SAP Ariba Quote Automation and integration with SAP S/4HANA Cloud

[vikas_yadav5]

SAP Ariba Quote Automation with Ariba Network integration is useful for the buyer when tasked with occasional non-catalog purchases that involve low spend amounts and do not require complex sourcing processes. Quote Automation allows you to digitally request price updates from your suppliers. Achieve substantial savings for your hybrid tactical spend. For some items you buy without contracts, fast cycle times are expected, so you don’t have the time to compare prices from many suppliers, especially when the market is in steady flux. Quote automation improves your transnational efficiency.

It increases tactical savings, and lets you discover new or better suppliers. With quote automation, you can quickly find new expertise to launch new products or new services in new markets, source in markets with low cost of labor, find quick replacements of suppliers where markets turn around quickly. It helps to support compliance in highly automated buying processes, such as three bids and a buy.

Quote automation is possible with direct integration between SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Ariba Network, and SAP Ariba Discovery.





 

Quote Automation can be explained with two scenarios:

Scenario 1: Identified Suppliers are invited (from SAP S/4HANA)

Purchasers in SAP S/4HANA can send Quote requests, with qualified suppliers identified, on the Ariba Network, asking for price and quantity information as well as for shipping costs. In SAP S/4HANA, these documents are created as requests for quotation of a specific document type. Invited suppliers receive notifications about the business opportunity from Ariba and they can respond to the RFQ posting on Ariba Discovery.

 

Scenario 2: Suppliers identified through matching

You can have SAP Ariba Discovery match suppliers based on goods or service categories from your approved vendor list or public suppliers. Matched suppliers receive notifications about the business opportunity from Ariba and they can respond to the RFQ posting on Ariba Discovery.

Depending on your quote automation posting configuration, the winning bid can automatically be sent back to SAP S/4HANA with no required action in SAP Ariba Discovery, or a procurement agent can review the responses and award suppliers in SAP Ariba Discovery before the winning bids are sent to SAP S/4HANA.

 

Set-up Instructions (SAP S/4HANA Cloud Integration with Ariba Network for Quote Automation):

Ariba Network:

• Configure Business Application ID for SAP S/4HANA Cloud

Make sure that the name of Business Application ID and End Point has to be similar to either logical system ID or system id of your SAP S/4HANA Cloud system

• Configure Business Application ID for Ariba Network Quote Automation

Two End points need to be maintained under Ariba Network System ID: 1- SAP S/4 HANA End Point, which has to be similar to either logical system ID or system id of your SAP S/4HANA Cloud system, with the same shared secret set in last step, 2- Ariba Network End Point with name Ariba

• Ensure that you have suppliers with active relationship on Ariba Network and they are assigned to Private IDs.

Supplier master records in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud use IDs (Business Partner number) for identification. Customers with several ERP and/or SAP S/4HANA Cloud systems may even use different IDs assigned to the same supplier in each respective system. Hence you need to assign your SAP S/4HANA Supplier ID /BP Number along with Corresponding system id to Supplier on Ariba Network

• Quote Automation Rules

The settings you make here configure the quote request flow and the category matching rules to specify whether you want only your approved suppliers or all Ariba Network suppliers to participate in a product or service category. To route to Quote Automation, you need to choose the option "Ariba Network”

• Commodity Mapping

Ariba uses the United Nations Standard Products and Services Code (UNSPSC) classification domain for mapping commodities. However, the SAP S/4HANA system might use different standards for mapping commodities. Configuring commodity mapping ensures that the commodity codes which are nothing, but material groups used in the SAP S/4HANA system are mapped to the UNSPSC codes used in Ariba Network. The fields in Upload template are case sensitive, make sure that you put the values with right characters.

• Posting Configuration for Quote Automation

Required to transfer the Quote immediately to the SAP S/4HANA Cloud from Ariba Network Buyer Account.

 

 

S/4HANA Cloud:

• Activate cXML Message Types

You need to activate cXML message types for ‘QuoteMessage’ and ‘QuoteRequest’

• Credentials and Endpoints

Specify the ‘Ariba Network ID’ (ANID) that identify your company (or companies) on the Ariba Network and end points for the technical communication with the Ariba Network.

• Assign Network ID to Company Code

Enable the Ariba Network to identify the sender of data by assigning the Ariba Network ID to your company codes.

• Communication Systems and communication arrangement

Define the Communication system (may be with name ‘ARIBA’) and maintain Communication arrangement SAP_COM_0032

• Configure Workflow for Supplier Quotation

With this configuration step, you define release conditions for approval of supplier quotation received from Ariba.

 

Testing Steps:

 

For more Information on System set-up and test script, please refer to Scope Item

'Supplier Quote Automation with SAP Ariba Commerce Automation (‏1L2‏)'

 

[former_member154085]

Nice and precise write up.

Ariba Cloud integration with Ariba network does present immense opportunities to the businesses for Direct and indirect procurement needs.

Your write up provides practical details while not being too technical in its discourse. Something that all procurement functional consultants look for.

Thanks for the share. Conciseness and coverage are well worth the appreciation.

[vikas_yadav5]

Thanks Anshuman!

[former_member261618]

Hi Vikas,

 

Thanks for sharing the information. Would you also add any specific license requirement for quote automation to function? For example, does a customer require Ariba Sourcing license to push the quote to Ariba Network?

 

Regards,

Sherin

[vikas_yadav5]

Hi Sherin,

Quote automation is possible on Ariba network only, you don't need Ariba sourcing for that. Ariba Discovery is just an extension of Network.

 

Best Regards

Vikas

[former_member655763]

A little off topic but do you know if SAP Solution Manager CBTA can be used to test Ariba?

[kaushiksampathkumar]

Thanks for sharing the information. Is there a way to do Bid comparison or awarding Bid in S/4 instead of Ariba Buyer ?

[monaliz_p_dizon]

Is there a CONFIG guide for the RFQ from ECC to be routed to  Ariba Network  using the standard integration of CIG? 

We have the existing configuration of RFQ created in ECC, sent to  (passthrough) SAP PI middleware  (as per the CIG set-up), then SAP middleware transmit the xml messages to  the RFC adapter for the Sourcingr;  but with the new Digital Supplier Network implementation, we want to have another routing of RFQ from SAP ECC to AN using the standard integration of CIG (without the SAP PI).

[Varun_G]

@vikas_yadav5 :

Excellent post. I have been working on the setup. Have a couple of issues. Will be great if you can help. I have been able to send the quoteRequest to the SAP Business Network and it is reaching the suppliers. Supplier submits the bid and the bids are successfully received in the Buyer discovery screen. Post this, we have 2 options:

Option 1. Award in Ariba discovery and send the award to SAP

- If I use this option the award is sent to SAP as QuoteMessageOrder and that fails in S4 Cloud system. Based on debugging, the quotemessageOrder is not a supported document in S4 Cloud. Here are the screenshots for reference:

Option 2. Wait for the event to finish so the bids can be sent to SAP as quote message for evaluation and award

- Nothing happens after the closure of the event and only option will be to award the event in order to send award to SAP, but it will have the same issue as option 1 once awarded.

So precisely I am not able to find a way on how to send the QuoteMessage type document to SAP using which I can evaluate and award in SAP.

[AlinyCopino]

Boa Noite
Para fornecedores que não possuem cadastro na Network, é possível enviar a carta convite para participar da RFQ gerada?