Using Optimization Scenarios to Award Guided Sourcing Events

Optimization scenarios help you make award decisions by allowing you to create and compare hypothetical awarding models with goals and specific constraints to determine the potential awarding results.

Optimization scenarios are submitted to the system for evaluation; SAP Ariba Sourcing then determines the appropriate suppliers and award allocations to best meet the specified goal.

SAP Ariba provides standard optimization scenarios, such as Best Bid, which allocates 100% of each item to the supplier whose bid has the lowest Total Cost. Depending on your site configuration and the event, additional scenarios are available, such as Incumbent suppliers, which allocates awards to incumbent suppliers only.

You can also create custom optimization scenarios with a goal and optional constraints and item groups. The scenario goals available when creating custom optimization scenarios are derived from the roll-up terms that have ranking order specified in the template.

Custom optimization scenarios in Guided Sourcing also support the following options:

• Bulk auto create option to create item groups based on event sections and Manually create option to create item groups
• Natural language-based options for defining constraints

1. From any of the following locations, select the event for which you want to award the lots or line items:
   • For you → Recently viewed
   • For you → Summary → Review responses
2. Navigate to the Award Scenarios panel and select the Scenario Maker tab. The Award scenarios panel shows cards for existing scenarios, including standard optimization scenarios provided by SAP Ariba, such as Best Bid, Best Bid with Limited Number of Suppliers, Incumbent Suppliers.
3. 
4. If you are not creating a manual scenario or copying an existing scenario, locate the card for the scenario you want to edit and from the more options icon (...), then select Edit constraints.
5. In the Scenario objective panel of the Create scenario or Edit scenario page, select a goal from the What is the goal of your scenario drop-down. Based on the roll-up terms that have the ranking order specified in the template, you see various options, such as:
   • Minimize term
   • Maximize term
   Where term is any of the rollup terms that have ranking order (higher is better or lower is better) specified in the event template.
6. From the Define constraints section, choose Create and complete the following configuration from the Create constraints page:
   1. From the What do you want to do? drop-down, select the search icon and select any of the following options:
      • Award [quantity] of [items] to [suppliers]
      • Award [percentage] of amount of [items] to [suppliers]
      • Award [count] suppliers to [items] from [suppliers]
      • Award [quantity] of all items to [suppliers]
   2. From the Select values to the constraint options, select :
      • Quantity: Specify the quantity (at least, at most, or exact), in percentage terms, that you want to award.
      • Item groups: Select one or more item groups to which this constraint applies.
      • Suppliers: Choose all suppliers, incumbents, selected suppliers, suppliers matching criteria, or participants that have bid on all items.
   3. Select Save.
7. Select Optimize to submit the scenario for evaluation. The table below the scenario cards on the Award Scenarios page show the allocations for your scenario, as determined by SAP Ariba.
8. Choose the scenario you want to award by selecting the corresponding scenario card.
9. Select Award.
10. Choose whether to send email notifications to participants, and optionally Customize Award Emails.
11. Select Confirm.