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Customer Vendor Integration..for Ariba

Former Member
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One of the prerequisite steps in Ariba-ECC Cloud Integration guide is to 'Set up Customer Vendor Integration'. My questions:-

1) Why is it needed? (My requirement is that I want Supplier Data to flow from Ariba to ECC and create a Vendor record in ECC, and an acknowlegement back to Ariba from ECC with a vendor ID)

2) Where can I find the detailed steps how to go about this? The Help portal guide that SAP provides is a bit confusing. May be it will make sense, when I know why do we need to get this done?

3) Can we go about integrating Ariba with ECC without this feature enabled?

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

michael_theis
Active Contributor
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Hi,

1) In ECC cloud, the Vendor is based upon the business partner. You'll use transaction BP with Vendor roles for data maintenance. Technically, you work on different DB tables (e.g. BUT000 for BP and LFA1 for Vendors). Since both tables have redundant attributes (e.g. names, addresses, etc.), CVI is the required tool to synchronize the data correctly.

2) This should be part of the Ariba setup. If not, you might find at least the path to CVI customizing in ECC (transaction SPRO -> Cross Application Components -> Master Data Synchronization -> Customer/Vendor Integration). I'd recommend reading the built-in system documentation. This one explains a lot.

3) No, you can't. Using CVI is mandatory in ECC Cloud.

Best regards

Michael

Former Member
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Thanks Mike. Much clear now. Few follow-up questions:-

1) What is difference between External number assignment and Internal number assignment? Does Internal mean, that based on the number range defined, the system will automatically assign a vendor ID to the supplier record?

2)

3)

4)

michael_theis
Active Contributor

Hi Yasir,

1) Internal Number assignment means that you need to define a number range for BP and Vendor IDs first. When sending the data from Ariba to ECC / S/4, the ECC / S/4 will create new IDs automatically from the defined number ranges.

External Number assignment means that you have to handover an ID from Ariba to ECC / S/4. ECC / S/4 then takes over the ID.

Check the built in ECC / S/4 documentation when being in SPRO and doing the CVI setup for "Assign Numbering for...". This one is really helpful and explains a lot in much more details.

2 & 3) Which option to pick is kind of a "religious" discussion. 😄

First of all the systems do use key mapping. You will always be able to find out the linked IDs of Ariba and ECC / S/4. Now, there are some users who do not care about the ID and its format at all. Then the best and easiest option is using internal numbering everywhere.

On the other hand, there are some users who want to have identical IDs in all systems (which is in my opinion hardly possible, but as said, this is the "religious" part of the discussion). If desired, you could use external numbering for the BP ID (remember this requires an ID in the data from Ariba) and combine the same with external numbering using the same number for the vendor. If you're lucky, IDs are completely identical.

Other combinations are valid, too. If you desire same IDs for the BP and the vendor in ECC / S/4 only, you could choose BP internal numbering combined with Vendor external numbering and same numbers indicator flagged. With that, CVI would use the new, internally created BP ID as "external" Vendor ID.

From technical perspective, the numbering is always bound to the BP grouping respectively Vendor account group attribute. That's what you maintain in CVI. Those attributes are pretty powerful in ECC / S/4. You can use the same for example to define field properties, meaning mandatory, option, hidden fields, etc. Usually the groups are used to group or categorize the objects. This can be done in various ways, e.g. BP grouping 0001 could be all US BPs, 0002 all Europeans, etc., whatever you can imagine. Alternatively, you can keep it simply and just use one group for all. 😉

4) As far as I know, the setup for customers is not needed for Ariba. I thought that Ariba is only about suppliers / vendors.

Best regards

Michael

Former Member
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Mike,

Loved the way you explained. After going through your detailed notes, and comparing it with what my requirements are, I now know what I want. Ariba assigns a systemID to any supplier profile it creates. I want that systemID to to go ECC (thinking external assignment), and create a BP. Then I want that BP to create a vendor ID (it can be the same number or create a new one...either one is fine with me). I just wanted to make sure that when a new ECC pull comes in from Ariba with updated profiles, No duplicate profiles get created in ECC. And the way to ensure that happens is by putting some logic in the program so it checks for those systemIDs and if they already exist, it means it is only an update.. otherwise a new BP gets created. Thanks a bunch !!

One more question...there is this /arba/value_map table that I have to maintain in ECC. I understand what is it want, but just don't know how to go about writing it. Like the title for one of the value map table's column is 'Integration field'. Does that title come from ECC? .. just so confusing...

michael_theis
Active Contributor

Hi Yasir,

well, that's beyond my Ariba knowledge, sorry for that. I cannot even explain why there is yet another mapping table needed. MDG uses the generic data replication framework that is actually used by Ariba, too. This one contains an option for value mapping.

I'll sent a mail to a couple of Ariba colleagues I do know. Hopefully they will update this thread with a valid reply.

Best regards

Michael

Answers (2)

Answers (2)

i319981
Associate
Associate
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Hi Yasir,

/ARBA/VALUE_MAP is a value map table that maps the values of ECC and SIPM. Below is the example for the same

Former Member
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Much Appreciated... This helped.. Thx

Former Member
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The last screen shot was missing the whole sentence. here it is... " Do I need to activate these synchronization options, if I am only integrating Vendor"