Name: Navigating the Data Dictionary in SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing
Uploaded: 2025-12-3
Duration: 225 s
Description: Learn what the data dictionary is within SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing and how it can help administrators understand formatting import files. See a demonstration of how to navigate the various sheets within the Excel Workbook and how to learn information about the related data files.

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<div><div><div><div>Learn what the data dictionary is within SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing and how it can help administrators understand formatting import files. See a demonstration of how to navigate the various sheets within the Excel Workbook and how to learn information about the related data files.</div></div></div></div>

Navigating the Data Dictionary in SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing

This video will help customer administrators within SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing understand how to use the data dictionary. The data dictionary within SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing is a Microsoft Excel workbook that contains detailed descriptions of the data import and export tasks available for your SAP Ariba site and information about the structure of the comma -separated files, CSV, that can be imported and exported. Data import files require specific formatting, such as sheet and column names, and acceptable values used to create values within particular fields related to the import file and operation. For example, if a customer administrator wanted to build a CSV file to import department field values, they would need to know which column headers are required to create the file and their case-specific names. The data dictionary can serve as a reference file for this administrator, helping them identify the format, names, and acceptable values. To download a copy of the data dictionary, administrators will see a link within Site Manager, Data Import Export, where a Download Data Dictionary link will download the Microsoft Excel workbook. The generated file is based on your SAP Ariba Sites variant, which features are enabled within your site and the user's group membership. Each worksheet in data dictionary describes a particular data import task. To help navigate the data dictionary, it is easiest to find the indexes worksheet in the back of the workbook. To quickly access the indexes worksheet, hold control on your keyboard and select the right arrow in the bottom left corner of the workbook. As its name suggests, it is a guide to all the available data import tasks. The worksheet contains links to the different data import and export worksheets that describe that task in alphabetical order the worksheets describe the columns in the csv file or files imported by those data import tasks after the task name you will see the description of the data import task in column b the data file name column lists the name of the csv file with the header and detail data the file column name and new file column reference the names of columns that must be added to the csv import file in our department example we would have department id description and parent department as our three columns. The names need to be an exact match as they are case-sensitive and will not import successfully without matching column headers. The field description will provide additional details on what the field means. Data type is the acceptable value type that can be added, such as Boolean, which is true or false, and text string values. String length specifies the maximum string length if the data in the CSV file column is a text string. Restrictions on the value in the CSV file column, if any, are listed in column J and sample values in column K. One of the more important columns, L, indicates whether the column is a required column, true or an optional column, false or blank, in the CSV file. The required settings in the data dictionary are consistent with the required fields in the user interface, so values must be set in columns marked true. The Allow Null column will be set to Yes or No, where Null means an empty value. Lastly, the Reference to Field and File columns at the end shows how the System field is referenced in the file. The Data Dictionary might not be required for all imports that administrators run, but it can be downloaded to help those who have questions about the formatting or data elements within specific import operations. Please consult our product documentation for more information about Common Data Imports and the Data Dictionary.