Hello, welcome to my blog post! It’s a complete guide for Ariba consultants and administrators who configures and manages validation policies in Ariba guided buying
Introduction
Validation policy guides user to follow the right procedures while creating requisition. When user submits a requisition, guided buying validates the fields of it against policies.
Validation policies can be setup by using header level or line-item level fields of requisition. It displays an informational message, an error message or request for justification on requisition page.
Note: Error message doesn’t allow users to submit requisition until they correct the error on it
Let’s discuss how to configure validation policy in Ariba guided buying
Login to Guided buying->click on Admin->Click Manage Policies->Download a sample policy from Validation Policy section
An excel template consists of four sheets a description, a key definition, an expression and a message
Description:
Policy Name: Enter the name of the purchasing policy.
Policy Description: let’s administrator to know what the requirement is.
Policy Applicable Type: It can be requisition, non-catalog request, line item form or tile
Key Definition:
Policy Name: Copy it from ‘Description’ tab
Lookup Key: It should be ProcurementUnit or PurchasingUnit
Lookup Kay Value: It can be a user purchasing unit or defaulted to “ALL”
Expression:
Policy Name: Copy it from ‘Key Definition’ tab
Left hand side Type: Enter value “Field” to evaluate
Left hand side Field: Enter the value of field to evaluate. For example: CompanyCode.UniqueName
Right hand side Type: It should always be “constant”
Right hand side Field: Enter the associated value or details of fields mentioned in the Left-hand side Field (Column C). For example: company code 1234
Operator: <, >, ==, !=, <=, >=, contains, hasAllValues, or hasAnyValues operators decides whether to apply policy or not
Logical Operator: && and || operators are applicable, if there are more than 1 line in the policy. && operator triggers policy if conditions of all the lines are met. || operator triggers policy if condition of first line or the next line is met.
Message:
Policy Name: Copy it from ‘Expression’ tab
Severity: When users violate a policy, guided buying displays either of the messages to them
- Info-> Displays a text message that set in the policy. Allows users to submit requisition
- Justification-> Displays a message requesting user to provide justification for raising a requisition
- Error-> Displays an error message on requisition. It doesn’t allow users to submit requisition until they correct the error on it
Message: A text message that requests users to understand and follow purchasing policies of company and justify their purchasing requests
Justification Options: customer can have a predefined justification for the policy or else leave this column blank and allow users to enter their justification in comment box.
Configuration:
Let’s configure validation policies for some real time scenarios
Scenario 1: Display an error message; if the total amount of requisition is equal to “0”
Scenario 2: Display an
error message; Do not allow user to raise PR against company code “1234”
Scenario 3: Display an
error message; a quote is mandatory from supplier “1234567000”
Scenario 4: Display an
informational message; if user orders a non-catalog item for commodity code “12345678 and 87654321”
Scenario 5: Request for
justification; if user orders a non-catalog item with supplier “0001234567”
Note:
- When preparing the file, copy and paste the Policy Name which is referenced in the next few sheets. Do not use the same policy name to create other policies. Do not include colon ‘:’ in the policy name. The characters of Policy name and description is limited to 256
- When creating policy for multiple commodity codes, separate each code with a vertical bar as shown in the scenario 4
- A single policy should not contain more than 500 rows to avoid an error or a warning
- Delete the policy using UI -> THE BEST PRACTICE
Conclusion
This blog explains how to configure a validation policy in Ariba guided buying which would definitely help Ariba consultants and administrators.
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