Adding New Terms, Competitive Terms and Matrix Terms

Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

  • Identify Term Functions and Attributes
  • Create New Item Terms
  • Set Competitive Terms
  • Add Matrix Terms

Identifying Term Functions and Attributes

What are Line Item Terms?

To collect and calculate the actual price of a specific item, SAP Ariba Guided Sourcing uses terms.

Terms are line item elements to which a numerical or string value can be assigned. Line items can roll up numerical terms to a line item price as well as string values that have been mapped to numbers.

Term Functions and Applications

Terms can be used to:

  • Collect participants’ pricing information or supportive item data.
  • Contain owner-defined information about the line item for internal input.
  • Display calculated information about line items such as total cost, unit cost, savings or earnings, discount amount, and percentage.
  • Factor into cost formulas.

Defining Standard Item Terms

Adding supplementary terms to a line item is optional, but all line items will include the following standard terms:

Add Item page is open with Terms table expanded. The standard item terms Price, Quantity, Extended Price, Total Cost and Savings are numbered to indicate where they are within the terms table.

Standard Term Definitions

TermDefinition
1 PriceThe amount that the participant receives for selling an individual item. It is also a term that appears in reports, even if you change its name.
2 QuantityThe number of items (defined by the line item) that you want to buy. A quantity is always required and is specified by the project owner when creating the line item.
3 Ceiling/Floor/Initial ValueThe ceiling price is the highest price that participants can bid for a line item in a reverse auction. In a forward auction, it is the floor, or lowest price.
4 Historic ValueThe historic price is used to calculate your savings (or earnings in a forward event). This field is usually populated with the price that you paid the last time you sourced the item.
5 Reserve ValueThe reserve price is the price at which it begins to make sense for you to award your business to a new participant.

Adding Features to Terms Using Common Event Content Fields

New terms include event content fields that will affect how the term functions within the item. Items like Answer Type, Acceptable Values, Response Required, Visible to Participants, Initial Value, and other common event fields can be enabled to add features to a term's abilities.

Add Term page is open with various term fields and settings displayed.

Item Term Specific Fields

In addition to the common event content fields, Project Owners will see additional settings that are unique to item terms, such as:

TermDefinition
Include in CostAppears only if the template you are using allows formulas. The Adder, Subtracter, Multiplier, and % Discount options determine how the term is used in the various functions. If set to Custom, non-numerical answer types can be mapped to numerical values to be used in formulas.
Apply to Cost ForAppears only if Include in cost is enabled. The options Per Unit and All Units affect where the term is used in calculating total or aggregate costs.
Rollup in Section SummaryFor numerical answer types only. The term sub-values in multiple rows of a line item will be added and displayed at the upper section level.
Is this a Matrix Term?Matrix pricing dimensions enable you to create a table of prices for an item or lot.
Is Term Editable in Alternatives?Cannot be used with formulas. Choose Editable by Owner and Participant if you want participants to provide different values for a term in their alternative responses.
Will Participants Compete on This Term?If yes for this field, the term will appear on the list of terms from which you can choose the competitive term in the "Compete on term" pull-down menu when editing the line item.
Can participants edit term's primary response?Allows suppliers to edit their primary bid in Alternative Response events.

Creating New Item Terms

Creating New Item Terms

Play the video below for a demonstration on how to create new terms in an event.

Setting Competitive Terms

What are Competitive Terms?

Designate a term as the competitive term for an item and have SAP Ariba Sourcing rank responses based on that term.

Configuring competitive terms in guided sourcing events is helpful if there are terms other than the typical Extended Price or the Total Cost terms.

Play the video below to see how to set competitive terms in SAP Ariba Guided Sourcing events.

Configuring Matrix Terms

Using Matrix Terms

Matrix pricing dimensions enable you to create a table of prices for an item or lot.

You can use matrix terms to create copies of entries in an item table for items or lots, where each copy has a different value for the matrix term.

For example, you need a material and want to collect different pricing information for the material based on the site that it's shipped to. Rather than manually creating a line item for the material for each site, you can create one item prototype for the material and add a matrix term for the Region.

After setting an initial value in the matrix term, additional values can be assigned to other line items within the same event using the matrix table. SAP Ariba creates a new entry in the items table for each combination of item and matrix term value applied to the item.

Please play the video for a demonstration of setting up matrix terms.

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