Describing the Search and Report Functionality

SAP Ariba has a search engine that can be used within all of your SAP Ariba modules.

As a user, you would use the basic search to find a specific document or documents.

One reason why you might want to use a search would be to verify the status of a particular document. For example, what is the status of this particular purchase order? Has it been received?

Use searching to find a specific document or a set of documents. A typical use case for using the search functionality is to investigate the status of a document.

• Operational
  • You want to know the status of a purchase order.​
  • You want to check the status of a PO? ​

    Has it been received?​

  ​

You will start your search by using the search bar in the top middle of your dashboard.

If you have a specific document to search for, enter the document title or ID in the boxes, or you may choose to leave those fields blank and just click the magnifying glass at the end of the search bar.

The search fields will change based on the type of document you're searching for, and you will only be able to search for documents that you have access to, based on your role.

• To search for documents, use the Search content item on your dashboard or the Search link on the command bar. You can find only the documents that you are authorized to view based on your group membership.
• In the Search content item on your dashboard, enter a document title or ID to search for a specific document, or leave the fields blank to view all documents.
• The Search page is tailored for each type of document. For example, the Search page for purchase orders has a field labeled "Order ID," which does not display for other types of documents.
  • Document Title: "Johnson Project"
  • ID: "PR1234"

When you click the search magnifying glass, the system will display a search screen with additional fields to either refine or expand your search.

Your system will have suggested fields based on the document type that you are searching for.

• Use search filters to further refine your search. Filters are available in only the Search page, not the Search box.
• By default, searches for some types of documents include a custom date range in the search criteria in order to improve search performance. For example, the default date range for requisitions and purchase orders is 14 days and for expense reports and travel authorizations it is three months. You can change the date range or turn off the Date Created search option.
  • Date Created
  • Date Ordered
  • Submitted by
  • Supplier
  • Order Method
• Searching performs partial matching except for invoices associated with a specific purchase order. For example, if you have two documents titled "Requisition for laptops," and "Requisition for desktops," and you enter "Requisition" in the Title box, both documents are displayed. However, if you search for invoices by filtering on Order ID, the system displays only invoices for purchase orders that match the Order ID search string exactly.

If you need additional search fields to refine your search, you can use the drop-down list on the right side of the screen and select the additional fields.

You also have the ability to hide fields from your search screen that you may not need to use.

The system also allows you to save frequently used searches, and if you belong to the report manager group, you'll be able to save searches for all their users to see.

• You can display or hide specific search filters.
• You can save your frequently used searches. They are available in:
  • The navigation panel of the Search page
  • The Search content item
  • New Dashboard content items
• Members of the Report Manager group can save searches for use by everyone.
• Click Search Options on the Search page to customize the display of available search filters for a specific document type. You can then initiate the search or click Save Search to save the search with the options you have selected.
• If you belong to the Report Manager group, you can create public searches that are available to all users. To create a public search, click the Save as Shared Search check box before you save the search.
• Saved searches are available on the left navigation panel of the Search page and on the Search content item. You can also use them to create new content items for your Dashboard.

Once your search results have been displayed, you can assign labels to your documents in order to make it easier to find.

For example, you might label all documents that belong to a particular project or region.

• Enables users to easily find documents related to a specific undertaking
• Use labels for any characteristic:
  • Project name. Example: "Mars Project"
  • Milestone name. Example: "Phase 3"
  • Entity name. Example: "Atlanta"
• You can assign one or more labels to your documents in order to find them easily. For example, you might want to use a project name as a label so you can search for all purchase orders related to that project.
• All document labels are available on the left navigation panel of the Search page, as well as on the Search content item.

SAP Ariba also has a fairly robust report engine that supports both strategic and operational reporting.

An example of a strategic report might be the need to see the volume of requests of non-catalog items and for which suppliers.

An example of an operational report might be to verify the length of time it takes for a requisition to be approved, and which approvers are most likely to hold up that process.

SAP Ariba Buying has powerful tools that support strategic and operational reporting.

• Strategic
  • How much of our PO volume is for non-catalog items? ​
  • Which suppliers receive the most non-catalog POs?​
  ​
• Operational​
  • What’s the average wait time for a requisition to be approved?​
  • Which approvers are the most backed up?​

There are three main areas of your user interface where you can find your reports.

Prepackage reports is a repository of reports provided to you by SAP Ariba when you first implement your system.

You can access these reports and use them as they are or modify and save them in another area.

Public reports are the reports that have been created and saved by either your administrator or users who have the proper permissions.

The personal workspace is part of your own dashboard where you can save your own personal reports.

The reports are generated using a pivot table layout, which gives you the ability to drill down into multiple levels of your data.

The system also allows you to view your data directly in the application, or you can export it to excel.

You can schedule reports to run at regular intervals and display the results directly on your dashboard.

• There are three major locations for reports:
  • Prepackaged Reports: Prepackaged reports are basic reports created by SAP Ariba that are relatively generic.
  • Public Reports: Public reports are custom reports created by your administrator and can be accessed by anyone with the proper permissions.
  • Personal Workspace: A Personal Workspace is the virtual folder for all personal reports that you have saved. This module will focus on Prepackaged Reports.
• Reports give you access to complex business information from multiple sources such as expense reports, purchase requisitions, travel requests, purchase orders, and invoices. They allow you to analyze buying and spending patterns for yourself, your department, or your entire organization.
• Reports display data in a pivot table that you can manipulate to see different scenarios for the data. Pivot tables allow you to filter, slice, and drill down into the information to see patterns and relationships, summary information, and detail at the same time. Before you run a report, you select basic filters and set advanced filter and display options to better focus the report results.

This is an example of the different categories of prepackaged reports.

The system does not contain up to the minute data, so there may be a delay of up to six hours in viewing your current data.

For example, if you create a purchase order, you will not immediately be able to see that information in a report.

Similar to searching, you will have the ability to filter your data by using specific field parameters.

SAP Ariba Buying provides a set of predefined reports to make it easy to monitor your organization’s purchasing activity. There are many reporting categories, such as approvals, requisitions, catalogs, contracts, purchase orders, commodities, and suppliers.

Reports do not contain up-to-the minute data; they contain data that is up to six hours out-of-date, depending on system load. For example, users typically cannot create a purchase order and immediately see it in a PO report.

Because purchasing data can be voluminous, you can filter report data to limit the scope of the report. For example, you can limit report results to a specific time frame. The Refine Data page is specific for each kind of report.

After running a report, you view the result online in a pivot table or export it to Excel. When viewing online, you can select a row and a column and instruct SAP Ariba Buying to draw a graph using the report data. You can even assign a graph to display on your dashboard.

In order to schedule reports, you will select parameters that tell the system how and when to run the report.

You can choose to run the report immediately or at some point in the future.

You could run your reports daily, weekly, or monthly, and you can set the number of days to retain the report or the report data.

You can select enterprise users or add external email addresses to notify users that the report is available and also attach the report to the email notification.

• Scheduling Options:
  • Run immediately or in the future
  • Run regularly on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis
  • Number of days to retain data
  • Select users to notify or enter email addresses of external users
  • Attach report to email notification
• Administrators can view all scheduled reports within the system
• Scheduled reports which are emailed use a different template than the Excel Export functionality