Managing Qualification Process

Your organization can use either supplier qualification and disqualification projects or process projects to manage supplier qualifications.

If your site previously used legacy qualification projects for supplier qualifications, you can switch to using qualification process projects instead.

Once administrators enable process projects in your site, you:

• Can complete in-progress legacy qualifications projects
• Can’t create any new projects from the legacy supplier qualification project template

Migration of data from legacy qualification projects to process qualification projects isn't supported.

• When a qualification manager starts a requalification from a legacy qualification project, the resulting new process qualification project starts from scratch

A supplier’s qualification status changes throughout the qualification process based on the actions that are performed. The table describes the status flow for individual qualifications, which roll up to an overall qualification status for the supplier. Depending on how your organization manages supplier qualifications, these statuses can be based on either supplier qualification projects or qualification process projects.

If the process project feature is enabled in your site, administrators can define custom status labels for each type of process in your site and map them to SAP Ariba’s standard qualification statuses.

If the process project feature is enabled in your site, your organization can use supplier management process projects to collect information about and decide status for supplier qualifications or other business processes.

A supplier management process project is a framework that includes a collection of modular questionnaires to gather information relevant to the process and a workflow for deciding an outcome. A process project can be for:

• Qualification: If your organization uses process projects for supplier qualifications, the modular questionnaires can ask for specific qualification-related information for a particular combination of commodities, regions, and departments. A qualification process can include one or more general modular questionnaires that cover your organization's universal qualification criteria. It can also include specific modular questionnaires related to critical information or certifications for specific commodities, regions, and departments. Qualification processes can include both internal and external questionnaires.
• Miscellaneous processes: If your organization uses process projects for any other types of supplier management process, they can also include external or internal modular questionnaires relevant to that specific process.

After a supplier is registered, process initiators can qualify the supplier for one or more specific combinations of commodities, regions, and (optionally) departments.

The process project template is used to define:

• Who can start the process (process initiators) and set its final status (decision-makers)
• The intake form that process initiators fill out when creating or renewing a process, including questions about the commodities, regions, and departments to which the process is applicable
• The types of external or internal modular questionnaires used in the process

Within a process, each modular questionnaire is defined by its own template.

In sites that manage qualifications using process projects, you view and manage supplier qualifications in the Qualifications area of the supplier 360° profile.

• Qualifications area is only visible for registered suppliers

You can do the following things in the Qualifications area:

• Start or renew a qualification process
• View a summary of the supplier's qualification processes
• View qualification process details
• Set or change the status of a qualification process if you're a decision-maker for it
• Cancel a qualification process

If the process project feature is enabled in your site, you can create, manage, and view miscellaneous or qualification process projects and their questionnaires in the Processes area of a supplier's 360° profile.

In the Processes area, you can:

• Create any type of new process for which you’re a process initiator
• Search for any of the supplier's existing processes using the search bar
• Filter the supplier's existing processes
• View the details for any process, including modular questionnaires used in the process
• Cancel a process or process renewal that is in progress
• Renew a process to gather updated information
• Set a status for a process if you're a decision-maker for it

1. A process initiator creates a new process project from the Qualification area on the supplier's 360° profile by selecting a process type and filling out and submitting the process intake form. The process initiator selects the questionnaires to include in the process project and selects recipients for the questionnaires.
2. Notifications let recipients know that they have been invited to questionnaires.
3. External recipients answer the questionnaires from their Ariba Network account.
4. Notifications let internal recipients know they need to complete questionnaires. They submit their responses in the supplier 360° profile.
5. Notifications let approvers for the modular questionnaire projects know that the questionnaires require approval. They can also see outstanding qualifications using Manage → My Tasks on the dashboard. The approvers review the questionnaires and approve, deny, or request additional information.
6. A process decision-maker manually sets a final status for the process after evaluating its questionnaires. Optionally, the system can be configured to automatically set a final status for the process following rules based on the statuses of the process's questionnaires.
7. Notifications let external recipients know the final status decision for the process project.
8. When a process qualification is approved, the supplier’s qualification status is Qualified.

After a supplier is registered, you can qualify the supplier for one or more specific combinations of commodities, regions, and (optionally) departments.

The legacy supplier qualification process is used to:

• Collect detailed information from a supplier that’s specific to commodities, regions, and departments
• Conduct qualification approvals by category or by region
• Gather necessary internal assessment information to qualify a supplier
• Determine if it is suitable for your procurement and sourcing agents to do business with certain suppliers
  • Define which suppliers are qualified for guided buying
    • Must use ISO 3 country code as region, unless the configurable mapping between guided buying ship-to countries and preferred and qualified supplier regions feature is enabled in your site
  • Limit sourcing event participation and/or award eligibility

The supplier qualification template defines the process by which your company qualifies suppliers for specific combinations of commodities, regions, and departments.

You view and manage supplier qualifications, disqualifications, and requalifications in the Qualifications area of the supplier 360° profile.

• Qualifications area is only visible for registered suppliers

You can do the following things in the Qualifications area:

• Start a qualification, disqualification, or requalification
• View a summary of the supplier's qualifications and disqualifications
• View qualification or disqualification details, including:
  • Expiration dates for qualifications if your organization uses them
  • Tasks associated with a qualification, disqualification, or requalification
  • External or internal qualification questionnaires, including questions and answers
• Fill out and submit internal qualification questionnaires
• Complete tasks you have been assigned
• Reinvite supplier to fill out qualification questionnaire

The legacy qualification process uses a dynamic questionnaire to solicit information from the supplier. Category or supplier managers assemble the questionnaire from segments that are specific to selected commodities, regions, and departments before sending the questionnaire to the supplier. The supplier responds to a single questionnaire that contains all of the content from the segments selected by the category or supplier manager.

Category or supplier managers may see a list of many segments that apply to the selected commodities, regions, and departments during qualification. Depending on your site’s configuration, some of these segments may be required and others may be optional. Category or supplier managers choose whether to include optional segments in the assembled questionnaire; required segments are always included.

For example, to qualify a supplier for mobile phones in California, the qualification questionnaire would contain the following segments:

• Basic questions for suppliers of all categories in all regions
• Targeted questions for mobile phone suppliers in the United States
• Targeted questions for mobile phone suppliers in California

1. The category manager assigned to the supplier invites the supplier to start qualification and send the questionnaire from the Qualification area on the supplier's 360° profile.
2. Notifications let the supplier know that they have been invited to become a qualified supplier and provide a link to the questionnaire.
3. The supplier answers the qualification questionnaire from their Ariba Network account.
4. Notifications let the internal stakeholders know if they need to complete other tasks (if your company’s qualification process includes additional tasks.) Depending on your company’s site configuration, internal tasks may need to be completed prior to the qualification approval. Internal stakeholders complete their tasks (if your company’s qualification process includes additional tasks.)
5. Notifications let the approvers know that the qualification requires approval. They can also see outstanding qualifications using Manage → My Tasks on the dashboard. The approvers review the qualification and approve or deny it. Approvers can request additional information from the supplier before approving or denying the qualification.
6. Notifications let the supplier know when the qualification has been approved, denied, or requires more information.
7. When a supplier qualification is approved, the supplier’s qualification status is Qualified.

After a supplier qualification has been approved, category or supplier managers can:

• Start new qualifications for additional combinations of commodity, region, and department
• Evaluate the supplier for a preferred status level (if your company uses preferred supplier levels)
• Disqualify the supplier for previously qualified combinations of commodity, region, and department

If supplier has been disqualified or had a qualification expire, they are eligible for requalification.

• Qualifications and requalifications use the same process
  • Requalification always based on same commodities, regions, and departments as the previous disqualification or expired qualification