Real time visibility into Ariba Procurement Operations(P2O) using SAP Business Technology Platform

[Venugopal]

Overview

Procurement Operation teams requires real time insight  into Purchasing to make sure the approvals are  completed on time and released to suppliers. In SAP Ariba , buyers create request for purchasing goods and services. A purchase request  has to undergo multiple approval depending on the approval rules configured in Ariba. After the approvals , a purchase order is created and send to the suppliers. The visibility content package in SAP API Business Hub enable  procurement operations or shared service centers responsible for purchasing  to gain real time visibility into Ariba P2O process and ensure their key performance indicators are fulfilled.

SAP Business Technology Platform has Workflow management service with process visibility capability. Process Visibility enable business users to gain real time insight into process executing in a heterogeneous landscape. Process Visibility enable process operators or process owners to get deeper insight into their processes and understand how key KPIs are functioning and areas of improvement in their processes.

SAP Workflow Management provides Live Process Content enable customers to configure/modify and deploy this content to their landscape. Real time visibility into Ariba Procurement Operations visibility content enable customers to consume this out of the box with minimal configurations. The scenario gives visibility into Purchase Requisition Creation , Approvals and Purchase Order Creation. It includes Process Performance indicators to track key SLAs. Customers can extend this scenario by adding new transaction events using text rules or new performance indicators.

This content package includes

• Integration content to extract Ariba Purchase Requisitions periodically.

• Business Rules to transform purchase requisition data into process visibility events.

• Process Visibility scenario with pre-configured phases, performance indicators.

Solution Architecture

The below solution diagram explains how Purchase Requisition data extracted from Ariba, transformed to process visibility using business rules. Business users can access the process workspace using SAP Cloud Portal or Launchpad service.

Integration

The scenario extract Purchase Requisition data periodically (for eg.: every 5 minute) based on a time stamp to include only those records where there is a change happened in last 5 minutes. The integration model transforms the extracted data, pushed to Business Rules and generate Process Visibility events. These events together with some Purchase Requisition data are consumed in process visibility. It is possible to extract the data from a past date to include all Purchase requisition beginning from a specific past date. Ariba returns only a fixed number of Purchase Requisition and if there are more records , a page token is attached with the response. Using the page token next set of Purchase Requisitions are loaded. Please refer the integration guide in SAP API Business Hub.

Business Rules

Ariba Purchase Requisition data transformed to Process Visibility  events using Business Rules. Pre- configured text rules generate process visibility events. Customers can modify or copy these text rules to generate new visibility events. Please refer the Business Rules Configuration guide in SAP API Business Hub.

Process Visibility

Process Visibility events and purchase requisition data are consumed to configure a business scenario. It includes phases, calculated attributes and performance indicators. Customers can extend this by adding new visibility events or process performance indicators. Process operators can get an aggregated view in their Ariba P2O operations together with key performance indicators.

All Purchase Requisitions are grouped into meaningful phases enable procurement operations team to get an aggregated view of purchase requisitions. Cycle time is configured for the entire process and measured with actual. The process workspace provides the time taken for each phase and process owners can deep dive into individual cases to gain better insights.