How to use IBM App Connect with SAP Ariba

SAP Ariba is a cloud-based procurement and supply chain collaboration solution. It is an end-to-end system that focuses on sourcing, strategic reporting, governance, competitive bidding, and contract management, which enables fast responses to your business needs.

Availability:
  • App Connect Enterprise as a Service connector
  • A local connector in a Designer instance of IBM App Connect in containers (Continuous Delivery release)Local connector in containers (Continuous Delivery release) 12.0.7.0-r5 or later
  • A local connector in a Designer instance of IBM App Connect in containers (Support Cycle 2)Local connector in containers (Long Term Support Cycle-2 release)

Configuring SAP Ariba SOAP web service

To configure SAP Ariba SOAP web service, perform the following prerequisites.

Set up endpoint configuration
  1. Log in to the SAP Ariba solution.
  2. Navigate to Manage > Core Administration / Administration > Integration Manager > Endpoint Point Configuration.
  3. Click Create New.

    The End Point Configuration - Create End Point page is displayed.

  4. In the General section:
    1. Enter a name for the endpoint in the Name field.
    2. Select Inbound in the Type field.
  5. In the Mutual TLS Authentication section, select Requires Mutual Authentication as No.
  6. In the HTTP Authentication section, enter a username and password, then reenter the password again for confirmation. Save the username and password somewhere safe for reuse.
  7. Click Save.
  8. For more information, see Configure the SAP Ariba Solution on the SAP Help Portal page.
Enable the data Import or Export tasks
  1. Log in to the SAP Ariba solution.
  2. Navigate to Manage > Core Administration / Administration > Integration Manager > Integration Configuration.
  3. Search the required task name in the search filters, or click List All to view the list of all the available tasks.
    Important: These are a list of services or tasks that need to be enabled for the chosen environment.
    For Core Administration environment:
    • Catalog Item Search
    • Import Suppliers
    For Administration environment:
    • Add Users to Group
    • Download RFX Awards
    • Export Organizations
    • Export Supplier Profiles
    • Import Organizations
    • Import Sourcing Project
    • Import Users
    • Remove Organizations
    • Remove User From Group
    • Remove Users
    Restriction: These are the restrictions in using the SAP Ariba web services:
    • Additional customization of the web services is not supported.
    • Any customized web services apart from the standard operations is not supported. This list of enabled services is supported in the SAP Ariba connector. For a list of all standard operations, see SAP Ariba SOAP APIs on the SAP API Business Hub page.
  4. Click Actions on the respective task, then click Edit.
  5. Select Enabled in the Status field.
  6. Select Web Service from the dropdown list in the Format field.
  7. Select the endpoint from the dropdown list in the End point field.
  8. Click Save.

Connecting to SAP Ariba

Complete the connection fields that you see in the App Connect Designer Catalog page or flow editor. If necessary, work with your SAP Ariba administrator to obtain these values.

SAP Ariba connection fields:

Connection field Description
Endpoint URL The SOAP API webservice URL of SAP Ariba in the format https://<sapariba-domain>.cloud.ariba.com.
Tip: For more information about endpoint URL, see SAP Ariba on the SAP Support page.
Username The username of your SAP Ariba SOAP API web service.
Password The password of your SAP Ariba SOAP API web service.
Realm The realm name that is configured for your SAP Ariba instance or subscription. The realm is part of the URL that you use to access SAP Ariba, for example, realm=MyRealm-T.
Tip: For more information about realm name, see How to find your SAP Ariba realm name? on the SAP Community page.

To connect to a SAP Ariba endpoint from the App Connect Designer Catalog page for the first time, expand SAP Ariba, then click Connect. For more information, see Managing accounts.

Tip:

Before you use the account that is created in App Connect in a flow, rename the account to something meaningful that helps you to identify it. To rename the account on the Catalog page, select the account, open its options menu (⋮), then click Rename Account.

General considerations

Before you use App Connect Designer with SAP Ariba, take note of the following considerations:

  • (General consideration) You can see lists of the trigger events and actions that are available on the Catalog page of the App Connect Designer.

    For some applications, the events and actions in the catalog depend on the environment and whether the connector supports configurable events and dynamic discovery of actions. If the application supports configurable events, you see a Show more configurable events link under the events list. If the application supports dynamic discovery of actions, you see a Show more link under the actions list.

  • (General consideration) If you are using multiple accounts for an application, the set of fields that is displayed when you select an action for that application can vary for different accounts. In the flow editor, some applications always provide a curated set of static fields for an action. Other applications use dynamic discovery to retrieve the set of fields that are configured on the instance that you are connected to. For example, if you have two accounts for two instances of an application, the first account might use settings that are ready for immediate use. However, the second account might be configured with extra custom fields.

Events and actions

SAP Ariba events

These events are for changes in this application that trigger a flow to start completing the actions in the flow.

Note: Events are not available for changes in this application. You can trigger a flow in other ways, such as at a scheduled interval or at specific dates and times.

SAP Ariba actions

Your flow completes these actions on this application.

Contract workspaces
Create contract workspace
Update contract workspace
Organizations
Download organizations data
Update or create organizations
Remove organizations
Sourcing projects
Create sourcing project
Update sourcing project
Download award document
Suppliers
Update or create supplier
Download supplier profiles data
Users
Add users to group
Update or create users
Remove users from group
Remove users

Examples

Dashboard tile for a template that uses SAP Ariba

Use templates to quickly create flows for SAP Ariba

Learn how to use App Connect templates to quickly create flows that perform actions on SAP Ariba. For example, open the Templates gallery, and then search for SAP Ariba.

Learn more

Dashboard tile for a template that uses SAP Ariba
SAP Ariba flow in detailed view

Use IBM® App Connect to build flows that integrate with SAP Ariba.

Read the blog in the IBM Community to learn how to create a sourcing project in SAP Ariba for each project retrieved from Insightly. Click Read the blog to go to the blog.

Read the blog