Exploring Administration Overview

Many customers choose to buy more than one of the SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing solutions to facilitate their sourcing, contracting, and supplier management processes.

Some benefits of purchasing multiple solutions:

• Create contract workspaces from sourcing awards, and optionally awarded line items to the contract.
• Set minimum supplier lifecycle status to participate in a sourcing event or be eligible for a sourcing award.

If multiple SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing solutions are purchased, master data is shared and administered under Manage → Administration.

In order to take advantage of the full spend management cycle, a customer’s SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing and SAP Ariba Procurement solutions can be "suite integrated" (linked together and function as one collaborative system).

Suite integration can be completed by an SAP Ariba technical lead, and should be done so as early as possible (if not immediately) upon realm enablement.

Master data will be mostly administered via Manage → Core Administration, with exceptions such as regions and departments.

Site administration in a suite integrated site is managed in two separate areas based upon where the information ultimately resides.

• Administration includes SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing controlled data and configurations (reporting settings, departments, regions, event messaging templates, and so on).
  • If the guided buying capability is enabled, region codes must be kept to three-digits.
• Core Administration allows you to manage SAP Ariba Procurement controlled data and configurations.
• Customer Administrators will need to make sure that they are in the correct administrative area while completing administrative tasks.
  • If a Customer Administrator does not see a feature in the Administration section, they are likely under the wrong area.

Ariba Administrator is the name of the interface that contains all the tasks that administrators can perform.

In this course, you will learn about overall site admin functions to:

• Set up/customize your SAP Ariba solution
• Manage and maintain your site

The Administration page is where administrators can make changes that will impact the site as a whole for end users. In this area of the site, you will find things like Site Manager, User Manager, Project Manager, and more. Each of these areas will take the administrator to various menus to update things within the site such as Data Import/Export tasks or User Sessions (who is currently logged in to the site).

This course will introduce you to many of the areas within the Manage → Administration menu.

To access the Administration area of your SAP Ariba Spend Management site, you can choose Manage → Administration. Access to this area and what you see inside of this area will be based on the permissions assigned to your User ID. This course will cover the options available to administrators through this menu.

If your site is suite integrated and contains both SAP Ariba Procurement solutions as well as SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing solutions, your administration page will look slightly different. For example, if you need to create and/or update Enterprise Users in a suite integrated site, you’ll need to go to Manage → Core Administration.

This course will focus mainly on the functionalities available within Manage → Administration for SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing solutions.

There are two ways to access the Administration menu within SAP Ariba if your User ID has the appropriate permissions assigned.

On the Home dashboard, if you haven’t changed your dashboard from the default configuration, you will have a Common Actions content item. Within the Common Actions content item, you’ll find a list of Create options as well as Manage options. Under Manage in the Common Actions portlet, there is an option to choose Administration.

It is possible that this content item (or portlet) will not readily display the option of Administration, so you may need to click the More link as shown in the screenshot above in order to find the Administration option.

Conversely, as the Common Actions content item is not always readily available, you can always click on Manage → Administration. Either method will take you to the same place.

Remember that if your site is suite integrated, you may also see the option to manage Core Administration. The only reason Core Administration is mentioned in this course is because when a site is suite integrated, Enterprise Users are housed within Core Administration rather than Administration. More information will be provided on this in the User Management module.

Just as there are two ways to access the Administrator Interface, there are also two ways to navigate the Administrator Interface once you’ve accessed this area.

As shown in the screenshot, you can either use the main page which is divided into two columns or you can use the navigation panel to the far left of the screen which displays each area in a vertical list. There is no advantage or disadvantage to navigating using either option, it is just personal preference and whichever method users find more user-friendly.

Integration is the transfer of data from one system to another:

Extracting data from ERP or other backend system on a scheduled basis and pushing that data into SAP Ariba without or with limited human intervention.

Integration allows you to keep master data in sync between customers’ source systems and SAP Ariba with little to no manual effort or lag time.

For example, a user is created in HR system, and via integration is automatically created in SAP Ariba shortly afterwards.

Customer Administrators have data import tasks to load data, such as users, suppliers, and commodity codes, to your site; all data import/tasks available in Integration Manager also appear in Site Manager.

There is product documentation available for both business users and administrator users. By clicking on Help → Help Center, you’ll automatically be directed to help content that other users have found the most helpful based on the page you are on.

You can browse the Learning Center for product documentation and tutorials or use the search bar at the top of the page to search all available help content, including video tutorials, FAQs, and documentation.

Enter a key word in the search bar (for example, user manager) and select a type of document (Product Documentation, FAQ, Article). You can also specify the role Administrator to view only administration related documentation.

Within Help Center, access the Contact us tab. You can search for solutions to frequent issues.

The Site Administration Templates can be found at help.sap.com. For example, as the administrator you may decide to update some data in your SAP Ariba solutions such as regions, departments, units of measure, etc. SAP Ariba provides you with 8 templates that can be used to import new data into your site. These include:

1. Bulk Supplier Modification Template
2. Buyer Modification Template
3. Commodity Code Mappings Modification Template
4. Commodity Code Modification Template
5. Currency Conversion Rate Modification Template
6. Department Modification Template
7. Region Modification Template
8. Unit of Measure Modification Template

These templates can serve as a starting point for you to populate the information SAP Ariba needs in order to populate the data onto your site. Once you’ve completed the appropriate modification template, you can either submit it to Support to be loaded into your site or you can upload it yourself if you feel comfortable doing so.

SAP Ariba’s web portal for customers and partners to:

• Search customer support knowledgebase
• Receive up-to-date information on SAP Ariba applications
• Admins can check the Product Info page of Connect or the Help → Support page of their realm to find out about known issues and defects, and see what changes were made in each service pack
• Submit and review the status of your Service Request
• Enter your ideas for new features in Customer Influence section

SAP Ariba Connect is a customer portal that allows users to view information on recent releases, upcoming releases, and new features. SAP Ariba Connect also allows users to search for solutions or content that may assist with a particular issue you are having or a problem you are trying to solve.

Depending on your access level, you can also view your organization’s open Service Requests, enter your ideas for new features in the Customer Influence section, and vote for new feature ideas created by other customers.

Navigate to Product Support - Procurement and click New User to create an account.

To access Connect, you can go to connect.ariba.com and that will take you to the login screen. You can use the forgotten password link if you have a UserID for Connect but have forgotten your password. Please note that the login details for SAP Ariba Connect is not the same as on your SAP Ariba Spend Management site so while you may have login credentials for your site, you may not have them for Connect. If you are a new user to Connect, you can click the New User link (in the screenshot on the slide) to request the creation of a new account.

When requesting a new user account on SAP Ariba Connect, you can choose whether you are requesting Basic Access or access as a Designated Support Contact. More information about Designated Support Contacts is on the next slide.

Basic Users are able to login to Connect and view certain types of information but they are unable to submit Service Requests to Support. Only DSCs can submit tickets to Support.

The Designated Support Contacts (DSCs):

• Submit Service Requests and review their status
• Browse and search historical Service Requests
• Upload files to share with SAP Ariba, especially those too large to email or attach to a Service Request
• Possess full access on SAP Ariba Connect (connect.ariba.com)
• Authorize administrative requests such as site customizations or legal agreement changes
• Can enter new feature ideas in Customer Influence
• Liaise for end-user requested changes
• Work with SAP Ariba regarding end-user issue trends

Administrators are usually listed as DSCs but it is not required. These are the users who are given the permission to request administrative changes to your SAP Ariba Spend Management site as well as to submit Service Requests to Support. The DSC access level is also the full access level into Connect as well, so product notifications and other notices sent from SAP Ariba will go to the DSC.

The DSC is also the user that must submit any customization requests such as new header fields or bulk uploads of site administration templates to ensure that these changes are authorized. This is why it is in most cases an Admin User with this role within Connect, as the admin would request the addition of a new field to the site.

It is important to maintain a current list of DSCs as well. Should a DSC leave the company, ensure that DSC is replaced with another so that there are no notifications missed during the transition. This can be done by requesting a new DSC user or you can contact the Connect Support team to assist with changing your company’s registered DSC.