Describing SAP Ariba 2311 Release Features

• Applicable Products
  • SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing
  • SAP Ariba Invoice Management
  • SAP Ariba Contract Invoicing
• User Type
  • Buyer
• Enablement Model
  • Automatically on

When users deny an invoice created on SAP Business Network, they can now add a comment that's visible to the supplier to explain the reason for the denial. Comments to suppliers can be made mandatory by an administrator.

Suppliers can view the comments on the invoice in their SAP Business Network account.

With this feature, buyers can enter comments during the invoice denial process which will be sent to the supplier on SAP Business Network so that they know the reason for the invoice rejection.

• Applicable Products
  • SAP Ariba Buying
  • SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing
• User Type
  • Buyer
• Enablement Model
  • Customer configured

Buyers can now initiate resending multiple purchase orders and receipts that appear stuck in the SAP Ariba solution. Purchase orders may be stuck in Ordering or Canceling state due to various reasons while sending or resending them from the SAP Ariba solution to SAP ERP or SAP Business Network and receipts may be stuck in the sending or failed state while sending them to SAP Business Network.

Purchase orders or receipts may get stuck due to various reasons while sending from SAP Ariba buying solutions to ERP or SAP Business Network. Currently, customers need to reach out to customer support and create customer cases to request resend of multiple stuck purchase orders or receipts to ERP and SAP Business Network. This can lead to delays in the procurement process and inefficiencies for the customer.

This feature provides greater flexibility and allows customers to self-correct issues by providing them the ability to request resend of multiple stuck purchase orders or receipts to ERP and SAP Business Network. This feature should provide customers with a faster way to resolve their problems with stuck purchase orders or receipts.

Your administrator must enable the following parameters:

• To resend purchase orders, set the Set hours to enable resending of stuck purchase orders (Application.Purchasing.SetHoursToEnableResendingOfStuckPurchaseOrders) parameter.
• To resend receipts, set the Send receipts to SAP Business Network (Application.Receiving.SendReceiptsToAribaNetwork) and Set hours to enable resending of stuck receipts to SAP Business Network (Application.Purchasing.SetHoursToEnableResendingOfStuckReceiptsToSAPBusinessNetwork) parameters.
• Enable resending of multiple approvables (Application.Common.EnableResendingOfMultipleApprovables).

• Applicable Products
  • SAP Ariba Buying
  • SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing
• User Type
  • Buyer
• Enablement Model
  • Customer configured
    Note

    This feature is optional in this release. In the future, SAP Ariba plans to turn it on for all customers. SAP Ariba will notify customers before enabling the feature for everyone.

Guided buying users can add user groups to approval flows when they create purchase requisitions.

New icons in the approval flow show whether an approver is an individual user or a group. In Figure 2, approver 1 is an individual user and approver 2 is a group.

Upon approval, the icons change color: a green check mark for Approved or a red X for Denied, as shown in Figure 3.

When this feature becomes mandatory SAP Ariba will remove the existing parameter ENABLE_SHOW_APPROVER_GROUP_MEMBERS, which determines whether guided buying displays the individual members in groups. Then, the visibility of group members will be determined solely by group definitions in SAP Ariba Procurement solutions.

Users can now add and delete groups to the approval flow for purchase requisitions in guided buying. Previously, they could add only users, not groups; they had to add each user individually or go to SAP Ariba Buying to add group approvers, both of which were time-consuming.

Administrators define user groups in SAP Ariba Procurement solutions. Guided buying users can then add them to purchase requisition approval flows.

Groups can be added to purchase requisitions only, not to other document types, such as forms or invoices.

• Applicable Products
  • SAP Ariba Buying
  • SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing
• User Type
  • Buyer
• Enablement Model
  • Automatically on

The SAP Companion help and learning platform is now turned on for all guided buying users. It comes with standard help content and tutorials. You can optionally modify help topics and add new content by purchasing an SAP Enable Now license.

Guided buying has in-application help through SAP Companion, powered by SAP Web Assistant. As users work in guided buying, they can open a help panel that contains context-sensitive information. Help topics describe specific functions and link to tutorials so users can perform just-in-time learning as they use guided buying. Customers with an optional SAP Web Assistant license can modify and add their own SAP Companion content that is relevant to their organization. Customers can also disable SAP Companion by setting a guided buying parameter.

• Applicable Products
  • SAP Ariba Buying
  • SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing
• User Type
  • Buyer
• Enablement Model
  • Automatically on

This feature enables administrator users in the customer's organization to search for all form documents. In addition, they will be able to add or delete approvers in the approval flow of the form documents.

Previously, form documents were visible only to the submitters and approvers. With this feature, administrator users can search for and view form documents and update the approval flow in them for various purposes such as audit. This feature introduces two new groups. Members of the QueryAll CustomForms group can search for form documents. Members of the Edit Approval Request CustomForm group can make changes to the approval flow of custom forms.

For users with the guided buying capability enabled, searching for guided buying custom forms (including transfer of ownership request forms) is possible only in their SAP Ariba Buying or SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing solution. If guided buying users want to open any custom form in guided buying to view it, they can click on it in the search results. However, they must be members of the Purchasing User group to be able to do this.

This feature enables administrators to query all transfer of ownership requests and add or delete approvers.

• If you want to search for guided buying custom forms, including transfer of ownership request forms, you must have the guided buying capability enabled.
• If you want to view the custom forms in guided buying when you open them from the search results in your SAP Ariba Buying or SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing solution, you must be part of the Purchasing User group.

• Applicable Products
  • SAP Ariba Buying
  • SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing
• User Type
  • Buyer
• Enablement Model
  • Automatically on

With this feature, users can add non-catalog items to their requisition and submit a purchase requisition that has a non-catalog item as a line item.

The non-catalog item request form consists of seven fields, six of which are mandatory. The user provides input to these fields, describing the item that doesn't belong to the catalog. The user can add the non-catalog item to the cart by creating a new purchase requisition or adding it to an already existing purchase requisition. Checkout details apply at the header level to all catalog and non-catalog items. Non-catalog items that have been submitted are described as non-catalog items in the purchase requisition details.

By leveraging SAP Ariba's non-catalog functionality, this feature enables SAP Ariba Shopping mobile app users to create or add items to a requisition that do not belong to the catalog.