Excited to share my first blog on Template upgrade process in Ariba SLP. This will help to all who is working in Ariba SLP space always goes through a phase of doing multiple changes in Templates in Sourcing, Contract, Supplier Request, Supplier Registration, Supplier Qualification, Modular questionnaire. My main motive of sharing this blog is to give comprehensive and collate or bring together all the information we have on Template Upgrade and give clear and better understanding on how we can complete the Template Upgrade process.
In this blog, I have shared all the information wrt, Do’s and Don’t’s, Learnings, Benefits, and post template upgrade challenges that can occur within a project. This blog I created is specific to Template upgrade of Supplier Registration and Modular questionnaire in Ariba SLP. Thanks to SAP Ariba, many new features are being added in Template upgrade like viewing supplier list which will go through template upgrade process before performing the template upgrade.
Template upgrade is a version-based process, meaning that you upgrade all of the eligible projects on one previous version of the template to the current published version in one upgrade operation. You update the eligible projects on each previous version of the template to the current published version in separate upgrade operations
Lets do a deep dive on the Template upgrade process works and things one should take care
To upgrade supplier registration and modular questionnaire projects to the latest template version, you must be a member of the SM Ops Administrator group.
Template upgrade is only available for supplier registration and modular questionnaire projects. Those projects must be eligible for upgrade
- Template upgrade process
One can initiate the Template upgrade process following below path.
Manage → SM Administration → Template Upgrade
1.1
Select the Project Template and type of Template which needs to be upgraded from Supplier registration project or Modular Questionnaire
1.2
Meaning of each field above
Header | Meaning |
Supplier Details | Once click on Export tab, we can download supplier list from Export supplier status section. This supplier list shows list of suppliers eligible for Upgrades 
|
Template Type | Type of Project planned for upgrade |
Title | Within Project, which template is planned for upgrade |
Current Version | Shows the template version of suppliers (downloaded from the suppliers details tab) |
Latest Version | Shows the most recent version available for upgrade. Once the upgrade done, all changes of latest version will be applied to the suppliers which belong to Current version |
Total Projects | Shows all the supplier projects available with current version i.e shows Total number of projects that are part of current version |
Eligible Projects | Shows all the supplier projects eligible for Template Upgrade. Count of this supplier will be always less or equal to Total projects. We can identify Eligible suppliers from the export downloaded from the supplier’s details tab as shown above |
Action | This tab has link to upgrade the template. If the link is missing, it indicates there are no eligible supplier for upgrades from the current version |
Template upgrade always upgrades projects directly to the current published version of the template. It's possible to have some projects in your site that are multiple versions behind the current version of the template because they weren't eligible for upgrade to previous versions when they were current for ex. in above screenshot Project in current version 134 is not eligible for template upgrade to 140. The template upgrade operation automatically creates new projects and copies the data from the previous projects, which it archives. The original project and each upgraded project all have unique IDs, but upgraded projects are linked to their previous projects. The History tab in the advanced view of each upgraded project logs the template upgrade with an entry labeled Upgraded to a new version of template. However, information from previous projects, such as previous questionnaire versions and previous project documents and tasks, is accessible in various places in the supplier 360° profile, questionnaire details pages, and advanced views of the projects.
Template upgrade can introduce significant changes to questionnaires in existing projects. Each upgrade operation validates the projects that will be upgraded against the current template version and identifies differences that can result in a loss of data in questionnaires after upgrade. If the validation identifies changes that can cause loss of data and you still want to proceed with the upgrade (not recommended), you must enter the justification.
From the screenshot 1.2, many will have questions on how the projects are made eligible for template upgrade or which projects are not eligible for template upgrade?
One should be aware only Active supplier’s and projects whose all tasks are completed or none of the tasks are started are eligible for template upgrade.
Also, chart shows when are project is eligible for upgrade based on status of registration and modular questionnaire.
1.3
There are 2 Major scenario when you proceed with Template upgrade
Scenario 1. In the screenshot 1.2 Locate the template version that you want to upgrade for ex. 134 to the currently published version and choose Upgrade.
1.4
The template upgrade validates the projects to be upgraded in this operation against the current template version and identifies differences that can result in a loss of data in questionnaires after upgrade.
1.4 screenshot shows there is no issues identified during template upgrade i.e there is 100% content matching between current and latest template (in terms of impact of template upgrade), meaning all the questions/changes within the latest template i.e 140 are compatible with the current version i.e 139 and not data loss is expected post this Template upgrade. Since validation doesn't identified any issues, choose Next
1.5
Once check box “Notify supplier’s primary contact about the upgrade” is checked, this notifies the supplier via mail about the changes made in the template and ask supplier to resubmit/update the questionnaire.
Once upgrade is clicked Upgrade, depending on the supplier/project count system might take some time to upgrade the template and results can be viewed under Upgrade status tab as shown in below in 1.6
1.6
One can download summary and view the status and incase of any issues; validation report gives information on what went wrong.
This is an ideal scenario where there are not issues observed, however when major changes done wrt removal of questions, removal of questionnaires, and changing the answer type of an existing question can result in data loss which we can see in 2nd scenario
Scenario 2. When you publish a new version of a supplier registration or modular questionnaire template, by default, the template upgrade validation system flags. all differences in template documents that have the potential to cause data loss. Changes that can result in data loss include removal of questions, removal of questionnaires, and changing the answer type of an existing question.
In this scenario when we are trying to upgrade current version 111 to latest version 140 as shown below in 1.70
1.70
When one chooses upgrade for current version 111, could encounter validation warnings as shown below in 1.80
1.80
This warning shows discrepancies between current and latest version template i.e content matching % is less than 100% that will result in loss of Data.
Note: Assuming a consultant will be aware of what exactly is the change between current and previous template which is resulting to data loss. Incase not aware one can download the template 111 and 140 in excel and compare, to identify the difference in template.
If you encounter upgrade validation warnings and want to ignore them and publish your changes, you select the checkbox and choose next; input reason/comments for ignoring the warning preferably add approval details regarding agreement of data loss. As shown in image 1.90, upgrade operations include a notification option that allows you to alert suppliers to changes that affect them. Internal users don't receive notifications of template upgrades.
1.90
Once upgrade is clicked Upgrade, depending on the supplier/project count system might take some time to upgrade the template and results can be viewed under Upgrade status tab as shown in below in 2.0
2.0
One can download summary and view the status and incase of any issues; validation report gives information on what went wrong.
The new, upgraded project is treated as an updated version of the previous project. Questionnaire version histories include all versions of the questionnaire from all previous projects. The previous project is archived and is accessible if you view previous project versions in the supplier 360° profile or in project advanced view.
In modular questionnaire projects that don't allow updates, recipients normally can't revise previously submitted questionnaires. However, if the template upgrade modifies the content of a questionnaire in an approved project, the upgrade operation reopens the questionnaire for a one-time update. The respondent can then revise their responses and resubmit them, and the associated tasks restart once the revisions are submitted.
In modular questionnaire projects that do allow updates, recipients can update questionnaires at any time as long as any previous updates are fully approved. The update process is defined by the project template's task setup.
Affect of Template upgrade on Tasks and Phases
Task | Phases |
Supplier management project template upgrade can add, remove, or modify tasks in supplier registration and modular questionnaire projects | Supplier management project template upgrade can add, remove, or modify phases in supplier registration and modular questionnaire projects |
A supplier registration or modular questionnaire project is only eligible for Template upgrade if none of its tasks have started, or all of its tasks have been completed | If you add new and update phases to a supplier registration or modular questionnaire project template, during upgrade than phases are added to eligible projects. |
Template upgrade always overwrites any edits made to teams in individual projects with the latest template team. For example, if someone adds members to the team of an individual project in the advanced view, template upgrade removes those ad hoc additions and updates the group to the membership defined in the template.
Reason for data loss in template upgrade (Do’s and Don’t’s of Template Upgrade)
Major reasons which can result in data loss during template upgrade (Don’t) from version to version are
- Changing a Answer type for a question within template for ex. changing from Yes/No to Text or attachment may result in Data loss. Or changing from attachment to Certificate or Address to Extended address etc
- Changing acceptable values for a question i.e from Text to list of choices
- Changing KPI ID mapping for each question within a template. KPI ID is unique for each question within a template, and all supplier responses are upgraded from version to version with the help of this KPI ID mapping. One should ensure KPI ID for a question is never changed, usually one can find difference when a question is removed/deleted and a new question is added.
Pre-caution’s one should take while doing Publishing a template (Do's)
- Always set “Skip pre-publication validation” to “No” for a template. If set to Yes, this property ignores document matching and content matching validation warnings and allows you to publish new template versions regardless of the changes you make. The default setting, No, is the recommended setting. After one publish a new template version, this property automatically resets to Yes. Also ensure “Required content match (%)” is set to 100%, this will ensure all questions are sync in old and new template while template upgrade. Also it controls the percentage of content in template survey documents that must match the content of the previous template version. The default value is 100.
- In case of any change in field mapping within a question, this won’t cause a data loss, but the answer stored is the old field mapping will not be removed, and also the new answer will not be updated to the new field mapping. In this case, supplier need revise response and input response on the new field mapping question.
- Always try and start upgrading the template in a LIFO basis, i.e if your latest template is 10, then first upgrade template 9 to template 10. Then from template 8 to template 10 and so on.
- In case one is not sure on the difference between latest template and with version it is getting upgrade, one can download latest template and the version which is getting upgrade and compare columns Question Name, Answer type, Acceptable Values, KPI ID and Supplier field mapping. If there is a difference between 2 templates, then one can highlight the same to client and proceed for upgrade post client confirmation. For ex. sharing a snap of comparison done as shown below
If above screen if the comparison is false, it will show difference in Latest and old template
- Before proceeding with any changes in a template one should be aware of above don’ts and suggest alternate option to client and aware them of Data loss challenges
Thanks all for viewing my Blog.
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