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Working with Catalog Subscriptions

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to describe the different methods of loading catalogs

Catalog Subscriptions Overview

"Now that you have an understanding of what catalogs are, let’s talk about how we get them into your SAP Ariba Procurement system."

"Great! I am interested in knowing the steps to create a catalog and upload it into SAP Ariba. I would also like to learn the technical requirements and type of users we need to involve."

Catalog User Groups

In order for users to have catalog related permissions, they must be added to catalog related user groups. Review the groups below to learn about their related permissions.

Customer Catalog Manager

Catalog administration
Validate catalog content
Maintain catalog subscriptions
Maintaining catalog hierarchy
Manage catalog kits
Run the Application.Catalog.AutoANSubscriptionSyncInterval task

Catalog Approver

Receive catalog approval requests
Query catalog approvable documents

"As mentioned earlier, SAP Ariba Procurement solutions support catalog files in CIF (Catalog Interchange Format), cXML (commerce XML) format, BMEcat (Bundesverband Materialwirtschaft, Einkauf und Logistik e. V. catalog XML) format, and Microsoft Excel format.

You obtain supplier catalogs from the SAP Business Network or another source and import them into your SAP Ariba procurement solution.

You can also allow users to go directly to a supplier’s site to select items, a process called punching out, or PunchOut. In this case, you still import some basic catalog information from the supplier.

You can also create an empty catalog subscription and add catalog items to it manually."

Note

BMEcat and Microsoft Excel catalogs are supported only in sites enabled for managing catalogs using the content management system (CMS).

Working with Subscriptions

A subscription is simply the definition of the process for importing a content file into the SAP Ariba catalog. When you subscribe to catalogs on SAP Business Network, the catalogs are typically imported automatically. When you use local subscriptions, you need to import those catalogs manually.

The definition includes the following properties necessary to import your catalog:

Subscription unique name
Supplier Name
Name of the content file
Option to skip catalog approval process
Option to automatically activate the catalog
Option to display subscription
Whether the content file contains items from multiple supplier

Note

SAP Ariba recommends consistency in the naming convention of a static catalog. The Best Practice center recommends formatting the name using Customer Name_Supplier Name.xls.

Catalog subscription types

Method	Process
Network Catalog Network Subscription	Supplier uploads a catalog through the SAP Business Network to be used by your organization
Generated Subscription	Customers can configure their system to generate subscriptions for non-catalog items on contracts when using SAP Ariba Contract Compliance
Static Catalog	Static upload on the buyer side of the SAP Ariba Procurement solution

SAP Business Network Catalog Subscriptions

To receive catalogs from the SAP Business Network, customers must have a trading relationship with their suppliers.

Supplier uploads a catalog onto the SAP Business Network
Buyer subscribes to the catalog via their buyer SAP Business Network account
A scheduled job is run (Ariba Network Full Subscription Synchronization task) which imports the subscribed catalog from the Supplier

This process downloads, imports, and validates the new and updated catalogs to which customers have subscribed. Catalogs without errors are moved to the Verified status. As part of the upload process, there are multiple subscription options for controlling the upload including skipping approval, for stopping before sending to approval, or activating automatically for all subsequent versions.

To configure scheduled tasks from their SAP Ariba dashboard, administrators must go to Manage ﹥ Core Administration ﹥ Catalog Manager ﹥ Scheduled Tasks ﹥ choose the task and click Run.

Select the plus icons to learn more about Parameters.

The parameter below can be set to allow for automatic downloading of catalogs from the SAP Business Network. Parameters can be found in the Catalog Manager section of the Core Administration tool.

Select the plus icons to learn more about Scheduled Tasks.

For a successful partnership between buyers and suppliers, both sides will have to share some of the responsibilities and own others.

Buyer catalog responsibilities	Supplier catalog responsibilities
Identify Suppliers for catalogs	Registration on SAP Business Network
Determine catalog content	Creating, maintaining and uploading catalogs to SAP Business Network following the catalog Template and requirements provided by the Buyer
Choose catalog types	Assess catalog type preference
Decide who will maintain catalogs	Maintaining and refreshing catalogs

Static Catalog Subscriptions

For static subscriptions, buyers can acquire content from suppliers by:

Downloading from the catalog file from SAP Business Network manually
Downloading from the supplier website
Receiving the file as an email attachment
File share, DVD, CD

"Users who belong to the Customer Catalog Manager group import content into SAP Ariba Catalog. In the next lesson we will focus on the loading catalog functionality."

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