SAP Ariba Procurement is used to load all suppliers globally for catalog-related content. In sites that include SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance, you can set qualifications and preferred statuses for a supplier either automatically using data import or manually using supplier lifecycle projects. SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance is designed to maintain qualifications and preferred statuses using projects that have questionnaires and workflows. Qualifications and preferred statuses set using data import don't have associated lifecycle projects.
Using qualified and preferred supplier statuses in guided buying is not required. If your organization wishes to designate qualified and preferred suppliers using data imports, you must create two CSV files, SupplierQualification.csv and PreferredSupplier.csv, and maintain them in the SM Administration area. To specify the same supplier as qualified or preferred for multiple categories or regions, add a unique row for each combination of category, region, and supplier in the appropriate file.
Procedure
- Import preferred supplier levels.
- Import regions using ISO 3-digit codes.
- Load the supplier organization sourcing contact.
- Create and load qualified supplier data in SM Administration.
- Create and load preferred supplier data in SM Administration.
Note
You need to mark a supplier as qualified for a category and region before you can designate them as preferred for that same category and region. Commodity codes and region hierarchies are leveraged in this process. Qualifying a supplier for a commodity or region at the parent level marks them as qualified for all the children under the parent commodity or region.
Once supplier data is available, guided buying will suggest suppliers for users to choose whenever they search the catalog for items, create an RFQ, or request a non-catalog item.
- For catalog items, suppliers are derived from the catalog file.
- For non-catalog (ad-hoc) items, suppliers can be selected either from a global pool of master data or from the pre-refined list generated by SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance.
- Preferred suppliers for a category and location are shown on landing pages by adding the Preferred Suppliers tile on the landing page.
