these steps to set or update its status to conditionally approved, approved, or denied based on the most recent information in its questionnaires.

Prerequisites

The process project feature (SM-16798) must be enabled in your site.

To make a status decision for a process project, you must be a member of a project group with the Decision Maker role.

The process must be in a pending decision, approved, denied, or conditionally approved status.

Business Scenario: Qualification

NSM Global requires decision-makers to set the final status of standard qualification processes manually. Category manager Joe Ortiz is the designated decision-maker for processes involving information technology and telecommunications suppliers. He must set the final status of a new qualification process for one of his suppliers. Additionally, another supplier recently updated a questionnaire in their existing qualification process, prompting Joe to review his existing status decision.

In this video, you’ll watch Joe make status decisions for qualification process projects.

Business Scenario: Discontinuation

NSM Global relies on category managers to finalize discontinuation processes for suppliers that no longer meet the company’s standards. Category manager Joe Ortiz has received a notification about a pending discontinuation process for one of his suppliers. As a decision-maker, he must set the final status to formalize the disqualification.

In this video, you’ll watch Joe make a status decision for a discontinuation process project.

Steps

Perform one of the following actions:
- Choose the link in the notification e-mail informing you that the process is ready for a status decision.
- Navigate to the Qualifications (for qualification processes) or Processes detail area of the supplier's profile, locate the process, and choose View to open its details page.
In the Process status area, perform one of the following actions:
- To set the final status of the process for the first time, choose Make decision.
- To update an existing status, choose Change.
  Note
  If you choose Change in a qualification process, the application displays an information message. This message informs you that the preferred status, if any, will be removed for the existing commodity, region, and department combination if you set the process status to conditionally approved or denied. However, the application doesn't display the message when you attempt to change a status decision while renewing or discontinuing the process.
Choose the status that you want to set.
Enter a required comment about your decision.
Optional: Edit the process intake form to change answers as needed. You can’t edit questions about the process's commodities, regions, and departments.
Choose Save.

Result

The process displays the currently set status. Notifications inform the primary contact, the process project owner, and the project's specific decision-maker of the status change.

For discontinuation processes specifically, when the process status is set to approved or conditionally approved, the system automatically revokes any preferred category statuses associated with the discontinued qualification.

The Process status area shows the decision history for the process, including the name of the decision-maker who set the status and their comments. Currently, decision history does not include information about any changes to the intake form made with the decisions.

The system creates a new version of the process intake form whenever you make a status decision. Once multiple versions of the process intake forms are in the system, you can export any version to Microsoft Excel by opening the intake form in the supplier's profile, selecting the desired version in the intake form area, and choosing Export.

Make a Status Decision for a Process Project

In this exercise, you’ll make a status decision for a process project.

ExerciseStart Exercise

Summary

Decision-makers can set or update the status of process projects based on questionnaire responses and current information.
Some intake form details can be edited during a status decision, but commodities, regions, and departments cannot be changed.
Status changes trigger notifications to key stakeholders and update the process status and decision history.
Discontinuation status removes associated preferred statuses for associated commodity, region, and department combinations.
The system creates a new version of the process intake form with each status decision for reference and export.

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