SAP Ariba Functional Consultant Masterclass

Strategic Sourcing module is important module where all price negotiation happens. Buyer department can create online RFQ, Auction , download reports and send purchase order to supplier.

SLP helps to create supplier record in Ariba as well as ERP code creation in ERP.

Learn how commerce automation module help automate invoicing process for supplier.

Learn how Ariba Buying module provide option of online buying experience to company user.

Learn how Ariba Modules help in different situations.

Ariba uses few terms or nomenclature which is important to know before we start with our course.

Take a walk on Ariba Home Screen and learn it’s tabs to access functionality.

Manage tab is gateway to access all administration task like templates, administration, SM administration, user management.

Create any document like RFP, Auction, Sourcing Request and supplier Request in Create Tab

Learn about sourcing tab where all RFP , auction documents can be accessed. Supplier management tab give access to supplier details.

When any user wants to send buying request to purchase department, they have to create “sourcing request” in Ariba. Purchase department receive notification of new sourcing request once it is approved from user management.

Learn about sourcing request project all tabs like overview, document, team, task and message. Learn what are task in sourcing request to complete. Also learn how to manage team in sourcing request. Team tab is used to keep team members informed by maintaining their user I’d in respective team group.

Learn detailed method to add required item or service inside sourcing request. This is important because if there is no item in sourcing request, Purchase departments can’t know what is required by user department. We can maintain item name, quantity, unit of measurement, historical price if any and  description of item required.

Learn how we can add new item by copy and paste of existing created items. This way we can add item faster. Once item is created by paste, we can edit and maintain different name, quantity and unit of measurement if required.

If required items are more like 100, 200 or may be 1000, then manually adding one by one is cumbersome job. Ariba has excel import feature in which we can maintain line items in excel sheet and import. By importing we can create new line item’s quickly.

Section is a separate information area in which we can give specific information to supplier or to buyer department. Learn how we can create a section inside content tab.

In order to collect information from suppliers we need to ask questions. We will learn how to create a question inside content. Question could be designed to give text based answer, numerical answer, attachment answer or range. We can also create multiple choice questions as well .

Some time user department is require to send drawings, scope of work or any other document as attachment to supplier or to buyer department. Learn how to add any attachments in content.

Although in general, supplier for buying is selected by buyer department. But in certain situations user can suggest suppliers name by adding supplier in Sourcing Request. Learn how to add supplier in Sourcing Request.

Once user has added items, questions, sections, attachments then last action is getting approval from head of department or anyone who is assigned to approve. This is important step. Every organisation has their set of rule about who will approve. Ariba has flexibility to assign different approval based on many parameters like department, region, commodity, amount etc. These approval can be configured in Sourcing Request template.

After sourcing request approval from user departments , next action is performed by buyer department. Buyer will get notification of sourcing request and create Sourcing project to invite suppliers for bidding process of required items. Learn in this section how a buyer will create full Sourcing project , RFP, Auction inside a sourcing request project.

Tasks are checklist of activities to be performed by buyer while performing buying activity. Task may vary from company to company. Learn how to complete a task and move to next task. Task may be designed to be strict or just be  as checklist. Strict task may restrict a buyer to move to next action until previous task is completed.

Learn how to create your first RFP (request for proposal). This is the document which a supplier receives and submit their bid for items required by buyer. RFP is officially request for Quotation to supplier by buyer company.  

Event rules control start and end time of RFP. Learn how to set timing rule in event. Your setting will decide how many days supplier will get to submit bid, when supplier can start bidding. Timing rule is very interesting.

Learn how we can set reminder for suppliers to submit bid if they forgot to submit bid. Also other rules like email bidding, see price before timing end, currency rule etc.

Learn how we can add suppliers in the RFP, who will submit bid for our items. We can search supplier with their name, emails, or vendor code. We need to be careful about email IDs, if it is wrong then supplier can’t participate in bidding.

Learn how to add items in RFP from sourcing request. Although we can create new items in RFP but also we can copy items from sourcing request which user has already created.  Once we are done adding supplier, rules and items, it is time to publish RFP event.  Publishing event simply means making  event available to supplier to respond with their price.   After publish, supplier receives notification and link to create their account, submit response of RFP.

Event Dashboard is a very important page after publishing any event. This is page where we got supplier price response, see the reports, surrogate bid, see the participants status, supplier ranks, create scenario and send award for purchase order creation. On event Dashboard we can send messages to team members and also to suppliers. Learn various features of event monitoring dashboard in this lecture.

When a buyer publish event, supplier receives notification of the event on e-mail with a hyperlink to access the event. Notification contains company name, event start and end timing. Supplier can click on “click here” option in mail notification and can access login/sign up page. Learn how a supplier can create new account or login using existing account.

Once a supplier creates Ariba account, they have to accept terms and conditions which is first step before submitting bid. Next they have to select item for which they want to bid and finally supplier can submit bid against items. Also supplier can give response to questions asked by buyer in the event. Learn all supplier activity after account creation.

Sometime supplier will be on vacation or will not be able to access system to go and bid from Ariba account. In that case Ariba has a Feature called “ Surrogate Bid”. Any one person from buyer team who has admin access can “act as” supplier and can submit bid on behalf of supplier if supplier has submitted price on email. Learn this interesting feature in this lecture.

Let us see how supplier response is visible on event dashboard. We can see price of each item and total price of the event submitted by a supplier. We can also see responses to questions asked in the event. Also we can see any attachment supplier has sent.  

Rank is an indicator of supplier price in increasing order. If a supplier has submitted lowest price , he would be ranked as 1. Ranking goes on increasing once price goes up. Learn how to interpret supplier price through rank in this lecture.

There would be many situations where requirements may change during event. Changes could be like adding extra quantities, new items, new questions or we want new attachments from supplier. Learn how to edit live event in this lecture.

Saving is very important for any company while procuring any item or service. Ariba event shows item level saving based on price submitted by suppliers and historical price of that item. If buyer have last purchase price of any item then they can maintain in item terms while creating event. Ariba Dashboard will show savings for each items based on current prices. Learn how to maintain historical price of an items and interpret saving in this lecture.

Learn what are various event status and what does it means.

Supplier login in to Ariba account is very important part of Ariba. Learn what are various methods by which a supplier can login.

Let us see practically how to login as a supplier by all 3 methods. Once you know these ways, you can help solve supplier issues which is major part of Ariba Consulting.

As a consultant we will get requirements from clients that supplier should not be able to see certain content. Let us learn how to hide some content from supplier in the event.

Reports are very important for purchase department to show or assess the bidding. Ariba provides many types of reports for buyer to access and download in excel as well as in PDF format. Learn more about reports download in this lecture.

Once buyer receives price in the event, they can take decision to give business to one or more supplier. In order to give business, buyer need to create “scenario” in the event. Scenario simply means selecting suppliers against a line items to give business award. Let us learn more about scenario.

Learn how to create award scenario in the event, how to select Approver for the scenario and how to approve scenario as Approver. Once buyer creates scenario, someone in department should approve that price and supplier in scenario as a business process. Once scenario is approved, we can send price information to external system which is ERP where Purchase Order can be created.

In Ariba Sourcing there are 2 ways we can create purchase orders,  Manual and automatic purchase orders. Learn how we can create purchase orders in the event in this lecture.

Once scenario is approved, buyer can send quote to external system. It means sending price information to ERP system from Ariba. Since SAP ERP is mostly integrated with Ariba, ERP receives price information from Ariba and store. Learn more detail in this lecture.

Summary of all sourcing step till now. Learn how we started with sourcing request, then sourcing request approval, then sourcing project , then RFP creation, Publishing of RFP, receiving price from suppliers, making scenario and send quote to external system at last. Now we will go on auction.

Let us learn how to create an Auction inside a full Sourcing project. Creation process includes selecting tittle and template for auction. Learn more details in this lecture.

Rules control auction for better negotiation. We can set start time of event, end time of event, set reminder’s for suppliers, set if supplier can see their rank, if suppliers can see lead bidding price. Learn more details in lecture about rules.

Buyer creates auction after RFP generally, then we can copy items from RFP in to auction. We can also copy supplier details of RFP in to Auction along with their price submitted in RFP. This saves time to create new item in the auction. We can also copy item from sourcing request into auction. Learn more details in this lecture.

In addition to event rules, we have item level rules in auction. Here we can set minimum bid decrement amount for each items. It means suppliers have to give minimum discount at least which is set at item level while bidding. Also we can set front and back protection buffer for leading price. It means we can restrict any supplier to bid very close to lead bidding price.

Learn how a supplier can participate in an auction, reduce price, accept terms and conditions. While auction is live, supplier can reduce their price any number of times they want. They just have to mention new price and submit response.

Learn how to see and interpret bid Console once supplier submit their bid in auction. Bid Console is one stop page where we can get all information of leading price, leading supplier, time of bidding of all supplier along with price on that time. We can see savings, reserve price and historical price on bid console. These information help us to run auction smoothly.

In auction, showing Rank and Target Price to supplier is very crucial. Until supplier know their rank in auction, they would not be motivated to reduce price. Rank 2 supplier will try to achieve Rank 1 by reducing price. In similar way other supplier will try to achieve rank 1 in auction.  Hence a competition is created among supplier , thus company receives best price for items.   This is biggest reason why every company is trying to adopt Ariba.  

Let us see how supplier see rank and target price on auction dashboard in Ariba account and After seeing Rank, what could be possible action from supplier.

We can show lead bid to supplier in auction. This feature help us to compel supplier to reduce price further. Once a supplier is able to see what is price at which some supplier is at rank 1, they would try to beat that price. Learn more in detail.

Let us explore how bidding rules work and restrict supplier while submitting bid in the event.

Once auction ends, buyer get negotiated price in event. Now they can create scenario by selecting supplier against item, then send scenario for approval. After scenario approval, buyer can send “quote to external system” to create purchase order in ERP system.

Let us see how price and item details look in ERP system. ERP get price, quantity, item name, supplier code, event document ID. With help of these details, someone in buying organisation can create Purchase Order in ME21N  t-code. This is manual order creation process.

Service item is different from material item. Service item has parent child hierarchy, it means service item contain one header and under header there can be multiple child line or service specifications. On the other side, material item has flat structure, no parent child hierarchy. Learn more details about adding service items in event.

Sourcing Request in Ariba can be created by RFQ created in SAP. Once a user create RFQ using purchase requisition, RFQ becomes sourcing request in Ariba. In this case, no need to create sourcing request manually in Ariba from “create” option. This is easy and fast way to create sourcing request.

Let us see how to create RFP event inside sourcing request that has been generated from SAP RFQ. We can add sourcing request items directly in the event and no need to manually add items. In this case we are taking example of service items.

Learn how a supplier will submit price against service item. In case of service item, supplier need to submit price against child line only and header price is calculated automatically.

Once supplier submit bid in the RFP, buyer can create scenario by selecting supplier to whom they want to give business. Scenario goes for approval to respective authority of department. After approval of scenario, buyer can send quote to external system and purchase order would be created.

Learn how to create RFP or Auction from “create” option. This helps to create Sourcing project without any sourcing request. Buyer can use this option to negotiate price of regular items directly without request from user department.

Learn how to create full project directly from “create” option. Buyer can directly create Sourcing project without need of sourcing request from user.