Guided Integration Capability For Suppliers In SAP Business Network

For suppliers having enterprise account in the SAP Business Network, the option of integrating their backend ERP system with the business network via SAP Integration Suite, Managed Gateway for Spend Management (earlier known as Cloud Integration Gateway) is already available for a while.

However, supplier integration initiatives are often time consuming, relatively complex with a high degree of dependence on SAP integration team. With the latest 2308 SAP Ariba release, SAP has made this integration effort much more simpler for a particular category of suppliers by enabling a self-service tool style widget directly on the supplier's network account.

Suppliers can now discover their current customers easily with Guided Integration for Trading Partners interface. After finding customers, suppliers can rapidly and autonomously integrate your business processes with Guided Integration for Trading Partners.

Earlier, the entire flow below used to be executed by an integration specialist, often, internal from SAP in the CIG interface. Now, most of these steps can be executed in the business network account user interface by a supplier user.

Which Category Of Suppliers Can Access This Option:

Currently, only SAP Business Network Enterprise Platinum account suppliers can use this guided integration feature. Supplier who do not have a SAP Business Network Enterprise Platinum account, the integration widget will be hidden and the integration menu will not display. An enterprise supplier account is considered platinum level if the number of documents transacted per year is above 500. My own take is that eventually, SAP will make this enhancement available for all enterprise level suppliers. The larger goal with this improvement is to free up SAP internal resources busy doing integrations and enabling suppliers to own the same.

Process Steps:

1. Entering The Guided Integration Widget

Suppliers can choose one of the following methods to start the guided integration:

• Click the Integration tab in the main menu.

• Select the Integration overview widget from the My widgets section in the Workbench. If the widget is hidden, add it to the Workbench.

2. Finding Existing Buyers

As the next step, suppliers need to fill out a questionnaire to get information they can use to determine whether respective buyers are compatible before looking to interact with buyers for additional business operations.

To access and fill out the required questions can be accessed once suppliers enter the integration overview page as shown below.

The questionnaire is known as "Integration Management" and gathers information on Business processes. Broadly, the questions are categorized two, under different tiles: Integration capabilities, and document types.

To answer the questions for the integration capabilities, go to Integration Profile.

Click on the Integration Capabilities tile to view the questionnaire.

To answer the questions on document types, click on the respective tile from the Integration Profile page.

SAP Business Network builds buyer templates for the document types once a supplier user has answered all the necessary questions for the document type.

3. Using Compatibility Dashboard

When suppliers finish answering the integration management questionnaire, they can utilize the compatibility dashboard to look for current buyer to integrate with for additional business activities. The information from the integration profile is compared with the business rules established by the buyers using this dashboard. The dashboard enables suppliers to search new buyers to integrate with for various business processes, as well as to identify compatibilities and incompatibilities with potential buyers. Additionally, it aids in pointing out gaps in supplier's business operations that may need improvement in order to be more appealing to customers.

Possible examples of gaps can be:

Order confirmations document: When previously confirmed information, such as the order amount, changes, order confirmations are not updated by a supplier. However, the vast majority of buyers favor giving their suppliers this flexibility.

Invoice Document: A supplier sends invoices for only those orders that are sent over the SAP business network. However, majority of buyers want invoices for orders not sent by SAP Business Network (i.e., non-PO invoices) too.

To access the dashboard, navigate to View Compatibility Page from the Integration overview interface.

Suppliers can click on individual buyer from the list to check compatibility.

More than one Buyers can be selected and can be compared against each other.

Based on the business rules suppliers want to modify, they can change edit their answer.

4. Comparing Supplier and Buyer Business Processes and Reconcile Inconsistencies

By sending and receiving documents through SAP Business Network, buyers and suppliers conduct business using cXML. For these transactions to be successful, buyers and suppliers must have suitable business procedures.

For each type of document, SAP Business Network automatically creates the SAP Golden Template. It draws intelligence from a cross section of current buyer and supplier relationships across various industries when creating these templates. This is a typical template that corresponds to the fields used the most frequently in SAP Business Network. The usual fields that purchasers use for purchase orders, for instance, are included in the SAP golden template for purchase orders.

For each document type, suppliers can have a unique SAP Supplier Super Template. This template has been specifically designed to match every buyer relationship you have in SAP Business Network. This template includes the standard cXML for the document type that applies to all customers with whom the suppliers have a business connection. An initial SAP Supplier Super Template is produced by SAP Business Network utilizing the purchases with a supplier has done business in the previous calendar year for a particular document type.

The Data Type Definition References can be downloaded for the document type by clicking Data Type Definition References at the bottom of the page.

Any discrepancies can be resolved once the templates have been compared. The reconciled template can be saved, downloaded, and shared with the middleware teams for further adjustment of the mappings.

5. Mapping and Transforming Reconciled Template Using AP Integration Suite, Managed Gateway for Spend Management

As the final step, the reconciled template can be mapped and altered using SAP Integration Suite, Managed Gateway for Spend Management, and SAP Business Network. To do that, users need to click the "map and transform template" link on the Integration Overview page. It opens in a new browser tab are SAP Integration Suite, Managed Gateway for Spend Management, and SAP Business Network where single sign-on can be used to log in.