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Dear community members,
I am starting a mini blog series to describe the integration between IBP and Ariba Supply Chain Collaboration (SCC). The content is based on my hands-on experience and it will be structured as follows:
The integration with Ariba Supply Chain Collaboration (SCC) is facilitated by the Business Network Collaboration, a feature of the Control Tower module.
Key benefit: there is a direct connectivity between IBP and Ariba SCC, which means there is no need for a middleware. The Integration is based on cXML messages, a protocol created by Ariba and based on XML.
Now, following the steps from the Application Help, let's review the settings that must be configured on IBP side.
Open the Communication Systems fiori app and choose a new entry to define the communication system required for the integration with Ariba. Once that you have provided a name for the System ID and the System Name, the communication system is created and you will need to:
Add SAP_COM_0201 Communication Scenario as a new entry under the Communication Arrangement app. In the next screen, besides providing the communication system name you created in the previous step you will notice that the rest of the fields are prefilled.
However, you may want to review the Job Execution section where the default value is 02 Minutes. This value indicates the frequency of the polling job, how often IBP will check if there are any incoming cXML in the queue coming from Ariba's end. To make an analogy here, this is similar to the CPI-DS agent which is scheduled to check every 40 seconds or so if there is an integration job triggered from IBP side.
Authentication Method
There are 2 ways you can manage the authentication of the cXML you are sending on Ariba side. Details are available here.
Manage Data Sharing Plans
This app is the place where the interface between IBP and Ariba SCC is defined: what data is shared, with whom and how. There are 4 main sections you will need to pay attention to:
The general information area contains the settings that apply to the data sharing arrangement. A very important field is the Visibility Filter which controls which data is shared with the supplier mentioned under the Arrangement Attributes. You notice the two attributes available in the Arrangement Attributes sections are those defined one step higher in the hierarchy, at the Data Sharing Plan level.
Once you completed all these settings, don't forget to enable the data sharing plan!
If you would like to preview the content of the communication arrangement, while you are in view mode, click on the Preview button next to your arrangement. This will open a CSV file which contains the planning object combinations for which the data will be extracted.
Running the Integration from IBP to Ariba
Triggering the data integration from IBP to Ariba can be done both from fiori and excel UIs (application job).
In the current release (1708) the monitoring of the cXML is not available from the front-end but this is expected to be enhanced in the next release!
Stay tuned for the next post where I will describe the required settings on Ariba SCC side.
Best
Alecsandra
I am starting a mini blog series to describe the integration between IBP and Ariba Supply Chain Collaboration (SCC). The content is based on my hands-on experience and it will be structured as follows:
- Part I - Setting up IBP
- Part II - Setting up Ariba SCC
- Part III - Running the integration E2E
Integration Overview
The integration with Ariba Supply Chain Collaboration (SCC) is facilitated by the Business Network Collaboration, a feature of the Control Tower module.
Key benefit: there is a direct connectivity between IBP and Ariba SCC, which means there is no need for a middleware. The Integration is based on cXML messages, a protocol created by Ariba and based on XML.
Now, following the steps from the Application Help, let's review the settings that must be configured on IBP side.
Communication System
Open the Communication Systems fiori app and choose a new entry to define the communication system required for the integration with Ariba. Once that you have provided a name for the System ID and the System Name, the communication system is created and you will need to:
- maintain service.ariba.com under the hostname
- choose outbound authentication method as None
Communication Arrangement
Add SAP_COM_0201 Communication Scenario as a new entry under the Communication Arrangement app. In the next screen, besides providing the communication system name you created in the previous step you will notice that the rest of the fields are prefilled.
However, you may want to review the Job Execution section where the default value is 02 Minutes. This value indicates the frequency of the polling job, how often IBP will check if there are any incoming cXML in the queue coming from Ariba's end. To make an analogy here, this is similar to the CPI-DS agent which is scheduled to check every 40 seconds or so if there is an integration job triggered from IBP side.
Authentication Method
There are 2 ways you can manage the authentication of the cXML you are sending on Ariba side. Details are available here.
Manage Data Sharing Plans
This app is the place where the interface between IBP and Ariba SCC is defined: what data is shared, with whom and how. There are 4 main sections you will need to pay attention to:
- General information: the settings maintained here are available for all the business partners within the plan. For example, you input the planning area, the communication arrangement and the sharing mode which can be provider (outbound from IBP) or consumer (inbound to IBP).
- Plan Attributes: the attributes defined will be available in all the data sharing arrangements you will create in the last section
- The first one that I maintained in the Ariba Network ID (ANID) which is the identification number of an Ariba network account. This attribute is not available in IBP but it is needed for Ariba to know how to process the incoming data.
- The second one is the Supplier ID. I left the default value empty, as the supplier ID, in my case, was defined differently for each communication arrangement.
- Mappings: in this section, we specify how the source elements should be mapped to the target elements.
In my example, I mapped the Supplier Forecast key figure using the attributes of its base planning level: WEEK, Product ID, Location ID (Supplier ID) and Ship-To Location ID. Sending the forecast on a different level of aggregation is possible too.
- Arrangements: these data arrangements specify which data is shared and with which business partner.
The general information area contains the settings that apply to the data sharing arrangement. A very important field is the Visibility Filter which controls which data is shared with the supplier mentioned under the Arrangement Attributes. You notice the two attributes available in the Arrangement Attributes sections are those defined one step higher in the hierarchy, at the Data Sharing Plan level.
Once you completed all these settings, don't forget to enable the data sharing plan!
If you would like to preview the content of the communication arrangement, while you are in view mode, click on the Preview button next to your arrangement. This will open a CSV file which contains the planning object combinations for which the data will be extracted.
Running the Integration from IBP to Ariba
Triggering the data integration from IBP to Ariba can be done both from fiori and excel UIs (application job).
In the current release (1708) the monitoring of the cXML is not available from the front-end but this is expected to be enhanced in the next release!
Stay tuned for the next post where I will describe the required settings on Ariba SCC side.
Best
Alecsandra
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