Outlining Configuring SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance Templates Elements

Your SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance solution includes supplier management project templates with a default configuration. This default configuration includes an empty survey document and an approval task. You must edit the templates to define your company's specific processes.

1. Edit Documents
   • Default survey document
   • Add additional documents, if supported
2. Edit Team
   • Default project groups
   • Add additional project groups, if needed
3. Edit Tasks
   • Default approval task
   • Add additional tasks, if supported
4. Edit Conditions
   • If needed

Supplier management processes use forms or questionnaires to solicit information about a supplier.

Supplier management project templates use survey documents to create these forms and questionnaires. Some types of projects involve questionnaires that are targeted to specific commodity, region, and department combinations.

While each supplier management project template includes a default survey document, some projects can support additional surveys to supplement the default form or questionnaire information.

Form

• A format type for survey documents.
• Often used for internal surveys.
• Best for a limited number of questions.
• Content is not numbered.

Questionnaire

• A format type for survey documents.
• Often used for external (supplier-facing) surveys.
• Best for a larger number of questions.
• Content is always numbered.

Internal Form

The default survey document used to collect basic information about a new supplier during the internal supplier request process

External Form

The default survey document used to collect basic information about a new supplier during the external supplier request process

Internal Questionnaire

An additional (optional) survey document used to collect information that only internal users can provide about the supplier, such as company code and purchasing organization information, during the supplier registration process

External Questionnaire

The default survey document used to collect detailed information about a supplier, such as bank account details, during the supplier registration process

Rules govern the behavior of a survey. Surveys in supplier management processes include rules to control timing and reminder settings.

1. Due date: Determines how much time a supplier has to fill out and submit the form or questionnaire before it closes. This setting is available in all supplier management projects with external surveys.
2. Send reminders for public updates: Generates periodic notifications reminding the supplier to update the survey at the defined intervals. This setting is only available in supplier registration.
3. Keep questionnaire reopened indefinitely: Specifies whether, after initial approval or update approval, the external survey is reopened indefinitely for further updates.
   • To keep the survey reopened indefinitely, choose Yes.
   • To keep the survey reopened for the reopen interval configured in your site (a system parameter), choose No.

   This setting is only available in supplier registration and modular supplier management.

Rules govern the behavior of a survey. Surveys in supplier management processes include rules that are specific to supplier management.

1. Specify questionnaire format: Determines the format of the supplier management survey.
   • For surveys with relatively small sets of content, such as requests, choose Form. Form content is not numbered.
   • For surveys with larger sets of content, choose Questionnaire. Questionnaire content is always numbered.
2. Is questionnaire required?: Determines if filling out and submitting the survey is a mandatory part of the associated supplier management process.
   • For surveys that are always mandatory, choose Yes.
   • To allow users to exclude the survey from the associated process, choose No.
3. Specify questionnaire type: Specifies whether the audience for the survey is internal users in your site or external suppliers.
   • For surveys that stakeholders in your organization fill out, choose Internal.
   • For surveys that suppliers fill out, choose External.

   Surveys in registration projects have a third option: Supplier Profile. This specifies that the survey is internal and its approval or denial does not affect registration status.

   Surveys in qualification projects have a third option: Qualification Request. This specifies that the survey is used to start supplier qualifications.

4. Always open: Determines if suppliers can update survey responses on a continuous basis.
   • To automatically reopen the survey for updates after approval, choose Yes.
   • To permanently close the survey after the initial approval or denial, choose No.
     Note

     This setting is only available in modular supplier management questionnaires.
5. Can expire? Specifies if the survey should expire.
   • If you want the survey to expire on a schedule you set, choose Yes.
   • If not, choose No.
     Note

     This setting is only available in modular supplier management questionnaires.

When working with surveys in supplier management templates, you may see settings that are specific to supplier management content, such as the following:

• Supplier field mapping
• Max length
• Description
• Search term
• Validation pattern
• Sensitive data masking
• Enable duplicate check

The Supplier field mapping field can be used to map specific questions in survey documents to specific supplier database fields. This ensures that the values entered for that content are written to those specific supplier database fields. You can also use project and network mappings in this field.

Most questions do not need to be mapped. However, any answer that you want to synchronize with the ERP system must be mapped to a supplier database field. When a supplier is initially synchronized with the integrated ERP system, mapped fields are synchronized with your ERP’s vendor master data. When a value is updated in the ERP system, that update is synchronized to the mapped field in SAP Ariba.

In some cases, mapping is required. For example, the supplier request form must include mapped questions for the supplier’s name and the supplier contact’s name and email address. To map the supplier’s name to the supplier database, you add a question entitled Supplier Name to the form and map the question to the vendor.vendorInfo.name1 field. As a result, the answer is stored in the database as the supplier’s name.

If the enhanced questionnaire configuration capabilities for increased ERP integration accuracy feature is enabled in your site, you can use the optional Apply field restrictions button to help validate your supplier field mapping entry. If you enter an invalid supplier field mapping, the system offers suggestions.

It is possible to map a question in a form or questionnaire to multiple databases. This is done by adding multiple mappings, separated by commas.

For example, you can map to both an Ariba Network supplier profile field and a supplier database field. This ensures that updates to a supplier's Ariba Network for Suppliers profile are reflected in the supplier database.

If the supplier registration form includes a question that asks for the supplier’s name and that question is mapped to both a supplier database field and an Ariba Network supplier profile field, the question is connected to the buyer’s supplier database and the supplier’s Ariba Network profile. If the supplier makes changes to the Legal Name field in their Ariba Network for Suppliers profile, the associated field in the buyer’s supplier database is also updated.

The questions you map to supplier database fields are automatically prepopulated with any current data from the database.

For example, if you map a question in the supplier request form to the vendor.vendorInfo.name1 field and the form contains a question that has the vendor.vendorInfo.name1 mapping, the supplier’s name will be prepopulated in the supplier registration form.

You can streamline the registration process for legacy suppliers (suppliers who are invited to register in a mass invitation wave) by including mapped questions in the supplier-facing registration questionnaire. If you import or migrate your legacy suppliers’ previous answers, they can view or update the prepopulated data.

For a list of common supplier database, project, and Ariba Network supplier profile field mappings, consult the Supplier management setup and administration guide.

Users in the SM ERP Admin user group can download a complete list of available supplier database field names from within the SM Administration area.

You must specify the maximum character length accepted for text answers to questions. This length must be shorter than the absolute maximum length for the question:

• Text (single line limited), 255 characters
• Text (single line), 4,000 characters
• Text (multiple lines), unlimited number of characters

When mapping a question to a supplier database field, you can use this setting to make sure that the answer does not exceed the maximum length of the supplier database field. For mapped questions, the length of the database field is the ultimate decider of the stored answer length. For example, even if you set the maximum character length at 200 characters, the ERP cannot accept a vendor name greater than 35 characters.

If the enhanced questionnaire configuration capabilities for increased ERP integration accuracy feature is enabled in your site, you can use the optional Apply field restrictions button to generate a suggested max length when you are creating Text (single line limited) or Text (single line) questions.

When adding a question to a questionnaire template, you can enter the description and relevant information about the question. The description field is available for all supplier management projects.

The description is displayed as a tooltip when the supplier is answering the question and when internal buyers view or edit the question.

You can turn questions into search filters by specifying a search term.

The search term text you enter becomes the name of the search filter.

Adding a validation pattern to a question defines the format of the answer that must be provided. The Validation Pattern field is only available for Text (single line) and Text (single line limited) answer types.

You define the validation pattern using a regular expression, which is a sequence of characters. There are a number of websites that can help you understand, formulate, and test regular expressions.

For example, you can require the answer to a question about a telephone number to be digits only, with a minimum of seven digits.

Users who provide answers that do not use the correct format see an error message and are unable to submit the form or questionnaire until they correct the format.

You can provide a custom error message in the related Validation Pattern Error Message field. If you do not provide a custom error message, a generic error message displaying the expected format is used.

This setting enables you to use permissions to control who can view or edit sensitive data in question answers and attachments.

Question Answers

• Members of the Sensitive Data Access user group can view sensitive data in question answers.
• This setting is available for Text (single line) and Text (single line limited) questions.
• To define the Sensitive Data Mask Pattern, use a regular expression.

For example, you can mask all numbers in an answer except for the last four digits.

Attachments

• Members of the Sensitive Data Access user group can view sensitive attachments.
• This setting is available for Attachment questions, questions that support reference documents, and questions that allow suppliers to add attachments to their answers.
• To define the data to mask, select the desired option in the Mask Attachments field.

For example, you can mask all documents that the supplier attaches to a specific question.

If the customer-configurable duplicate checks in supplier requests feature is enabled in your site, you can use additional questions in the internal and external supplier requests for duplicate check. To do so, select the Enable Duplicate Check option.

Custom duplicate check is supported for questions of the following answer types:

• Text (single line limited)
• Whole Number
• Decimal Number
• Yes/No

These questions must be mapped to at least one supplier database field.

If your site uses both internal and external supplier requests, and you include the same custom duplicate check-enabled question in both requests, the supplier field mappings for both questions must be identical: they must have the same number of mappings, to the same fields, in the same order.

To avoid overly broad duplicate checks, enable no more than five questions for custom duplicate check.

A repeatable section is a container in which you organize other content, such as questions, requirements, attachments, static sections, and nested repeatable sections.

Repeatable sections can be used to collect information that involves a set of questions and for which respondents typically have an unknown number of answers, such as locations, contacts, bank and tax details, and factories.

The survey shows an initial instance of the repeatable section and its content. To this initial instance, respondents can add as many repetitions as they need.

If you wish to capture sets of information in a hierarchical structure, you can nest repeatable sections in other repeatable sections.

For example, if you wish to ask a supplier about their contacts’ roles, you can nest a repeatable Contact section inside a repeatable Role section.

When the supplier adds a role, they can add one or more contacts to it.

The use of repeatable sections in questionnaires is limited as follows:

• Address questions are not supported in repeatable sections. While Extended Address questions are supported, multiple supplier addresses are not replicated to an integrated ERP system.
• Do not create mapped Commodity, Region, or Department questions in repeatable sections.
• You can only map questions in repeatable sections to supplier database fields in array classes, which support storing multiple answers for the field.
• Data in nested repeatable sections is not synchronized with an integrated ERP system.

To configure repeatable sections, complete the following steps:

1. Create the repeatable section parent.
2. Add the repeatable section to the repeatable section parent.
3. Add content to the repeatable section.

You can add members to project template teams in the following two ways:

• Manually add individual users or user groups to project groups.
• Dynamically add individuals or user groups to project groups based on buyer category assignments.

You can dynamically add users to project groups by using buyer category assignments. Buyer category assignments are created by a combination of the following two components:

• User matrix data, which assigns either individual users or system groups to project groups for specific commodities, regions, and departments.
• Template project groups, when the Use commodity and region assignments setting is enabled.

By default, assignments are based on a combination of commodity and region. If the department dimension feature is enabled in your site, buyer category assignments are based on a combination of commodity, region, and department.

An advantage of buyer category assignments is that when a user is assigned to a combination of commodity, region, and department, they are also assigned to all of the values below it in the hierarchy. Therefore, you do not have to explicitly assign users to every commodity, region, and department in your site.

For example, if you are qualifying a supplier for transportation services in Canada, but there is no user assigned to Canada, the supplier qualification project adds the user assigned to North America to the project group instead.

Buyer category assignments can be applied to the related supplier projects for suppliers of specific commodities, in specific regions, for specific departments. As a result, the same team can manage the same suppliers through their lifecycles.

• Buyer category assignments are defined in the UserMatrix.csv file.
• The file is imported as master data by a site administrator.
• Individual users or user groups can be assigned to project groups.
  • If you assign users, when a user leaves the company or changes roles, you have to edit and re-import the User Matrix.
  • If you assign user groups, when you subsequently edit who is part of the user group, you do not have to edit the User Matrix.
• Separate rows are used to assign a user to multiple commodities, regions, or departments.
• Assignments can be deactivated.

Buyer category assignments work automatically in the following project types:

• Legacy supplier qualification
• Supplier disqualification
• Preferred supplier management

If the supplier request form includes commodity, region, and department questions, they also work in supplier request projects.

They are not supported in supplier registration projects and can’t be used to add users to Process Initiator project groups in process project templates.

You must configure project groups to use buyer category assignments. To do so, complete the following steps:

1. Open a supplier template for editing.
2. On the Team tab, choose Actions→Team Members→Edit.
3. Edit an existing project group or add a new project group.
4. For Use commodity and region assignments, choose Yes.

Supplier management project templates include a default approval task. You can edit the default approval task to modify the settings and define your company’s desired approval flow.

You can also create supplementary tasks. The type of supplementary task allowed depends on the template type.

Conditions based on project field values allow you to control the visibility of the following project items:

• Documents, including the content in the documents
• Tasks, including the nodes in approval flows
• Project groups that make up a project’s Team

Project-level conditions can also be used to control the editability of content in documents.

You can create conditions in supplier management projects based on project fields such as Registration Status, Is Legacy, or specialized approval level fields that can be mapped to hidden questions in the survey document.

Supplier management projects include six specialized project-level fields with corresponding project field mappings. These allow you to create conditions based on answers to survey questions.

For each of these fields, you can trigger up to five separate conditions, resulting in up to 30 separate approval conditions in total.

To configure conditions that are based on the answer to a specific survey question, complete the following steps:

1. In the survey, create the question on which you want to base the condition.
2. In the survey, create a simple visibility condition with a content match to the question and specify the answer that you want to use to trigger the condition.
3. In the survey, add another question under the previous question and apply necessary settings.
4. At the project level, create a field match condition based on the field that corresponds to the field mapping you used in the hidden question and set a value equal to the initial value you used in the hidden question.

To hide a question that triggers a condition, use the following settings:

There can be only one of each available combination of field mapping and initial value present a single questionnaire. For example, there can only be one question mapped to project.LegalApprovalLevel with an initial value of 1 in a single registration questionnaire.

Documents

• Prevent suppliers from editing their initial answer to specific questions when they update the registration questionnaire.
• Include an internal-facing form in the supplier qualification process to record the findings of a due diligence check if the supplier answers No to the following question in the supplier-facing questionnaire: Has your company previously been qualified for this combination of category and region with our company?

Tasks

• Create separate approval tasks for legacy and non-legacy supplier registrations.
• Include Legal in a non-legacy supplier registration approval flow if the supplier does not agree to your company’s supplier code of conduct.
• Include a To Do task in the supplier qualification process for the Quality Manager to complete the due diligence check form.

Team

• Include Legal in a non-legacy supplier project team if the supplier does not agree to your company’s supplier code of conduct.