This blog provides an overview of key innovations in the 2302 Release of SAP Business Network Solutions.
On March 17, 2023, we released exciting new SAP Business Network innovations for our customers. We continue the vision based on the foundation laid down in the 2105 release back in May 2021.
Let me share some of the key highlights from the SAP Business Network 2302 Release:
Supplier self-assessment questionnaire - Human Rights
A self-assessment questionnaire can be centrally maintained by customers to run Human Rights due-diligence activities. Supplier Self-Assessment Questionnaires are out-of-the-box, standard questionnaires that Suppliers can maintain and share with Buyers via SAP Business Network. With this questionnaire, Suppliers can prepare for Human Rights due diligence requests from their Buyers.
By maintaining questionnaires on the Network, Suppliers can share with many Buyers thereby providing a true Network Effect. Traditionally, Buyers collect data for processes such as qualification and risk due diligence in a one-to-one exchange with Suppliers. For Suppliers, these requests are similar from most or all of their Buyers and the process is redundant and inefficient. With the Supplier Self-Assessment Questionnaire, Suppliers can prepare for Human Rights due diligence requests from their Buyers.
As a Supplier, you can proactively complete the questionnaire and share it on SAP Business Network . A Buyer request is not needed to access or complete it. You can select Buyers with whom you wish to share the assessment. You can complete the assessment once and share with many Buyers. Any updates you make are automatically sent via notification to Buyers with whom you’ve shared the assessment.
Sustainability Ratings on Trading Partner Profile
The new capability in SAP Business Network enables Suppliers to showcase their Sustainability ratings on SAP Business Network Profiles to increase trust and provide transparency on Environmental, Sustainability, and Governance to buyers.
Trading Partner Marketing Profile with Updated User Experience
The Marketing Profile is now presented to buyers during trading partner search, to suppliers from the profile editor, and to buyers and suppliers using SAP Business Network Discovery search. The Marketing Profile has been enhanced to provide features that were previously available in the legacy Company Profile.
Previously, the Company Profile was displayed when a buyer searched for a supplier, when a supplier viewed their public profile, and when buyers and suppliers searched on SAP Business Network Discovery. Now, the Marketing Profile is displayed when a buyer searches for a supplier, when a supplier views their public profile, and when buyers and suppliers search on SAP Business Network Discovery.
Transaction Workbench filters and categories for tiles for Improved Supplier Access.
Today the filter panel is hidden in the default view and requires user action to expand and view. This prevents the user to access the right filters in a seamless and efficient way for users to do a quick search by a document number, in the context of the tile they are on.
Similarly, we have made improvements in Tile catalog , where we are now categorizing tiles in the catalog under different functional areas. There is an indicator in the form of a check mark to advise the user that a tile is already on the Workbench.
With this feature, we are exposing the most commonly used filters, in the context of that tile. This will help users to be aware of the functionality. The awareness will bring attention to personalization features and getting more value and improve adoption. The improvements will enable them to do a quick filter search without having to navigate back to home page.It allows the users to expand and see the rest of the filter options.
Continuous Test Environment Support for External Invoices
The localizations done for external tax invoice flows present important restrictions to support continuous testing environment. Buyers and suppliers cannot use their productive tax IDs for testing purposes after they go live. Tax IDs are used to link external tax invoices to the corresponding Network buyer and supplier accounts.
SAP Business Network now provides a better and more robust solution to route and assign the external tax invoices to the production and test accounts across all inbound channels.Buyers and suppliers can now use their tax IDs either in their production or test accounts.
Key Benefits include
Legal Profile Enhancement - Singapore
This feature mandates suppliers in Singapore to configure a legal profile in the SAP Business Network supplier accounts. When a buyer enables the country/region specific rule for Singapore, the system now validates the status of the supplier’s legal profile.
This validation enables suppliers to send only regulatory-compliant invoices by selecting the relevant legal profile.
Supplier Insights
Days to pay KPI
The Days to Pay KPI widget displays the average days to pay invoices on the supplier home page. Days to pay is one of a number of KPIs that may indicate the business results of SAP Business Network and SAP’s procurement apps. Suppliers can clearly see how long customers take to pay. The days to pay KPI helps suppliers to understand improvements resulting from a customer’s early payment program. The definition of the KPI is the average number of days required to process an invoice between the invoice date and the payment date.
Invoice Cycle time Benchmark
The Invoice Cycle time Benchmarking widget displays the average invoice cycle time on the supplier home page. The invoice cycle time benchmarking widget allows suppliers to compare their customers’ average invoice cycle time performance against the aggregate performance of the network. Suppliers may compare performance by supplier region, buyer industry, and buyer performance quartile.
The Benchmark is calculated based on the number of business days required to process an invoice from, when the invoice is received by the Accounts Payable Department until it is approved and scheduled for payment.
Invoice Exception Rate KPI
The invoice exception rate KPI widget measures the percentage of invoices sent by suppliers to their customer's Accounts Payable (AP) Department that contains an error of some kind and are rejected by the Accounts Payable department.
Suppliers can create a dialogue with their customers about performance to work together to improve the fulfillment process, reduce costs and strengthen their relationship.
The benchmarking data helps the suppliers to identify customer behaviors for discussion in contractual negotiations and in quarterly business reviews. The widget provides access to benchmarking data spanning many industries and regions and eliminates costly data collection activities required to share data with a benchmarking service provider.
Enhanced support of international standards
Collaboration with carriers is supported via our standard APIs and Web UIs. However, some carriers prefer to collaborate following ANSI X12 EDI standards or UN/EDIFACT. With this release we extended our support of these standards:
In the graphic below, you get an overview of currently supported UN/EDIFACT and ANSI X12 documents. For more details on implementing these standards, please refer to our integration guides on SAP Help Portal.
Global Track and Trace
Stock Transport Order Tracking
Companies often have numerous plants in different geographical locations and frequently require stock movement between plants. Stock transport order (STO) helps companies manage the movement of the stock in SAP systems and keep track of the exact amount/volume that has been moved. There are different variations of a stock transfer, but the general starting point is the receiving plant creating the STO – similar to a purchase order.
Now, SAP Business Network Global Track and Trace can support tracking of STOs. The following scenarios are supported:
The stock transport order tracking is a new capability delivered as part of SAP Business Network Global Track and Trace standard applications. It is enabled though the Purchase Order Fulfillment app with the following enhancements:
There are new enhancements for Operators to manage Improvement Request for Templates
Mass management of confirmations: create & submit for review
Automated Transfer of New Handling-Unit Packaging Instructions
When a buyer creates or updates packaging instructions in their SAP S/4HANA system, this feature coordinates with SAP Ariba Cloud Integration Gateway for the automatic transfer of those instructions to SAP Business Network for Supply Chain. An automated interchange of packaging instructions would provide more efficiency, as it reduces manual effort and also aligns with SAP strategy of ensuring integrated end-to-end processes. The capability includes
Quality Collaboration Improvements
This feature makes improvements to quality collaboration, both for quality inspections and quality notifications. For quality notifications, this feature enhances a validation check and adds additional subfilters to additional quality notification fields.
A new Business validation has been introduced to Block ship notice creation when an open quality notification for material without a purchase order reference exists .This allows buyers to prevent their suppliers from creating ship notices for purchase orders containing a material (Customer part no.) that the buyers previously complained about in a quality notification which did not reference a specific purchase order. Suppliers then cannot send ship notices that contain this faulty material, except for purchase orders that have accepted quality inspections.
These are the key innovations for 2302. Please review the readiness content for further details.
Please visit https://www.sap.com/products/business-network.html to learn more about SAP Business Network.
For further questions and feedback related to the blog, please check the Q&A area and feel free to post your questions in the link with the tag SAP Business Network for Procurement or SAP Business Network for Logistics. or SAP Business Network for Asset Management.
On March 17, 2023, we released exciting new SAP Business Network innovations for our customers. We continue the vision based on the foundation laid down in the 2105 release back in May 2021.
Let me share some of the key highlights from the SAP Business Network 2302 Release:
SAP Business Network
Supplier self-assessment questionnaire - Human Rights
A self-assessment questionnaire can be centrally maintained by customers to run Human Rights due-diligence activities. Supplier Self-Assessment Questionnaires are out-of-the-box, standard questionnaires that Suppliers can maintain and share with Buyers via SAP Business Network. With this questionnaire, Suppliers can prepare for Human Rights due diligence requests from their Buyers.
By maintaining questionnaires on the Network, Suppliers can share with many Buyers thereby providing a true Network Effect. Traditionally, Buyers collect data for processes such as qualification and risk due diligence in a one-to-one exchange with Suppliers. For Suppliers, these requests are similar from most or all of their Buyers and the process is redundant and inefficient. With the Supplier Self-Assessment Questionnaire, Suppliers can prepare for Human Rights due diligence requests from their Buyers.
As a Supplier, you can proactively complete the questionnaire and share it on SAP Business Network . A Buyer request is not needed to access or complete it. You can select Buyers with whom you wish to share the assessment. You can complete the assessment once and share with many Buyers. Any updates you make are automatically sent via notification to Buyers with whom you’ve shared the assessment.
Sustainability Ratings on Trading Partner Profile
The new capability in SAP Business Network enables Suppliers to showcase their Sustainability ratings on SAP Business Network Profiles to increase trust and provide transparency on Environmental, Sustainability, and Governance to buyers.
- With increasing levels of need for transparency, Buyers can view a Supplier’s verified credentials during the evaluation phase.
- To help customers to upload sustainability ratings from one or more sustainability partners
- Support suppliers to get themselves rated by sustainability partners
- Buyers can search and discover trading partners with sustainability ratings on the Network to assess and take action which impacts their value chains
Trading Partner Marketing Profile with Updated User Experience
The Marketing Profile is now presented to buyers during trading partner search, to suppliers from the profile editor, and to buyers and suppliers using SAP Business Network Discovery search. The Marketing Profile has been enhanced to provide features that were previously available in the legacy Company Profile.
Previously, the Company Profile was displayed when a buyer searched for a supplier, when a supplier viewed their public profile, and when buyers and suppliers searched on SAP Business Network Discovery. Now, the Marketing Profile is displayed when a buyer searches for a supplier, when a supplier views their public profile, and when buyers and suppliers search on SAP Business Network Discovery.
Trading Partner Portal (TPP) Search
Transaction Workbench filters and categories for tiles for Improved Supplier Access.
Today the filter panel is hidden in the default view and requires user action to expand and view. This prevents the user to access the right filters in a seamless and efficient way for users to do a quick search by a document number, in the context of the tile they are on.
Similarly, we have made improvements in Tile catalog , where we are now categorizing tiles in the catalog under different functional areas. There is an indicator in the form of a check mark to advise the user that a tile is already on the Workbench.
With this feature, we are exposing the most commonly used filters, in the context of that tile. This will help users to be aware of the functionality. The awareness will bring attention to personalization features and getting more value and improve adoption. The improvements will enable them to do a quick filter search without having to navigate back to home page.It allows the users to expand and see the rest of the filter options.
SAP Business Network for Procurement
Continuous Test Environment Support for External Invoices
The localizations done for external tax invoice flows present important restrictions to support continuous testing environment. Buyers and suppliers cannot use their productive tax IDs for testing purposes after they go live. Tax IDs are used to link external tax invoices to the corresponding Network buyer and supplier accounts.
SAP Business Network now provides a better and more robust solution to route and assign the external tax invoices to the production and test accounts across all inbound channels.Buyers and suppliers can now use their tax IDs either in their production or test accounts.
Key Benefits include
- Allow customers to further test their country invoice flows after Go Live.
- Eliminate risks of tax invoices crossing realms or ending up in the wrong environment
- Facilitate testing of country flows via email.
Legal Profile Enhancement - Singapore
This feature mandates suppliers in Singapore to configure a legal profile in the SAP Business Network supplier accounts. When a buyer enables the country/region specific rule for Singapore, the system now validates the status of the supplier’s legal profile.
This validation enables suppliers to send only regulatory-compliant invoices by selecting the relevant legal profile.
Supplier Insights
Days to pay KPI
The Days to Pay KPI widget displays the average days to pay invoices on the supplier home page. Days to pay is one of a number of KPIs that may indicate the business results of SAP Business Network and SAP’s procurement apps. Suppliers can clearly see how long customers take to pay. The days to pay KPI helps suppliers to understand improvements resulting from a customer’s early payment program. The definition of the KPI is the average number of days required to process an invoice between the invoice date and the payment date.
Invoice Cycle time Benchmark
The Invoice Cycle time Benchmarking widget displays the average invoice cycle time on the supplier home page. The invoice cycle time benchmarking widget allows suppliers to compare their customers’ average invoice cycle time performance against the aggregate performance of the network. Suppliers may compare performance by supplier region, buyer industry, and buyer performance quartile.
The Benchmark is calculated based on the number of business days required to process an invoice from, when the invoice is received by the Accounts Payable Department until it is approved and scheduled for payment.
Invoice Exception Rate KPI
The invoice exception rate KPI widget measures the percentage of invoices sent by suppliers to their customer's Accounts Payable (AP) Department that contains an error of some kind and are rejected by the Accounts Payable department.
Suppliers can create a dialogue with their customers about performance to work together to improve the fulfillment process, reduce costs and strengthen their relationship.
The benchmarking data helps the suppliers to identify customer behaviors for discussion in contractual negotiations and in quarterly business reviews. The widget provides access to benchmarking data spanning many industries and regions and eliminates costly data collection activities required to share data with a benchmarking service provider.
SAP Business Network for Logistics
Enhanced support of international standards
Collaboration with carriers is supported via our standard APIs and Web UIs. However, some carriers prefer to collaborate following ANSI X12 EDI standards or UN/EDIFACT. With this release we extended our support of these standards:
- EDI 997 (ANSI X12) can now be implemented, acknowledging that an EDI message has been transferred successfully. Please note that this currently only acknowledges incoming messages i.e. EDI 990, 210 and 214.
- IFTMBL (UN/EDIFACT) as a response to a freight order
In the graphic below, you get an overview of currently supported UN/EDIFACT and ANSI X12 documents. For more details on implementing these standards, please refer to our integration guides on SAP Help Portal.
Global Track and Trace
Stock Transport Order Tracking
Companies often have numerous plants in different geographical locations and frequently require stock movement between plants. Stock transport order (STO) helps companies manage the movement of the stock in SAP systems and keep track of the exact amount/volume that has been moved. There are different variations of a stock transfer, but the general starting point is the receiving plant creating the STO – similar to a purchase order.
Now, SAP Business Network Global Track and Trace can support tracking of STOs. The following scenarios are supported:
- STO with outbound deliveries only and transportation managed by SAP TM
- STO with outbound deliveries only and transportation managed by LE-TRA shipment
- STO with both inbound and outbound deliveries and transportation managed by SAP TM
- STO with both inbound and outbound deliveries and transportation managed by LE-TRA shipment
The stock transport order tracking is a new capability delivered as part of SAP Business Network Global Track and Trace standard applications. It is enabled though the Purchase Order Fulfillment app with the following enhancements:
- To search for a STO, a new field has been added to the Purchase Order Fulfillment worklist to filter by ‘Document Type’. You can filter by order Type UB as this is synchronized with the transportation backend system. You can also search for the STO via ‘Delivery Number’ (= Outbound Delivery Number).
- When selecting your STO, the Purchase Order Detail page opens. Here, the Outbound Delivery Items (and if applicable also the Inbound Delivery Items) are listed and are visible in the document flow. In addition, there are new milestones to monitor the STO fulfillment:
- Outbound Delivery Completed
- Inbound Delivery Completed (if applicable)
SAP Business Network for Assets
There are new enhancements for Operators to manage Improvement Request for Templates
- You can now create Improvement Requests of category Master Data Improvement for Templates.
- APIs have been enhanced for the same.
- Master data improvement request for templates to:
- Enable organizations in charge of providing models, equipment, spare parts, and so on out of templates shared by the requesting organization to submit a master data improvement request for the shared templates.
- Enable the template owner to update the shared template based on requests of receiving organizations.
Benefits include
- Improve collaboration based on shared templates.
- Align shared templates to customer needs and requirements in modeling asset
Mass management of confirmations: create & submit for review
- You can create a confirmation for all operations of a Work Order using the Create button in the Operations section of the Work Order object page and the Manage Work Orders page.
- Enable user with submit for review of multiple workorder confirmation in one single screen.
- Manage multiple workorder confirmation efficiently on one single screen.
SAP Business Network for Supply Chain
Automated Transfer of New Handling-Unit Packaging Instructions
When a buyer creates or updates packaging instructions in their SAP S/4HANA system, this feature coordinates with SAP Ariba Cloud Integration Gateway for the automatic transfer of those instructions to SAP Business Network for Supply Chain. An automated interchange of packaging instructions would provide more efficiency, as it reduces manual effort and also aligns with SAP strategy of ensuring integrated end-to-end processes. The capability includes
- New JSON API on Business Network for Supply Chain
- No separate activation is required
- Excel upload still supported for backward compatibility
- Support of initial and delta load
- Full set of packaging instructions will be transferred in the initial transfer (filtering possible)
- If packaging instructions are changed or created a transfer of single instruction is automatically triggered
- Multi-ERP Support
- Differentiation by System ID contained in packaging instruction and purchase order
- Mixed scenario support – one ERP using automated transfer, another one using manual upload
- Tracking of upload history on SAP Business Network for Buyer Admin (will be done in later release)
- New SOAP API for S/4HANA
- Support for S/4HANA Public and Private Cloud in standard releases is planned for 2023
- Several Filters are available to control which Packaging Instruction will be shared with SAP Business Network.
- Limitation to VERP material type will be removed
- Determination information contained in the extract (limited to supported fields on SAP Business Network)
Quality Collaboration Improvements
This feature makes improvements to quality collaboration, both for quality inspections and quality notifications. For quality notifications, this feature enhances a validation check and adds additional subfilters to additional quality notification fields.
A new Business validation has been introduced to Block ship notice creation when an open quality notification for material without a purchase order reference exists .This allows buyers to prevent their suppliers from creating ship notices for purchase orders containing a material (Customer part no.) that the buyers previously complained about in a quality notification which did not reference a specific purchase order. Suppliers then cannot send ship notices that contain this faulty material, except for purchase orders that have accepted quality inspections.
These are the key innovations for 2302. Please review the readiness content for further details.
Please visit https://www.sap.com/products/business-network.html to learn more about SAP Business Network.
For further questions and feedback related to the blog, please check the Q&A area and feel free to post your questions in the link with the tag SAP Business Network for Procurement or SAP Business Network for Logistics. or SAP Business Network for Asset Management.
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