Using the SAP Ariba Retail Specific Features

1. Log in to your SAP Ariba solution.

2. Select Create → Sourcing Project.

3. Enter the required details for the project, select the appropriate template, and click Create.

4. On the Content tab, select Add → Item and add the relevant item details.

5. Select Category and then select the merchandise category. For example, Cheese.

6. Select the appropriate external system, then search or browse for the article category and click OK.

7. Enter any required terms for the article.

8. You must ensure that the Material Type and Material Number attributes are present for all line items. To add these, select Add → Term.

9. Expand the term lists and select Material Type and Material Number. Then click OK.

10. Enter a value for Material Type and select Done.

    The Material Number field should be blank for new articles. This will be updated by the system when the article is created in the ERP and the ERP sends back the article ID in the response.

11. On the Summary page of the event, select Publish.

12. On the Event Published page, select the Monitor this event link.

13. Select the Scenario tab at the top of the page.

14. Select Create → Manual Scenario. A manual scenario can be created in any event that has either Open or Pending status.

15. Name the scenario and select Save to save it.

16. On the Current Scenarios page, select the scenario you created and select Edit.

17. Click on the Master Data Creation button.

    The articles in the event are displayed.

18. Select the check box for the article (or articles) you want to send to the external system and click Send Articles.

    Articles have the status PENDING before they are sent. When you click on Send Articles the article status is updated to SENT in your SAP Ariba solution.

    The status of the article is updated to CREATED when receipt of the item is acknowledged by the ERP and the corresponding article has been created in article master data there.

1. Log in to your SAP Ariba solution.

2. Select Create → Sourcing Project.

3. Enter the required details for the project, select the appropriate template, and click Create.

4. On the Content tab, select Add → Item and add the relevant item details.

5. Select Category → Generic Article.

6. Select the appropriate external system, then search or browse for the article category and click OK.

7. Select variant-creating attributes in the item terms and then select the unspecified pull-down menu to select values for these attributes.

8. You must ensure that the Material Type and Material Number attributes are present for all line items. To add these, select Add → Term.

9. Expand the term lists and select Material Type and Material Number. Then click OK.

10. Enter values for these fields and select Done.

11. On the Summary page of the event, select Publish.

12. On the Event Published page, select the Monitor this event link.

13. Select the Scenario tab at the top of the page.

14. Select Create → Manual Scenario. A manual scenario can be created in any event that has either Open or Pending status.

15. Name the scenario and select Save to save it.

16. On the Current Scenarios page, select the scenario you created and select Edit.

17. Click on the Master Data Creation button. The articles in the event are displayed.

18. Select the check box for the article (or articles) you want to send to the external system and click Send Articles.

    Articles have the status PENDING before they are sent. When you click on Send Articles the article status is updated to SENT in your SAP Ariba solution.

    For variant articles, if no plant was associated with the article during article creation, the status of the article is updated to CREATED when receipt of the item is acknowledged by the ERP and the corresponding article has been created in article master data there.

    For variant articles where plant was associated with the article during article creation, the status of the article is updated to PENDING PLANT ASSOCIATION when receipt of the item is acknowledged by the ERP. The variant article then moves to the CREATED state.

In the SAP Ariba Retail component, the Basket lot with the linked item enabled is used.

The price is given at line item level and the lot price updates automatically. It can be used for two rounds of the bidding procedure used in retail.

Lots are usually composed of one or more line items. It is possible to have a lot with no line items and line items that are not in lots.

The prerequisites to create a lot are the same as described in Unit 1 → Lesson 4 → Prerequisites to Create Quick and Full Sourcing Projects from Product Sourcing Materials and BOM.

1. On the Content tab of the Event page, choose Add Lot.

2. Select the type of lot.

3. Fill in the fields that apply.

4. Choose OK.

   Restriction

   Only the content a participant is invited to participate in is visible to them. If a participant is not invited to participate in a particular section, that content is not displayed in an exported Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, such as a survey.

The sourcing process could reveal that certain articles are grouped together in lots. However in this case the respective display set would not exist in ERP at this time. Sourcing for Retail allows users to create new display sets in ERP directly from the sourcing award page by using the reference article concept. To send master data of display set article from SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing Suite to SAP Retail, perform the following steps in SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing Suite:

1. On the SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing Suite application, log in to your realm as a buyer.

2. Navigate to the project that you have created for adding the display set article.

3. In the projects page, under events, click Content.

4. In the right-side panel, click Add → Content from Article Master Data.

5. In the Add Content from Article Master Data page, enter the following details and search for the articles that you want to add to the display set:

   Field	Description
   Search Box	Enter the article number, description, or merchandise category for search.
   Plants	Enter the plant ID to perform the search based on plant.
   Article Types	Enter the article type to perform the search based on the article type

6. View the search results that are displayed in a table with the following details:

   Field	Description
   ID	Displays the article number or name of the display set.
   Description	Displays the description with which article was created.
   Type	Displays the type of article you have, single article, variant, generic, display set, and so on.
   Category	Displays the merchandise category of the article.
   Plant	Displays the distribution center (site) to which the article has been extended.
   UOM	Displays the unit of measure of the material.
   Ordering	Displays any other UOM that you may have maintained as the ordering unit for the article.
   Material Type	Displays the material type used to create the article is shown here.

   To view the details of a display set, check the display set and in the ID column, click Display.

7. In the table, select an article (except a generic article) that you want to add to the display set and click Copy.

   In the Content screen of your project to create the display set, view the article that you added.

   Note

   In SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing Suite, the structured article that you have created is known as Lot.

8. Click Add → Lot. The Add Lot page appears.

   Note

   After receiving the retail master data that you sent from SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing Suite to SAP Retail, you can view the LOT ID of the structured data in the Old material number (OLD_MAT_NO) field of the basic data in SAP Retail.

9. Enter the details of the lot.

   Note

   In the Category field, you must select the corresponding material group configured in SAP Retail. You must have also created a reference material for the material group in SAP Retail. The data is copied from this reference material to the new display set. If you have not created a material group and a corresponding reference material, the display set creation fails in SAP Retail.

   Perform the following sub-steps to select category and key information in the Lot Terms field:

   • Click the Search icon near Category. On the popup, search and select the material group and click OK.
   • Under Lot Terms, in the drop-down list under Ceiling/Initial against Item Category, choose Standard and click Done.
   • Under Lot Terms, in the drop-down list under Ceiling/Initial against Plant, choose a valid plant to which you want to extend the display set.

10. Click Done. In the Content page of your project to create the display set, view the newly added lot details.

11. Click the arrow near the name of your display set. In the submenu displayed, select Add → Line Item.

12. On the Select Bucket Items pop up, check the articles that you want to add to the display set and click OK. On the Content page of your project to create the display set, view the newly added articles.

13. For each item, specify the quantity and click Next.

14. Verify all the information that you have added and click Publish.

    The Event Published page appears.

15. Under What would you like to do next?, click Monitor.

    The page that lists the scenarios for your display set appears.

16. Under Current Scenario, click Create → Manual Scenario.

    The Untitled Scenario page appears.

17. In the Award Proposal Details tab, enter a name for the scenario and click Master Data Creation. The Article Data Status page appears.

18. Select the display set that you have created and click Send Articles.

In order to create a purchasing document, such as an Outline Agreement for an article, the article must be associated with a plant in your ERP. In some instances articles may not be associated with plants. When articles from article master are imported from your ERP system to your SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing Suite solution, you can copy any of those articles to a sourcing event multiple times adding a different plant for each copy of the article, and the article copies can then be pushed back to the ERP system where they will exist as the same article but with different plants. Plants are known as sites in SAP S/4HANA Retail.

1. Log in to your SAP Ariba solution.

2. Select Create → Sourcing Project.

3. Enter the required details for the project, select the appropriate template, and click Create.

4. On the Content tab, select Add → Content From Article Master Data.

5. Search for an article that was added from an external ERP.

6. Select an article or article variant and click Copy to copy the article to the sourcing event.

7. On the event Content tab, select the Plant field for one article.

8. Search for and add a plant.

9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 for the other article copies in the event, selecting a different plant for each article.

10. Click Publish and then, on the Event Published page, select the Monitor this event link.

11. Select the Scenario tab at the top of the page.

12. Select Create → Manual Scenario.

    A manual scenario can be created in any event that has either Open or Pending status.

13. Click on the Master Data Creation button. The articles in the event are displayed.

14. Select the check boxes for the articles for which you added plants and click Send Articles.

    This sends the selected articles to the ERP where they will exist as the same article but with different plant/site values. The status is updated to SENT in your SAP Ariba solution.

When the SAP Ariba Retail component receives ERP data from the SAP Ariba Cloud Integration Gateway, the data is enriched using a file upload functionality. This functionality enables the user to add questions and tags (region, department, contract terms, other user defined tags).

With the proper permissions you can also manually upload a category attribute hierarchy or an article master file.

You can upload a file (or a ZIP file) containing category attribute data or article master data in XML format. The XML can include elements such as merchandise category hierarchy, articles, characteristics, questions, and tags.

If there is more than one XML file in ZIP file, an order.txt file must be included in the ZIP file at the same level as the XML files. The order.txt file must contain the names of the XML files.

Sample ZIP file contents for multiple XML files:

• 1507100477501.xml
• 1507100478224.xml
• order.txt

Contents of the TXT file would be: 1507100477501.xml1507100478224.xml

For an example, an article master XML file.

Your site must have the SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing Suite.

To upload a category attribute hierarchy or an article master file you must belong to the Category Attribute Admin group or belong to a project group with the following permissions:

• Category Attribute Admin
• Sourcing Authorized
• ACM Administrator

1. Log in to your SAP Ariba solution.

2. Select Manage → Administration → Category Attribute Manager → Load Attribute Category.

3. Select the Browse button under Import files and browse for the file you want to upload.

1. Select Manage → Administration → Category Attribute Manager.

2. Click on the plus button at the top of the page and select Create under Question.

3. Select the external system to which the question will be added from the External system pull-down menu.

4. Enter the question text in the Name field. You can apply bold, italic or underline formatting. If you want to add a translated version of the question, select the plus button under the Name field. Enter the text and select a locale from the Select locale pull-down menu.

5. (Optional) If the question is a long one you might want to add a short label for it in the Contract Document Property field.

6. (Optional) Enter tags for the question in the Tags field. For example, to tag a question as a contract term, enter contract_terms. If you already have tags entered in the system that match the one you are entering, the existing tags are displayed as you type.

7. Select an answer type from the Answer Type pull-down menu.

8. Depending on which answer type you select, you might see the Acceptable Values field. The answer type also determines which of the following options you see for that field: Any Value, List Of Values, or Limited Ranges.

9. Depending on what you selected, it might be possible to enter an Initial Value. For example, if you opted to enter a list of possible values.

10. In the Response Required field you can determine whether a supplier or buyer response is mandatory, or whether a response is not a requirement.

11. Select the search button beside the Category field to search for and associate an item category with the question. First select the source ERP system for the category, then browse for and select the category. You can associate any number of categories with a question.

    When you add items from the selected categories to a sourcing event associated questions are added to the event automatically.

12. (Optional) To create a section for the question, type the name of a section in the Section field. If there are existing sections that match what you are typing, you can select one of the typeahead results. Or you can enter the name of a new section and select the check mark to create the section.

    When the question is added to a sourcing event it is listed under the new section.

13. If you want to use conditions to control the visibility of the category attribute hierarchy question to suppliers, select one of the following from the Visibility Condition pull-down menu:

    • To create a new condition, choose Create Condition.
    • To add an existing condition, choose Select Condition.

14. Click Save.

In a category attribute hierarchy, questions are associated with categories. In a sourcing event all questions associated with a category are added to the event when an article from that category is added to the event. In the category attribute hierarchy XML file questions are associated with categories in individual nodes under the groups node.

In this example, a node was created for questions that are associated with the category "120102", which in this case is the category ID for Cheese. If an item in the Cheese category is added to a sourcing event, all of the questions listed here are added to the sourcing event.

12345678910
<ns2:groups>
<ns2:node id="120102">
<ns2:question id="regionquestion1" />
<ns2:question id="regionquestion2" />
<ns2:question id="regionquestion3" />
<ns2:question id="regionquestion4" />
<ns2:question id="regionquestion5" />
<ns2:question id="regionquestion6" />
</ns2:node>
</ns2:groups>

Questions that are associated with categories are not added to a contract workspace or carried over to a contract workspace from a sourcing event by default. For questions relating to a category to be added to or carried over to a contract workspace those questions must be tagged at contract terms in the category attribute hierarchy XML.

The following parameter must be enabled before you can tag questions as contract terms: Application.AQS.ContractTerms.Enabled.

1. Declare the contract terms field and the contract terms tag under the fields node in the category attribute hierarchy XML.

   Code Snippet

   Copy codeSwitch to dark mode

   123456789
     <ns2:fields>
      <ns2:field id="1" name="ContractTerm" data_type="FLAT" subtype="" 
   
       data_fetch_criteria="">
      <ns2:tag id="CT_1" name="ContractTerm" description="tag holding all
   
       contract terms" display_name="contract terms"/>
      </ns2:field>
      </ns2:fields>

   Field	Description
   field ID	The sequential number of the contract terms field declaration in the fields node. In this case, the contract terms field is the first field declared under fields, so the field id is "1".
   field name	The contract terms field name. The value for this field must also be entered in the Application.AQS.Contract Terms.TagName parameter to ensure that questions that are tagged as contract terms are added to stand-alone contract workspaces and are added to contract workspaces from sourcing events when specific commodity categories are added to a contract workspace or sourcing event. The Application.AQS.Contract Terms. TagName parameter value is set to ContractTerm by default.
   field data_type	Indicates what type of data is held by the field. For contract terms the data type is always FLAT, which means that all tags are stored as a flat list.
   field data_type	The ID of the contract terms tag. This tag_id is used to tag questions as contract terms. The tag ID can have any value. In the example above it is CT_1.
   field data_type	A description of the tag.

2. To apply the contract terms tag to the relevant question(s), a tag node is created under the tags node. The tag node must contain the value that is assigned to the tag id in the contract terms field declaration.

   In this example it is CT_1.

   Code Snippet

   Copy codeSwitch to dark mode

   123456789101112
   <ns2:tags>
   <ns2:tag id="CT_1">
   <ns2:question id="regionquestion4" />
   <ns2:question id="regionquestion5" />
   <ns2:question id="23" />
   <ns2:question id="24" />
   <ns2:question id="25" />
   <ns2:question id="26" />
   <ns2:question id="27" />
   <ns2:question id="28" />
   </ns2:tag>
   </ns2:tags>

3. You can then list all questions that are to be treated as contract terms under the tag id node.

   In this example, note that the questions "regionquestion4" and "regionquestion5" are added as contract terms. These questions are also associated with the Cheese category in the first example at the beginning of this topic. When an item in the Cheese category is added to a contract workspace or carried over to a contract workspace from a sourcing event, these two questions are added to the contract workspace as contract terms.

   Note

   All questions that are to be tagged as contract terms must be added to this single list in the XML file, regardless of the categories with which they are associated.