Today, Ariba releases their first set of new features for 2019 (approximately 43 new features in total). It can take hours to get through all the material to understand the potential for your company.
I’ve taken the time to read through the release guides available on the Ariba Connect support platform and have compiled what I perceive to be the top 20 most impactful features of the release. In 15 minutes, you’ll have a good idea of what this release is about.
In addition to listing my analysis of the features in this article, I’ve included them in table format (Excel) for download at the bottom of the article. Feel free to share as you please.
First, A Bit of House Keeping…
This year, SAP Ariba announced a change in their deployment calendar for 2019 from monthly releases to quarterly releases. Why? In my view: quality over quantity. 2018 was a year of massive investment in the Ariba suite by SAP. This enabled SAP Ariba to keep building on its lead as the premier end-to-end Source-to-Pay application provider while increasing the coupling of Ariba technologies with the SAP ECC/S4 backend ERP systems.
However, I saw two main side effects from this push last year:
- Customer could not keep up with the pace of change so they not able to capture the value proposed by these innovations.
- SAP Ariba release quality was not as high as it could have been.
I think this is a wise move by Ariba. By focusing on quality and impact over quantity, I think everyone involved will get more bang for their buck! Here are the planned quarterly release dates for this year:
Q1 Top 20 Most Impactful Features
#20 – Segregation of Data Based on Authorizations for Buyer Users
Module: Supply Chain Collaboration (Ariba Network)
Type: Automatically On
Ease of Implementation: Low Touch / Simple
Geographic Relevance: Global
Potential Positive Impact: Low
Main Takeaways
- Currently, the buyer role on the Ariba Network has access to all purchasing data across the registered Ariba Network ID.
- This functionality enables segregation of access to data based on SAP Company Code, Plant and Planner Code for purchase orders, order confirmations and ASN.
- This is useful if you are using a single ANID for multiple legal entities
- Requires configuration to setup and only applies to Ariba Network interface.
#19 – Support for Exporting Catalog Comparison Report
Module: SAP Ariba Buying
Type: Automatically On
Ease of Implementation: Low Touch / Simple
Geographic Relevance: Global
Potential Positive Impact: Low
Main Takeaways
- A new button is now available in the catalog comparison summary to export the catalog in excel format for further analysis. For large catalogs, this will be very useful as you cannot always manipulate the data as desired in the UI.
#18 – Event Bid History via Excel Export
Module: SAP Ariba Sourcing
Type: Automatically On
Ease of Implementation: Low Touch / Simple
Geographic Relevance: Global
Potential Positive Impact: Low
Main Takeaways
- There is currently no simple way to export and analyze an event’s bid history.
- Ariba will provide a new report accessible throught the RFx “Report” tab. You will be able to see all bids made by all supplier on every line item in your event. If they bid more than once on an item. You will also see this evolution.
- Useful for analysis of how events unfolded post-humously and to prepare negotiations with suppliers.
- This report will only be available for events run AFTER the functionality release date.
#17 – Consignment Report
Module: Supply Chain Collaboration (Ariba Network)
Type: Automatically On
Ease of Implementation: Low Touch / Simple
Geographic Relevance: Global
Potential Positive Impact: Medium
Main Takeaways
- Currently, if a supplier/buyer wants to reconcile consignment movements for a specified period, they have to manually go through past transactions. There are no reports available to summarize all movements with logistics information.
- This new report addresses this gap by grouping all this information in a single, downloadable (excel) report.The report goes back a maximum of 60 days.
- The report contains at maximum 60,000 records.
- The report is limited to a single supplier/customer relationship.
#16 – Ship Notice Update
Module: Supply Chain Collaboration (Ariba Network)
Type: Customer Enabled / Configurable
Ease of Implementation: Low Touch / Simple
Geographic Relevance: Global
Potential Positive Impact: Medium
Main Takeaways
- Currently, Ariba Network does not provide the option to change a previously submitted ASN. You could cancel under certain circumstances.
- Especially for technical issues (ASN failed because of a certain value), it is a great new feature to help with exception scenarios that may be a thorn in your side.
- Default transaction rule must be turned on to enable modification of ASN documents by suppliers.
- ASN must be edited in the same system it was originally created (ie. AN vs. backend for integrated suppliers).
#15 – Catalog Approval Workflow Enhancements
Module: SAP Ariba Buying
Type: Automatically On
Ease of Implementation: Low Touch / Simple
Geographic Relevance: Global
Potential Positive Impact: Medium
Main Takeaways
- Currently, catalog approval applies to the entire catalog. There is no way to divide the catalog into subsets to get different approvers for different sections of the catalog.
- This new feature allows catalog items to be grouped into sets and approvals to be routed based on these sets which provides a more robust way to ensure prices are correct in catalogs.
- This is a small change that goes a long way to enabling rigor that will directly affect your maverick spend goals.
- Only available for sites managing catalogs using CMS.
#14 – Enhancements to Service Sheet Approval Emails
Module: SAP Ariba Buying
Type: Customer Enabled / Configurable
Ease of Implementation: Low Touch / Simple
Geographic Relevance: Global
Potential Positive Impact: Medium
Main Takeaways
- The Service Entry Sheet approval emails will now contain information on accounting, whether a service is planned or unplanned and any supplier attachments.
- Comments entered in the e-mail by the approvers will also be sent to the Ariba Network for suppliers to see so they can understand the actions (approve/reject) taken by the approver.
- This should limit the need for approvers to login to SAP Ariba to approve this item type.
- The limit for attachments in 10 MB. If bigger, you will have to login to Ariba to view the attachment.
#13 – Mass Clause Upload in SAP Ariba Contracts
Module: SAP Ariba Contracts
Type: Automatically On
Ease of Implementation: Low Touch / Simple
Geographic Relevance: Global
Potential Positive Impact: Medium
Main Takeaways
- This new export is a complex “Zip” file and it will be very easy to make a mistake that may have an adverse effect on your clause library. Ensure you are testing any major changes done via this file in your Test site before loading into production.
- For expert users, this will be a welcome feature to push mass changes in contract clauses.
- Users can choose to export a subset or the entirety of the clause library for update outside the system.
#12 – Simplified Excel Uploads for Creating or Updating Event Line Items
Module: SAP Ariba Sourcing
Type: Automatically On
Ease of Implementation: Low Touch / Simple
Geographic Relevance: Global
Potential Positive Impact: Medium
Main Takeaways
- The current RFx line item upload excel template has 4-5 worksheets that need to be filled correctly in order to update your event. It’s quite complex to use if you’re using it for the first time. You have to get comfortable before being efficient with it.
- Ariba has simplified the excel template so that it all fits on a single excel worksheet. It’s much easier to use as a casual user. This provides a more intuitive user experience.
- It’s not clear whether or not the old template will still be available. If you’ve built your process around the old template, you may have to adjust.
#11 – Analytical Reporting API Enhancements
Module: API
Type: Automatically On
Ease of Implementation: Low Touch / Simple
Geographic Relevance: Global
Potential Positive Impact: High
Main Takeaways
- Currently, when you tap the Analytical Reporting API to extract SAP Ariba data and send it to an analytics tool, you can only request the out-of-the-box fields. Any custom fields cannot be queried.
- This new features enables queries on all custom fields added to your Ariba solution. You can finally get your important data out of the tool via API.
- You must be registered to the SAP Ariba developer portal to get access.
#10 – Error Notifications for Suppliers
Module: Supply Chain Collaboration (Ariba Network)
Type: Customer Enabled / Configurable
Ease of Implementation: Low Touch / Simple
Geographic Relevance: Global
Potential Positive Impact: High
Main Takeaways
- Currently, only buyers have the ability to turn on error notifications for document failures in the interfaces on the Ariba Network. Suppliers are never notified if a document fails even if it is on their interfaces.
- Honestly, this is a great feature. It takes the burden off the customer for management of the supplier’s interface issues. This is a small change that can have a big impact if you are experiencing technical difficulties with a supplier’s interfaces.
- This feature requires customer configuration on the Ariba Network and requires a Service Request to be enabled.
#9 – Configuration of Component Editability in the Order Confirmation
Module: Supply Chain Collaboration (Ariba Network)
Type: Customer Enabled / Configurable
Ease of Implementation: Low Touch / Simple
Geographic Relevance: Global
Potential Positive Impact: High
Main Takeaways
- Currently, on subcontracting orders, supplier cannot modify the components when submitting an order confirmation. This means that even if they physically used a different batch or component to produce your product, they cannot correctly record this. This causes all sorts of inventory integrity problems.
- A new default transaction rule provides customers with the flexibility to allow suppliers to change the components consumed. This applies for example to Pulp & Paper companies where subcontractors may consume different jumbo rolls than the ones sent for that particular subcontracting PO.
- This feature requires customer configuration on the Ariba Network.
- This applies to both Order Confirmations created in the Ariba Network UI or received through cXML.
#8 – Support for Ship Notices for Service Orders Containing Material Line Items
Module: Supply Chain Collaboration (Ariba Network)
Type: Automatically On
Ease of Implementation: Low Touch / Simple
Geographic Relevance: Global
Potential Positive Impact: High
Main Takeaways
- Currently, a “mixed PO” containing both materials and services supports the processing of a Services Entry Sheet (SES) on the services but not of an ASN on the materials. The PO is treated as a Service PO so it is not possible to send the ASN.
- Ship notices can now be sent on “mixed POs” along with SES. This will remove the need to receive material POs and mixed POs differently.
- You need to train your suppliers to use this new functionality if they’ve been coping with this limitation thus far. There will be some adaptation time needed.
#7 – Invoice PDF Redesign
Module: Supply Chain Collaboration (Ariba Network)
Type: Contact SAP Ariba to Enable
Ease of Implementation: High Touch
Geographic Relevance: Global
Potential Positive Impact: High
Main Takeaways
- SAP Ariba has redesigned the way information is presented on the internally generated PDF invoice that can be downloaded on the Ariba Network.
- This groups together relevant header and line item information in a more intuitive way to make it easier to find the needed information, especially on very large invoices.
- This can save lots of time when considering a big AP department with lots of manual verifications of invoices. Make sure you test this extensively and train users on new format before deploying.
- Service Request is needed to activate this functionality.
- The new invoice PDF is labeled “Custom Template 1” in the “Download PDF” button
#6 – Ability to Cancel Requests and POs in Guided Buying
Module: SAP Ariba Guided Buying
Type: Automatically On
Ease of Implementation: Low Touch / Simple
Geographic Relevance: Global
Potential Positive Impact: High
Main Takeaways
- You can now cancel a requisition or purchase order after it is submitted via Guided Buying via a new button.
- Previously, you had to log into the Classic UI or get a buyer to cancel your requisition or PO for you if you did not have access.
- A wrong that has been corrected in my opinion… This should have been there from the start as it is basic functionality. Glad it has been resolved.
#5 – Order Confirmation Enhancements
Module: SAP Ariba Buying
Type: Contact SAP to Enable
Ease of Implementation: Some Complexity
Geographic Relevance: Global
Potential Positive Impact: High
Main Takeaways
- When Order Confirmations are received with a price or delivery date different than what was sent on the PO, there’s no easy way to copy these changes to a PO Change Order. This can lead to mistakes or simply more work for purchasing.
- You can now change the REQ/PO by copying the confirmation information sent by the vendor with a new button in the PO. The user interface and notifications have also been enhanced to include more information.
- Service Request is needed to activate this functionality.
- Change Order must be allowed in your system.
- The notification to take action on the incoming confirmation does not appear in the user’s To Do list but this is planned for a future release.
- This integration is not applicable to Order Confirmations going into SAP ERP so is not applicable for Direct POs from the backend (Although that would be amazing!).
#4 – Pricing Condition Rules for Analytical Report
Module: SAP Ariba Sourcing / SAP Ariba Contracts
Type: Automatically On
Ease of Implementation: Low Touch / Simple
Geographic Relevance: Global
Potential Positive Impact: High
Main Takeaways
- Features to capture line item pricing conditions were recently added to sourcing events. However, it was not possible to report on these conditions using the Ariba reporting engine.
- Pricing Condition information has been added to the following Fact Tables in custom reporting: Event Level Summary, Event Item Summary, Contract Item and Contract Lint Item Document reporting facts.
- You can now include this information in the Sourcing module Analytical Reports.
- New data is only available in reporting 6-10 hours after entry. Consider this when running reports.
- See release guide for details.
#3 – Bill of Materials (BOM) Comparison
Module: SAP Ariba Sourcing (Product Sourcing)
Type: Automatically On
Ease of Implementation: Low Touch / Simple
Geographic Relevance: Global
Potential Positive Impact: High
Main Takeaways
- Currently, it’s difficult to compare similar BOMs or BOM versions of the same part. This makes it difficult to explain part and/or price variations over time (internally and/or to suppliers).
- SAP Ariba now provides a few additional “Compare” buttons in the Product Sourcing dashboard to allow comparison of BOMs. This takes place in a new screen where you see BOMs side-by-side with color coded Line Item that highlight Additions, Deletions and Changes from one BOM to the other.
- Users need to belong to Materials Manager or Materials Viewer groups.
- The BOM comparison can be limited to a chosen BOM level (i.e. Only show the changes on the first two BOM levels)
- This same features is not available for vendors receiving quotes. You’ll therefore have to capture and explain these changes to vendors if it impacts down the line RFx events.
#2 – Bill of Materials (BOM) Volume Integration
Module: SAP Ariba Sourcing (Product Sourcing)
Type: Contact SAP to Enable
Ease of Implementation: Some Complexity
Geographic Relevance: Global
Potential Positive Impact: High
Main Takeaways
- Currently, if you want to include part volume requirements in your RFx, you have to manually enter this information at the top level of your BOM and subsequently at the line item level.
- SAP Ariba now provides a load mechanism (web service) and functionality to document and share the part volume as part of RFx events.
- This means that by setting this up, you can eliminate the need to manually enter volumes going forward.
- This needs to be enabled via Service Request (SR) on Ariba Connect
- For SAP ECC / S4 customers, it’s not clear in the documentation if there’s a standard data export program in the back end and whether or not this is supported in ECC, APO or IBP. Only the Ariba import information is available. Therefore, it won’t be as simple as turning on integration and testing. You have to decide where to get the data from and ensure it comes in in the required format.
#1 – SAP Process Mining by Celonis Cloud Edition for SAP Ariba
Module: Infrastructure and Security
Type: Contact SAP to Enable
Ease of Implementation: High-Touch
Geographic Relevance: Global
Potential Positive Impact: Very High
Main Takeaways
- Celonis can already be used with certain SAP ERP / S4 modules (such as materials management) to get a picture of how your processes are being executed and where the exceptions or loopholes are in the process.
- This was slipped quitely into the February release but is a MAJOR product release in my opinion. It finally makes sense to consider Celonis for the procurement space if you are an Ariba and SAP customer.
- Process Mining will help you squeeze more benefits out of your existing SAP and Ariba investments by helping you optimize your processes so they do what you envisioned them doing at the outset of your implementation.
Supplier Enablement Naming Convention Change
In addition to the new features, SAP Ariba is renaming the different Ariba Network account types for suppliers. The motivation behind the change isn’t stated but I believe it’s simply for marketing purposes. This new terminology aligns with the “Freemium” business model where anyone can sign up for a service with basic functionalities for free but must subscribe to a paid account for further functionality. It is effective since February 2nd. Here are the name changes:
| Old Term | New Term |
| Light | Standard |
| Standard | Enterprise Account (Premium Tier) |
| Bronze | Enterprise Account (Bronze Tier) |
| Silver | Enterprise Account (Silver Tier) |
| Gold | Enterprise Account (Gold Tier) |
| Platinum | Enterprise Account (Platinum Tier) |
These terms have not made their way into the implementation documentation yet so beware when reading. For details, view the SAP Ariba Subscriptions and Pricing page.
Final Thoughts
Although Ariba has “limited” the number of features being released when compared to last year’s releases, this is still a jammed packed release. The top 3 changes really help Ariba come into its own as it relates to direct sourcing and process mining and optimization capabilities. I’m also glad lots of the new features address basic limitations that were major pain points for some customers. I hope they keep striking this balance between fixing the old and providing the new as the year goes forward.
If you’re interested in getting this listing in Excel format, you can download it here: Download “SAP Ariba 2019 Q1 Release Top 20” Top-20-SAP-Ariba-Q1-2019-Release-Features.xlsx – Downloaded 778 times – 17.47 KB
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Do you agree with my listed based on impact? What feature did you find the most important this quarter? What features are you dying to see? Let me know in the comments.
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Last Updated on January 11, 2021 by Joël Collin-Demers
