Technical Articles
SAP Ariba Real-Time Budget Check in Mediated Connectivity using CIG and CPI
1. Requirement Overview (Introduction)
Client is using Ariba Buying & Invoicing solution integrated with S4HANA ERP. Purchase Requisitions are being created in Ariba and once the Purchase Requisition (PR) is approved in Ariba, it sends the information to S4HANA to create the Purchase Order (PO).
If PO successfully created in S4HANA, Ariba receives the PO number back from S4HANA & PR/PO status changed to Ordered. If PO failed to get created in S4HANA, Ariba receives the error message details.
Currently, there is no real-time validation of the data captured on the Requisition before submission & sent for the approval. Ariba receives error messages only once the PR is fully approved and sent to S4HANA for PO creation. Client is looking for a solution where the PRs can be validated in S4HANA before the submission.
Ariba’s Real-Time Budget Check interface functionality (RTBC hereafter) is being proposed to not only validate the budget in ERP but also to check the requisitions validations in S4HANA. This will further reduces the errors which are being sent from S4HANA during the PO creation stage.
1.1. Applicable Module(s)
The solution covered in this blog will be applicable to the following Modules(s):
| Ariba Buying & Invoicing | X |
| Ariba Sourcing Suite | |
| CIG Integration | X |
| Ariba Commerce Automation |
ERP- Backend System : SAP S4HANA On-premise
Middleware : SAP Cloud platform integration
2. Solution/Configuration Details
Solution offers to validate the Requisitions during submission is SAP Ariba’s standard feature Real-time budget check.
When user initiates a budget check voluntarily on a Requisition or during requisition submission by the system, Ariba triggers the synchronous call and sends the message to Cloud Integration Gateway. CIG will send this message post processing to CPI, where CPI will just be a pass through to send the Budget check request message to SAP ERP (S4HANA ERP). SAP ERP validates the request message and respond back with success or failure. S4HANA will creates a corresponding Purchase Requisition and return with SAP ERP Purchase Requisition reference number.
SAP Ariba RTBC Synchronous Service Flow
2.1. Solution Overview
Real-time budget check interface will trigger at below scenarios to validate the Ariba Purchase Requisition with budget maintain in SAP S4HANA and other Requisition validations.
Real-time budget check scenarios
2.2 Steps for Configuration
Real-time budget check functionality requires configuration in SAP Ariba, CIG, S4HANA and CPI.
Please follow the below sections for the details
2.2.1. Configuration in SAP Ariba
- Below are the parameters to be enabled by raising the Service Request with customer support of SAP Ariba
| # | Parameter |
| 1 | Application.Budget.StartDateToEnableRealTimeBudgetChecksInExternalSystems |
| 2 | Application.Budget.SendEarlierVersionRequisitionToExternalSystemForBudgetReversal |
| 3 | Application.Budget.EnableBudgetRevertOnDeletingRequisitionWithErrors |
| 4 | Application.Budget.RealTimeBudgetSynchronousSubmit |
- Web-Services to be enabled in SAP Ariba @ Ariba > Core Administration > Integration Manager > Cloud Integration Gateway
- Export Requisitions for User-Initiated External Budget Check
- Export Submitted Requisitions for External Budget Check
- Export Requisitions to External System to Revert Funds
- Export Modified Requisitions To Revert Funds
- Export Submitted Requisitions for Budget Checks Using SAP Ariba Cloud Integration Gateway
Real-time budget check web services in Ariba
2.2.2. Configuration in CIG
Web-services used to integrate Requisitions as part of real-time budget check functionality are synchronous calls and there is separate iFlow in CPI to be configured. Due to this reason, a separate Project has to be created with individual connections for each of the synchronous services to be used for Real-time budget check integration.
Below are the two connection details to be maintained:
DocumentType: RequisitionBudgetCheckExportRequest/RequisitionExportRequest
| # | Attribute Name | Attribute Value | Details |
| 1 | Transport Type | HTTPS | Select HTTPS from drop down |
| 2 | Environment | TEST | Select Test or Prod |
| 3 | Name | XXXX-BUDGET1 | Provide appropriate name |
| 4 | System ID | XXXCLNT5XX | S4HANA backend System ID (SLD) |
| 5 | DocumentType | RequisitionBudgetCheckExportRequest/RequisitionExportRequest | Make sure to select this document type. Do not create the connection for synchronous webservice with Any documents type |
| 6 | URL | https://exxxxx-iflmap.hcisbt.eu2.hana.ondemand.com/cxf/receiveCIGSyncDocument | CPI team to share the appropriate URL for connections during implementation. |
| 7 | Authentication Type | Basic | Basic Authentication type |
| 8 | Username(CPI-UserName) | To be Shared by CPI support Team | To be Shared by CPI support Team |
| 9 | Password | To be Shared by CPI support Team | To be Shared by CPI support Team |
Document Type : RequisitionRevertExportRequest
| # | Attribute Name | Attribute Value | Details |
| 1 | Transport Type | HTTPS | Select HTTPS from drop down |
| 2 | Environment | TEST | Select Test or Prod |
| 3 | Name | CLIENT-REVERTBUDGET-XX | Provide appropriate name |
| 4 | System ID | XXCLNT5XX | S4HANA backend System ID (SLD) |
| 5 | DocumentType | RequisitionRevertExportRequest | Make sure to select this document type. Do not create the connection for synchronous webservice with Any documents type |
| 6 | URL | https://exxxxx-iflmap.hcisbt.eu2.hana.ondemand.com/cxf/receiveCIGSyncDocument | CPI team to share the appropriate URL for connections during implementation. |
| 7 | Authentication Type | Basic | Basic Authentication type |
| 8 | Username(CPI-UserName) | To be Shared by CPI support | To be Shared by CPI support Team |
| 9 | Password | To be Shared by CPI support | To be Shared by CPI support Team |
Note : Please repeat the same parameters for production connections.
CIG Project Details
Connections maintained above is being used in a project created specifically for synchronous services.
Note: RTBC services are synchronous webservice unlike other Ariba Buying & Invoicing asynchronous webservices. For mediated connectivity with CPI, separate project for RTBC synchronous webservices is required.
Please refer cloud integration gateway guide to know more about CIG project creations.
Project Name: Client_P2P_RTB
Cross-Reference – Parameters Maintained as below. We are using a separate doc type of SAP S4HANA for creation of requisitions from Ariba, which needs to be maintained as below in CIG.
CIG Project Cross Reference Values
Note : Please add the connections created for production RTBC webservices in this project only following the same above process.
CIG Custom Mapping
If required, custom mappings to be done at below mentioned cXML Document Type. As being the synchronous calls, payloads of this transaction are not visible in CIG and cannot be downloaded through transaction tracker in CIG.
CIG custom mapping objects for RTBC
2.2.3. Configuration in Middleware (CPI)
Deploy the standard I-flow as below in CPI instance
Package Name-
SAP ERP and SAP S/4HANA Integration with SAP Ariba Solutions
https://lxxxxxx-txx.hci.eu2.hana.ondemand.com/itspaces/shell/design
I-flow Name-
SOAP Synchronous Pass Through Content for Ariba Procurement
Validate the value mapping table bi-directional values.
2.2.4. Configuration in ERP
2.2.4.1. MM Configurations
Details of new doc type for Ariba PR – We have created new document type ZEX for Ariba Purchase Requisition.
Note: As being synchronous webservice, message payloads are currently not visible in CIG. For troubleshooting in your test environment, payload trace can be enabled in SAP S4HANA using srt_util t-code.
SRT_UTIL Payload Traces for Synchronous Webservices
For any integration issues, please debug ARBCIG_PREQ & ARBCIG_PREQ_Delete FM.
2.2.4.2. SOAMANAGER Configurations
Please ensure the appropriate Web Service configuration in SOAMANAGER, as shown below.
BuyerPurchaseRequisition_Sync_
BuyerPurchaseRequisitionDelete_Sync_In
SOAMANAGER Configuration changes for RTBC web service
3. Benefits
- Real-time check of the budgets available in the back-end ERP
- Reservation of budget in ERP for the Requisitions created in SAP Ariba
- Validation check of the Ariba requisition data, resulting lesser failures at Purchase Order creation interface.
- Lower End to End cycle time by automating validations and budget check with backend ERP.
- Better user-experience by using budget check button.
Sample screens with ERP PR Number
4. Conclusion
As a technical architect/consultant, one can able to understand how the Ariba RTBC synchronous webservice is configured in a mediated connectivity environment using CIG and CPI as middleware. This article will help the Architect to plan the additional work required on RTBC interface than the other asynchronous webservice interfaces in advance.
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5. References
Prerequisites – SAP Help Portal
SAP Ariba Cloud Integration Gateway overview guide – SAP Help Portal
How to set up the private tenant to connect with the SAP Ariba solutions – SAP Help Portal
Prerequisites for integrating real-time budget check – SAP Help Portal
Nice content. Very helpful.
Hi Prabhjeet,
We have configured the Budget checking in ARIBA but while Rejecting a PR the SOAP call to S4 is failing and the PR cannot be rejected.
The error we see in CIG is as follows
org.apache.cxf.interceptor.Fault: Response was of unexpected text/html ContentType. Incoming portion of HTML stream: (none)
Is there some more mapping for the Doctype: RequisitionRealTimeRevertBudgetExportRequest
As the above Doctype is not mentioned in your config?
Hi Husain,
Could you please check the SOAMANAGER setup and if the below service is correctly set up ?
BuyerPurchaseRequisitionDelete_Sync_In
Or if you are doing a fresh implementation of Ariba, you can perform the set up interface steps and ensure below services are checked along with rest of your services that you want to enable for Ariba integration through CIG for Ariba P2P.
Attaching a connect note for more help : Content Items (ariba.com)
Thanks
I have done the above configurations in S4 and the Webservice is activated .
On analyzing the error on the CPI side it seems the Iflow is generating the correct WSDL SOAP URL.
I think something is missing on the CIG config.
CIG Config
The Cross Reference in the project only has the Doctype RequisitionExportRequest do we need to add the other Doctype as well over here?
Hi Hussain,
As I can see from your screenshot, the document type selected for connection seems to be the issue for the reversal scenario.
Please select RequisitionRevertExportRequest as shared in my blog steps.
This should take care of all reversal related scenarios.
Could you please add the connection for RequisitionRevertExportRequest in your project and remove the existing one added for RequisitionRealTimeRevertBudgetExportRequest, and see if this resolves the issue ?
Thanks & Regards,
Prabhjeet
Hello,
Thank you for the informative blog. I have a requirement to enable RTBC. Is CPI necessary in this scenario? CIG alone will not be able to handle the integration?
Regards
Vikash
Hi Vikash,
Apologies for the delayed response !!!
CPI is not mandatory. You can have the direct connectivity using CIG.
Real-time budget check is a synchronous service, hence required to handle differently in the mediated connectivity by having the different project in CIG and using the separate iflow end from CPI.
In direct connectivity only with CIG, there is no need to create any separate project in CIG for synchronous RTBC interface.
Thanks