Reviewing Contract Requests

The Request phase of the Contract Lifecycle includes:

• Initiating a Contract Request
• Sending the Contract Request out for approval

A Contract Request is a project used to request a Contract Workspace. The purpose of a contract request is to allow someone who is not authorized to create a new contract to request one, providing key information for the contract author. Some fields can be made mandatory, requiring the requester to provide specific data.

SAP Ariba Contracts supports the following contract request types:

• Contract Request (Procurement) - A project for requesting a procurement workspace
• Contract Request (Sales) - A project for requesting a sales workspace

The use of contract requests is optional, and is usually used when people other than those in Purchasing, Sales, and Legal are using SAP Ariba Contracts. In order to be able to create a contract request, the user needs only a username and password, and at a minimum, have the role of observer within the application.

A contract request goes through an approval process. Only those requests that are approved are forwarded to the contract author for processing. Furthermore, the mandatory fields in the contract request force the contract requestor to provide the necessary information needed by the contract author, saving the contract author from spending time searching for this information.

Contract requests do not apply to internal contracts, since generally the people who determine the need for this type of contract are the same as those who have the ability to create them.

A Contract Request is created from the link in the Common Actions panel or from the Create button on the dashboard.

1. The Contract Request is created.
2. The Contract Request is sent for approval.
3. If it’s approved, the Contract Workspace is created and the Contract Request Header Data transfers to the Contract Workspace. If it’s denied, the requestor is notified, and the Contract Workspace is not created. (Re-submitting a request is an internal process decision.)
4. Contract Request and Contract Workspace are linked projects.