SAP Ariba Shopping mobile app - Frequently Asked Questions
Common Questions
- What is the difference between SAP Ariba Shopping mobile app and SAP Ariba Procurement mobile app?
- SAP Ariba Shopping is focused on the broad population of a company that is looking to purchase goods from their catalogs. The app is focused on the search and discovery experience for users with a streamlined decision-making process.
- SAP Ariba Procurement is focused on the procurement professionals or managers who need to approve or manage their employees' purchases, and also be able to purchase goods and services themselves or on behalf of others.
- In which scenarios would a customer use the SAP Ariba Shopping mobile app vs SAP Ariba Procurement mobile app?
- SAP Ariba Shopping is for casual buyers that need to make purchases for work. The app allows personalized search and shopping experiences from a mobile device.
- SAP Ariba Procurement is for procurement professionals and managers that need to perform more complex procurement processes. The app allows purchasing, task and change management, goods receipt, and approvals from a mobile device.
- Who are "casual" buyers?
Casual buyers are employees who do self-service shopping. The SAP Ariba Shopping mobile app is focused on the broad population of a company that is looking to purchase goods from the catalogs.
- What happens when “casual” users log in to the SAP Ariba Procurement mobile app, and vice versa?
Only users who belong to the "Ariba Mobile User" group can use the SAP Ariba Procurement mobile app. However, all users can access the SAP Ariba Shopping mobile app.
- Users can't access the SAP Ariba Shopping mobile app, what do they need to do?
Users will need to reach out to their company administrators for a QR code to sign into the mobile app.
- What are the features or capabilities of the SAP Ariba Shopping mobile app?
To find the list of features or capabilities, please visit the SAP Ariba Shopping feature list page.
- What catalogs will users have access to? Do "casual" shoppers have the same access to the catalogs available to them on their desktop app?
The application supports the catalogs that are supported by the APIs. By default CIF catalogs are supported. If customers enable CMS then also BMEcat and Excel catalogs are supported. For more information please see: Best Practices.
- Is the mobile app available to all regions? Will users in all data centers be able to access the SAP Ariba Shopping mobile app?
Availability is determined by the two BTP data centers: EU10 and US10, both provided by AWS. Customer shall have a BTP sub-account to one of the referenced regions to find the application in the BTP Service Marketplace. For more information please see: Enable SAP Ariba Shopping Features, and for supported countries: MoMa
- What if the customers want to limit their users' access to the mobile app? Or if they want to limit certain catalog access?
Customers can limit their users’ access to the mobile app after having set up their own Identity Authentication (IdP) through BTP which is required when setting up the integration.
Technical Questions
- What do customers need to do to enable the SAP Ariba Shopping mobile app for their users?
To allow users to access the SAP Ariba Shopping mobile app, customers need to have the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) license purchased, and the admins will need to set up their BTP accounts.
- What is SAP Business Technology Platform?
SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) is an open platform-as-a-service (PaaS) that delivers in-memory capabilities, core platform services, and unique microservices for building and extending intelligent, mobile-enabled cloud applications. To use the SAP Ariba Shopping mobile app, customers will need to purchase a BTP license.
- How do customers purchase a BTP license?
- For new SAP Ariba customers: A BTP account will be automatically generated
- For existing SAP Ariba customers without BTP account: A new BTP account will be automatically generated by the BTP Commercialization team. Customer’s Admins side will receive a mail notification about BTP account creation.
- For existing SAP Ariba customers with BTP account: The app will be added as an entitlement to their BTP accounts.
Note: When referring to SAP Ariba customers in the scenarios listed above, we refer to the SAP Ariba customers who have purchased Buyer and Procurement modules.
For more information please see: Getting a Global Account
- Where can customers find the SAP Ariba Shopping admin guide?
The admin guide can be found within the SAP Ariba Shopping (mobile) documentation page. [this is the SAP documentation link. We can add the SAP Ariba "What's new" when it is available.]
- Where can users find the QR codes to activate the SAP Ariba Shopping mobile app on their devices?
Before a QR code can be provided to activate the SAP Ariba Shopping App, the following must first be completed:
- Configure Admin Role
- Enable SAP Ariba Shopping Subscription
- Create Trust between Identity Authentication and SAP Business Technology Platform
- Configure SAP Ariba Shopping Destination
- Configure Trust Between SAP Business Technology Platform and SAP Ariba
- Can users access the SAP Ariba Shopping mobile app on multiple devices?
The mobile app can be accessed on iOS and Android mobile devices only. A user can also login with the same account to multiple devices. However, locally managed features will not be synced across devices (e.g. passcode).
- Is the SAP Ariba Shopping mobile app supported by Mobile Device Management (MDM)?
Yes, the SAP Ariba Shopping mobile app supports configuration via Mobile Device Management (MDM), which allows administrators to configure all relevant settings, roll out the application to many devices or change settings during operation.
For addition information, please refer to the SAP Help or contact Support on SAP Ariba Connect.
