Resolve & GO® - Problem solved - Let's move forward!
Many of our customers encounter similar issues in their day-to-day use of Ariba. Thanks to our many years of experience, even the most puzzling error messages often feel all too familiar to us. In most cases, we can quickly assess what might be causing the problem and narrow down the search accordingly.
For you, this means one thing: we know what to do — and we’ll find the right solution fast.
Typical customer challenges we can help with:
Bank details frequently lead to errors
"Our suppliers and employees often don’t know what the bank key is or where it needs to be entered. Incorrect entries mean that the data cannot be posted in the SAP backend, which creates additional manual work. In addition, correcting bank information triggers internal security processes that further delay supplier onboarding. Our users keep asking why things take so long in Ariba."
Response from Ariba Improvements:
For countries that use the IBAN system, we recommend switching entirely to IBAN. In this case, only the IBAN field needs to be completed – all other bank-related fields can be hidden, significantly simplifying data entry.
In countries without an IBAN structure, suppliers usually know from experience which information – such as bank routing number and account number – needs to be entered in the relevant fields. For internal staff who create registrations on behalf of suppliers from these countries, we can embed targeted help texts directly in the input form to guide them in entering the correct information.
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Ariba’s duplicate check does not work when creating new suppliers
"When creating a supplier request, the duplicate check suggests suppliers that are clearly not identical to the new supplier being requested. For example, when requesting the new supplier Ypsomed AG, the system incorrectly flagged Brack AG as a potential duplicate. Since the duplicate check obviously isn’t working reliably, we cannot trust the results. As a consequence, we have to manually check in our SAP system whether the supplier already exists before we can approve the supplier request. This is time-consuming and inefficient."
Response from Ariba Improvements:
The standard duplicate check delivered by Ariba looks for matches in the supplier name, address, or email address. However, the duplicate logic can be configured to consider additional criteria. In such cases, the reason why suppliers with different names appear as duplicates may no longer be obvious at first glance. A review of the configuration quickly brings clarity.
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Stalled qualification processes in Ariba Process Flow
"Some of our qualification processes cannot be renewed once they expire.” – “Some of our older qualification processes don’t have an expiration date at all.” – “Some qualifications no longer have a commodity code assigned and can neither be cancelled nor renewed.” – “Our qualification processes have been showing ‘Error’ for two weeks now, and no one can tell us why!"
Response from Ariba Improvements:
We are very familiar with all of these issues from real-world projects. In most cases, the underlying cause is a misconfiguration within the qualification templates. Another possible cause may be changes made to your master data. An experienced SLP consultant can usually identify the root cause within a few hours. For each of these scenarios, we can provide proven, effective solutions.
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Ariba User Matrix – approvals by commodity code
Would you like requests for new suppliers to be approved by the responsible commodity managers? Would you also like them to be involved in downstream steps such as registration or qualification? Perhaps you’ve already tried to set up a User Matrix – but it somehow didn’t work?
Response from Ariba Improvements:
Setting up a User Matrix is straightforward for an experienced SLP consultant. If your User Matrix isn’t working correctly, the issue may be related to formatting rules that were not followed. If you receive numerous error messages when trying to import the matrix, inactive or outdated entries in the template may be the cause. Our experienced specialists will get your User Matrix up and running!
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Optimizing your Ariba roles and authorization model – but how?
"Our current roles and authorization model has grown organically over time and has become very complex. This complexity not only results in high administrative effort but also drives significant licensing costs – especially due to an excessive number of administrator and power-user roles.
We want to streamline the model and make it more efficient, but we’re unsure how to proceed without disrupting day-to-day operations. In the past, attempts to make adjustments led to buyers suddenly losing access to certain functions or transactions, which severely impacted operational activities."
Response from Ariba Improvements:
Unlike the classic SAP authorization concept, Ariba does not assign permissions at the individual authorization level. Instead, all permissions – including transactional rights – are bundled into predefined roles, which can sometimes overlap in functionality.
If your current roles and authorization model has become overly complex and is no longer fully understood, we recommend conducting a dedicated optimization project.
As part of this project, we first analyze which tasks your employees actually perform today. Based on this, we identify functional groups and assess where responsibilities overlap or are duplicated. Only with this foundation can you make informed decisions about which user groups truly need which roles.
In our experience, such a project not only increases system transparency but also reduces licensing costs – for example, by replacing broad power roles with precise, task-specific roles.
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Error messages during synchronization between Ariba and SAP S/4
"When synchronizing our supplier data from Ariba to SAP S/4, we repeatedly encounter error messages. As a result, the supplier data is not transferred to the backend. So far, we have not been able to determine what is causing these errors."
Response from Ariba Improvement:
Error messages during synchronization can have several root causes:
Either Ariba sends data in a format that does not match what your backend system expects, or certain data may not be sent at all because of incorrect field mappings.
Our experienced specialists know exactly how to identify the source of such issues and how to resolve them. During the analysis, we will need the support of one of your employees who has access to the backend system.