Characterizing Supplier Registrations

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to summarize the characteristics of supplier registrations in SAP Ariba Supplier Management

About Supplier Registrations

Supplier registrations collect and maintain detailed profile information about your organization's suppliers. Depending on your role, you can start a supplier registration, fill out registration questionnaires, approve or deny registration questionnaires, or cancel an in-progress registration.

Supplier registration projects are available in sites that include SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance or SAP Ariba Supplier Information and Performance Management (new architecture). Registration is the second step in the SAP Ariba supplier lifecycle, as shown in the following diagram:

A diagram of the SAP Ariba supplier lifecycle. Registration is highlighted to show that it’s the first step.

The registration process typically gathers information your organization requires to assess a supplier. For example, registration questionnaires can collect supplier details such as the commodities they supply, the regions where they operate, what standards they adhere to or agree with, and financial details such as bank and tax information. Depending on how registration is set up in your site, it can include one or more external registration questionnaires to gather this information. Supplier registration projects can also include internal questionnaires that allow internal users to answer questions about the supplier based on your organization's internal processes and add important information to the supplier's profile.

Suppliers created in your site are initially private, meaning they aren't linked to a supplier account on SAP Business Network. For them to respond to questionnaires during supplier lifecycle processes, a link must be established between their SAP Business Network account and your organization’s SAP Ariba site. This link is typically established during the registration process for new suppliers. Existing suppliers may have already linked to your company’s SAP Ariba site by responding to a sourcing event or participating in a contract negotiation. When a supplier user responds to your invitation to an external questionnaire for the first time, the supplier becomes public, and the ANID of the linked SAP Business Network account is visible in their profile. From that point forward, the supplier can participate in sourcing and supplier management activities with you from that linked SAP Business Network account.

Legacy suppliers your organization no longer works with, such as those you want to reference in your contract repository in SAP Ariba Contracts, do not go through the registration process.

Stages of Supplier Registrations

Supplier profile information can change over time, so supplier registrations have two stages:

  • New registration, where a user with the appropriate permissions starts a registration, questionnaire recipients provide initial profile information, and approvers vet this information and approve or deny the registration.
  • Registration updates, where questionnaire recipients update previous answers as necessary after the supplier is registered.

New Registration

Starting a new supplier registration creates a registration project with questionnaires to gather detailed profile information about a supplier.

After a new supplier is created, a user with the appropriate permissions starts a supplier registration by sending recipients one or more external registration questionnaires. Registration projects can also include internal questionnaires, and starting the registration makes them available for editing. Approvers review the submitted questionnaires and approve or deny them. If the new registration is approved, the registration project supports ongoing updates to external and internal questionnaires.

Registration Updates

External questionnaire recipients and people in your organization can update registration questionnaires to keep the supplier's profile information current.

After a supplier is registered, previously closed external questionnaires automatically reopen for a time defined by your site's configuration and configurations in individual questionnaires. The default amount of time a questionnaire remains open is 365 days from the approval. The recipient assigned to the external registration questionnaires can navigate to them and submit updates anytime, as long as they're not in approval. External questionnaires can be set up to generate periodic reminders asking for updates.

Internal registration questionnaires are open for updates when they're not in approval.

Types of Supplier Registrations

Supplier registrations can be external or internal. Both types use the same registration project template and have the same registration statuses.

External Registrations

External registrations allow you to collect profile information directly from a supplier.

In external registrations, the supplier submits external registration questionnaires in their SAP Business Network account. If they don't already have an account, they must create one. SAP Business Network and SAP Ariba Supplier Management solutions automatically share the supplier's profile.

Note

A supplier can participate in your company’s supplier lifecycle processes using a standard or enterprise account on SAP Business Network.

  • A free standard account allows suppliers to participate in sourcing events, collaborate on contracts, and transact unlimited documents such as purchase orders and invoices.
  • An enterprise account might result in supplier subscription fees. However, it gives suppliers access to advanced features such as dedicated inboxes, reporting, free lead responses, and direct integration with their ERP.

Once registration is complete, the supplier is public, meaning they have a linked SAP Business Network account in your site.

After a supplier completes an external registration, you can establish a fulfillment relationship with them.

Note

For information about fulfillment relationships, see Sourcing and Fulfillment (Trading) Relationships with Suppliers.

Internal Registrations

Internal registrations let you onboard a supplier that is low-volume or one time, isn't tech-savvy, is a government entity or third party, or otherwise wants to register without creating an account on SAP Business Network.

In internal registrations, recipients in your organization submit external registration questionnaires in your site, and the supplier doesn't participate.

Unless you've interacted with the supplier through SAP Business Network for another activity, such as a sourcing event or an external modular questionnaire, they remain private, meaning they don't have a linked SAP Business Network account in your site.

Later, you can invite the supplier to participate in an internal registration and convert it to an external registration.

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