Describing the Process Project Workflow

Process project templates enable your organization to define flexible supplier management workflows using modular questionnaires. These templates can be tailored to different lifecycle stages of the supplier management process, including qualification, discontinuation, or miscellaneous processes. Administrators can create multiple templates for qualification or miscellaneous processes, each catering to a specific type of process. However, only one template can be defined for discontinuation processes to handle the disqualification of all qualification processes.

Supplier management process projects combine a project template with specialized functionality and other elements, such as imported data and modular questionnaire projects, to create a workflow. Imported data determines whether a process is categorized as qualification, discontinuation, or miscellaneous, and it also establishes custom statuses for each type of process. Each process project template defines the following elements:

• Who can start the process (process initiators) and who can set the final status (decision-makers)
• The intake form that process initiators must fill out when creating or renewing a process, which can include questions about commodities, regions, departments, and schedules for expiration and reminders
• The questionnaire types used in the process

Participants perform different tasks in the process project workflow depending on their role:

• Process initiators are internal users who create and manage process projects. Their permissions are granted through membership in a specialized project group within each process project template, allowing administrators to control the types of processes a user can manage.
• Questionnaire recipients respond to new modular questionnaires or update reused ones. They can be internal or external users, depending on the questionnaire.
• Questionnaire approvers are internal users who approve, deny, or request additional information for questionnaires or their updates.
• Decision-makers review the process and associated questionnaires and manually set the process status. Typically, these are people within your organization with the authority to make final judgments about a process. Administrators can control which process types a user can make a status decision for through a specialized project group in process project templates.

The workflow for a qualification or miscellaneous supplier management process project involves the following steps:

1. A process initiator begins a new process by choosing a process type and completing an intake form, which may include questions about commodities, regions, departments, expiration schedules, and other business process aspects.
2. The system uses information from the intake form and process project template specifics to identify applicable modular questionnaires.
3. A process initiator selects the questionnaires to include in the process project, potentially adding optional questionnaires or requesting updates for reused questionnaires.
4. A process initiator changes the recipients of the questionnaires as needed. By default, internal questionnaires go to the process initiator, while external questionnaires go to the supplier's primary contact.
5. The system creates the process project, generates new questionnaires, and sends invitations or update requests to internal and external questionnaire recipients.
6. Questionnaire recipients receive invitations to new modular questionnaires or requests to update reused questionnaires.
7. Recipients submit their questionnaire responses: internal recipients respond in the supplier's profile, while external recipients respond via SAP Business Network.
8. Approvers evaluate the questionnaires and approve, deny, or request additional information.
9. Once all questionnaires are completed, the decision-making phase begins. Depending on the project's configuration, either a decision-maker sets the final status manually or the system sets it automatically.
10. For qualification processes, the system publishes the supplier's status for use in other areas, such as sourcing events, contract workspaces, or guided buying, and also starts any set expiration schedule.
11. Optionally, a decision-maker can change the process status and edit the intake form after initially setting the status, such as when important questionnaires expire without updates.
12. A process initiator can renew the process at any time once it has a final status, commonly due to process expirations or questionnaire condition changes.
13. For qualifications, a process initiator can discontinue an approved or conditionally approved process, with the ability to cancel or renew it as needed.