When should I force process a document?

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FAQ 188778

Question

When should I force process a document? Is it a recommended approach?

Answer

Force processing a document in SAP Ariba Procurement solution means that the automatic workflow of that particular document is being terminated forcefully.

You can find the force process button in all the documents that are integrated with an external system (likely to be an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system) like purchase order (PO), receipt, blanket purchase order (BPO), service entry sheet (SES), invoice, invoice reconciliation (IR), payment request (PAY).

In all these cases system only moves the status of the document to it's final status and does not transmit the document to ERP. So it is not ideal to force process a document until there is no way to move forward with it.

Document	Button/Action	Comments
PO	Force Order/Force Cancel	PO is not sent to ERP/Ariba Network (AN) based on when the force action is done. If it is force ordered when it is failing to be sent to ERP, the PO will not be sent to ERP and also to AN, if it configured to be sent AN. When you cancel a PO which is already force ordered, system will be triggering a cancellation to ERP since there is no restriction on the webservice call. But when the cancel integration hits ERP, there will be no document to cancel, which leads to ERP push error. You need to enable parameter Application.Purchasing.AllowForceCancelForForceOrderedERPOrders to resolve this issue. Once the parameter is enabled, the cancel integration event for force ordered PO will be restricted and you can directly force cancel the PO. Now the cancellation will also not be sent to ERP and AN. So you must use Force Cancel option if the PO needs to be Cancelled. If the PO is failing while being sent to AN, on force ordering the PO current and any future versions of the PO has to be manually delivered to the supplier. AN will reject the cancellation of force ordered PO along with other reasons like an expired trading relationship with the supplier. So Force Cancel option can be used in these circumstances. Please note that no future actions are supported on forced orders, e.g. order change, order cancellation, etc. Refer to Order transmission and failed orders. It is performed only for the sake of moving the PO from a stuck state and for reporting purpose.
Receipt	Force Process	Receipt is not transferred to ERP. If the site is configured for AN integration Receipt would still be sent to AN.
BPO	Force Send	Force Send button will not send the BPO to the supplier via AN. Current and any future versions of the BPO has to be manually delivered to the supplier.
SES	Force Reject	SES works different from other documents, Ariba still sends the status to ERP.
Invoice	Force Reconcile	Force reconciling an Invoice will skip sending a copy to AN and create IR.
IR	Force Reject	Force Reject will update the status of both Invoice and IR to Rejected and reverse all PO accumulated values.
Payment Request	Force Pay	On clicking Force Pay button, status of the Payment Request changes from Paying or PayingFailed to Paid. Payment has to be settled to the supplier outside of Ariba application.

Additional Information

While logging a Case, please ensure that your document is not already force processed. Identifying the root cause of an already force processed document is difficult as webservice integration with ERP is real time and debug level logs are not enabled by default. So unless all the options are exhausted, you might not want to force process.

Applies To

SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing