Outlining Smart Buying Skill

Smart Buying enables a quick, interactive, and intuitive search of catalog items in a specific material group via natural language processing using SAP CoPilot.

SAP CoPilot is a digital assistant that allows you to accomplish tasks quickly without having to navigate away from your current screen. Add and create objects such as products, sales orders, and notes, on-the-go using the conversational user interface. You can use SAP CoPilot on your phone, desktop, or through an external channel.

Using the Smart Buying skill of SAP CoPilot, you can quickly and easily create a purchase requisition for an item you want to order. To begin with, for instance, you ask SAP CoPilot to show you the catalog items in a specific material group. Next, you can filter the items by indicating the price or supplier. Once SAP CoPilot has found the catalog item you need, you simply need to tell SAP CoPilot which item you want to order and it will process the request for you.

• Material group, for example, notebook.

To find catalog items:

• Show me catalog items in category notebook.
• Show me notebook.
• Show me notebooks under $500.
• Show me items in notebook category with supplier Jologa.

To filter the list of displayed catalog items:

• Show those under 500 EUR.
• Show me items with supplier Jologa.

To order a catalog item:

• Order this.

  (Note: You can use this command if only one item is shown).

• Order the third item.
• Create a purchase requisition for the second item.

The following are the capabilities of Smart Buying:

• Use natural language processing to:

  • Search catalog items in a specific material group.
  • Filter the catalog items by price or supplier.
  • Create purchase requisitions for specific catalog items.
  • Order catalog items.
  • Provide quick view of details of catalog item.

• View details of Self Service Purchase Requisitions created for catalog items.

You can only order 1 quantity of an item. That is, you can only order one piece of a catalog item within the same purchase requisition.

You cannot order different catalog items within the same purchase requisition. For example, you cannot order a notebook and a computer mouse in the same purchase requisition.

You cannot order material items that are stored in the material master. This also applies to material items from backend systems if you use Central Procurement.

You cannot use synonyms when ordering an item of a specific material group. For example, if the material group in your company is named notebook, you cannot use the term laptop to order a notebook.

From the purchase requisition number that you see immediately after creating the requisition, you cannot display the purchase requisition.

If errors occur during the creation of the purchase requisition, you cannot correct them in Smart Buying. You have to contact the key user.

The following prerequisites must be fulfilled in order to be able use the Smart Buying skill of SAP CoPilot:

• Catalog items from external catalogs such as SAP Ariba catalogs must be extracted and must be imported into the SAP S/4HANA system, using the Schedule Import of Catalog Data app.

  

  As a key user, you can import and integrate material master data and external catalog data such as Ariba catalogs into SAP S/4HANA using the Schedule Import of Catalog Data app.

• In the Settings for Web Services app, the external catalog must be marked as relevant for the cross-catalog search.

  Using the Settings for Web Services app, you can define web service IDs, parameters of the catalog, and the call structure. This enables procurement of items from web-based catalogs using the open catalog interface (OCI). You can also configure the option that allows you to validate the item price against the catalog item price while ordering a purchase requisition.

• In the Default Settings for Users - Purchase Requisitions app, the users must be assigned to the relevant external catalog or catalogs.

  

  Using the Default Settings for Users - Purchase Requisitions app, as a key user, you can maintain default values for fields that are used when a purchase requisition is created. The default values for fields such as account assignment category, material group, and plant or storage location can be entered by a key user.