If you're planning to implement SAP Ariba Category Management, here are some of the pre-requisites that helps your implementation journey easier.
#1: Register Ariba Open API portal and ability to create applications for APIs
Customer must be registered in Ariba Open API portal (https://developer.ariba.com/) and knows how to create applications for different APIs. Below are some of the API’s that customer need to create for SAP Ariba Category Management.
- Sourcing Project Management API
- Analysis Reporting API
- Master Data Retrieval API for Procurement
#2: Setting up BTP landscape
Customer must have set up global account with SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). In case, there are multiple global accounts, customer must identify which global account SAP Ariba Category Management will be provisioned. SAP Account executives (AE) and BTP CSP’s will be able to help/guide customer during this process.
#3: Setting up SAP Identity Authentication (IAS/IPS):
SAP Ariba Category Management requires bundle Tenant i.e A bundle tenant is an instance of Identity Provisioning that comes with a set of preconfigured provisioning systems relevant to one or more bundled SAP cloud solutions.
#4: Enable Ariba application(s) with SSO using IAS/IPS
Customer must have Single Sign On (SSO) enabled for Ariba applications. If customer use Corporate Authentication then use IAS/IPS pass thru. Additionally, we recommend, customers use IAS/IPS for Ariba user provisioning.
#5: Configure Guided Sourcing for SAP Ariba Category Management
Customer must have Guided Sourcing enabled, and templates configured with different phases and tasks.
#6: Configure SAP Ariba Contracts for SAP Ariba Category Management
Customer must have Ariba Contracts enabled and templates configured. A few header level information from SAP Ariba Contracts will be pulled into SAP Ariba Category Management UI.
#7: Preparing Spend data for SAP Ariba Category Management
Customers will need to plan how spend data will be loaded into SAP Ariba Category Management i.e Are you loading all of their spend data or specific period etc., Also, read this blog to learn more about how to load Spend data into SAP Ariba Category Management.
#8: Identify list of Categories and their planning process
Customer must identify which Categories will be loaded into SAP Ariba Category Management for Planning purposes. Additionally, we recommend customers document current category planning and execution process.
Finally, customer team must include following roles during SAP Ariba Category Management implementation:
- BTP Administrators
- IAS/IPS administrators
- Ariba Open API Administrators
- SAP Ariba Category Management Administrators
- Category Managers
- Spend Analytics lead (if customer use SAP Ariba Spend Analytics)
- Sourcing Manager/Contract Administrators (optional – just to ensure those modules are configured and ready for transactions).
