Importing Suppliers and Supplier Contacts in SM Administration

As a Sourcing Agent, Monique is helping create supplier participants to be used in sourcing events. She has a list of new supplier organizations and contacts that she wants to invite to an upcoming auction. She needs help from her Customer Administrator, Jenny.

Supplier Requests serve as an internal request to your supplier administrators to add a new supplier organization that does not already exist in SAP Ariba. The information on the Supplier Request form can be customizable, but will require organizational data like the company name, address and supplier contact information. A supplier request can only create one organization, not multiple organizations.

This course focuses on how to import suppliers. For information about creating and managing supplier requests, please see the SAP Ariba Supplier Management Learning Journey in the SAP Learning Platform (learning.sap.com) or the Managing suppliers and supplier lifecycles guide in the SAP Help Portal.

"Hey Monique,

As a Customer Administrator, I can import Suppliers and Supplier Contacts which would bypass the Supplier Request process. There are two separate imports; one for the supplier organization, and the other for the contacts that fall under that organization. I will need you to complete two CSV files for me."

You must be a member of the SM Ops Admin, Supplier Risk Manager, or Customer Administrator group to import supplier data in SM Administration.

For customers who use guided buying, you must belong to both the Supplier/Customer Manager and SM Ops Admin groups.

The Suppliers import offers a way to bulk-create suppliers in sites that include SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance or SAP Ariba Supplier Information and Performance Management (new architecture).

Importing supplier-related data makes it available for sourcing, contracts, supplier management, risk, and procurement activities.

Unless otherwise specified, all supplier data imports add new records and update existing records:

• If you import supplier data with a new ERP vendor ID, the import operation adds the new supplier record to the database.
• If you import supplier data with an existing ERP vendor ID and source system, but with a change to some other data such as a different address, the import operation updates the existing supplier record with the new address.
• If a data file contains an existing record with no changes, the import operation ignores that record.

Supplier contacts are the supplier employees you interact with while doing business with a supplier. They may participate in sourcing events, contract negotiations, and supplier management questionnaires.

Supplier Contacts can be added to a supplier in your site:

• By business users with the appropriate permissions at various places within the user interface. For more information, please see About the Contacts area of the supplier 360° profile in the Managing suppliers and supplier lifecycles guide in the SAP Help Portal.
• When your site is configured to automatically synchronize supplier contacts from a supplier’s SAP Business Network account.
• Through data import by a Customer Administrator.

Within Data import or export, select the File Type: Suppliers.

Select Download a sample file to see its format. to download a pre-formatted CSV file that can be competed and imported.

A new row within the file will represent a new supplier once the selected file is uploaded.

The following data is required on the csv import:

1. erpVendorID -or- smVendorID
2. sourceSystem (SM for SAP Ariba or SAP for SAP ERP)
3. name1 (primary name of supplier)
4. At least one of the following:
   1. line1 (first line of the supplier address)
   2. line2
   3. line3
   4. city
   5. state
   6. postalCode (post office box number)
   7. countryCode (The two-character ISO country code)

Save your updated file locally, and select Choose File, then Upload.

You must import Suppliers before you import Supplier Contacts. When importing supplier contacts, be sure to use the erpVendorId from the Suppliers data to assign the contact to intended supplier.

Within Data import or export, select the File Type: Supplier Contacts.

Select Download a sample file to see its format. to download a pre-formatted CSV file that can be competed and imported.

A new row within the file will represent a new supplier contact once the selected file is uploaded.

1. erpVendorID
2. sourceSystem
3. email
4. isPrimary (specifies whether or not the supplier contact is the primary contact for the supplier)

Save your updated file locally, and select Choose File, then Upload.

"I’ve filled out the data files with the required information you requested, Jenny. When can our team expect to see the suppliers and their contacts in SAP Ariba?"

"The system may not immediately display supplier related data after initial upload. Our batch was smaller, so I would expect within an hour or so. Larger bulk-uploads should be periodically checked but may take several hours in some cases."