Introduction to SAP ariba certification

In this article will discuss about SAP Ariba certification. I have been trying to find ways.  How to use the community better  but could not be more inclined to share some notes which I thought would be useful for the community. These are some of my Go-To Blogs to help navigate the community in a better way about SAP Ariba certification.

Check the reported bugs if you see some issue

If you see some issues in trying to navigate the community check the reported bugs and see if yours is listed and what’s the status hopefully it should be fixed soon

https://blogs.sap.com/2016/10/17/community-known-issues/

If not then try to create a new Q& A and start with Bug: as the prefix  in the heading. This will help to identify your issue as the new bug being reported  and would be picked up by one of the SAP moderators or the Forum team (and yes they are really quick at doing so ) and they either might clarify your understanding or add it to the bug list (if it truly is a bug). Also remember to have the primary tag on it as Using SAP.COM.

If however it does not seem like a bug but probably a new idea that you have stumbled upon and you think it can help make the community space better in terms of functionality or UI then go ahead and submit your idea in the link below. The idea place now has a huge list of constantly growing ideas on how the community can be made a better place for the users.
If  however you do not have an idea, then also I recommend  you should check the link so you may want to have a look at what ideas others are suggesting and upvote to encourage or get a functionality which you think you found there and you would want as well.

https://ideas.sap.com/

One of the recent ones I submitted which seemed like a huge UI issue is as below if you agree please support by upvoting

https://ideas.sap.com/D38000?status_id_filter=335897B6-05D7-4568-8804-3F55E3B39025&current_tab=Recent&row_num=2&getparameters=1

I found this link  quite useful for understanding on how the tags concept work. Although the excel in there is not something I am using. I prefer to search and type for the content that I am looking for rather than book marking all the tags and then tracking them individually. But this is how it seems to be working.

http://go.sap.com/community/about/using-tags.html

Another useful blog which explains the above in a much better way.

https://blogs.sap.com/2016/10/17/find-qa-tags/

What I think about the new community ? 

I  honestly don’t have very nice thoughts about my experience of new community. But will try my best to think impartial.  Would like to be fair and open minded to try a new thing and not resist the CHANGE as they say ‘Change is the only constant thing ’

  1. I honestly think if it had not been SAP but a smaller company which had things going in its favor and drastically changed its UI to something like this it would have really not seen the light of the day. With so many dedicated moderators , users and SAP admins trying their best to make this work it is now gaining popularity and I am sure will be accepted soon for the love of SAP that people have.
  2. I appreciate the relentless and undying efforts of moderators, admins , users to ensure all queries are answered and like all other things a meticulous approach is followed to help resolve the concerns soon. So if you are facing an issue in trying to figure out or if you are a bit lost just like me post a Q & A and get yourself more familiar with the tool as honestly I read a lot of comments by admins and moderators that we are not going back to the older version hence better to adapt and survive ?
  3. I feel there could have been some more efforts done by SAP and the team members to launch a more stable and better version of the platform. The current one still seems to be like we are using a BETA version and constantly being the tester to find out newer bugs and issues and then reporting it as an idea and those are not truly ideas but actually bugs when we compare it with the older version.

Things that changed drastically in SAP ariba certification

  1. Changes from Correct And helpful to ACCEPT and LIKE. So if a new user submits an answer to your query you can accept the answer and if the user chooses to comment you can LIKE IT. The other users can LIKE it as well
  2. No points for blogging anymore
  3. No breakup of Karma points atleast as of now. Some missions and coming up soon along with Reputation score and expertise score. Â I read more about this at the below link ;

http://go.sap.com/community/about/reputation.html#karma-credits

http://go.sap.com/community/about/reputation.what-s-coming-soon.html

  1. No Bookmark feature , no Top Liked content section for the month or  for the day
  2. No more documents all technical documents and non-technical ones go in BLOGS section

Not so many things as we had in the older version (Read Not that much fun anymore) but still gearing up.  I hope I would get myself familiarized soon and come up to pace with it.Taking my first step is posting this blog which is the first one after we migrated and now preparing for the next technical one which is what I am better at.                                                     

 Conclusion about SAP ariba certification 

 On a closing note I am not trying to criticize anything or anyone. These are just my personal opinions about using the new platform.

 Also I know it’s not about points or but I would like it will be great motivation for me.  Seeing my points increase for was sure a good thing. I am still a very selfless person (maybe not that much) with the purpose of helping others but still ‘Human’.  Getting acknowledge for everything I do blogs, documents, comments and answers make me fell good. 

Do share your comments or feedback and thanks for taking time to read.

Read the full article here                                                                                                                                               For more information and services:https://peritossolutions.com/newdev.peritossolutions.com/services/sap-consulting-service

I have been in SAP consulting since last 8+ years and from SRM now to Ariba seemed like a natural progression.And I have worked on Ariba projects back in time when it was not an SAP company and now again when it an SAP company and is greatly pitched by SAP to its clients so may be of an interest to all those working in the P2P area so I would like to tell them about SAP Ariba certification..

I would like to share my experience of preparation for the SAP Ariba certification so others who are looking to do the same can benefit. In all, the content which was provided gives you a fair idea of what the Ariba software does and how you can leverage and use it for your customers. I have alongside worked on Integration and implementation of Ariba solution to the existing SAP systems and that also helped me a lot and is recommended if you would want to maximize your learning but is not mandatory as the documents provide you a good enough understanding to clear the exam. Below are some of the links I found useful.

Learning map

https://jam2.sapjam.com/groups/dLvyXq1ypSRweyUomAdX4Q/overview_page/h5xEDkk21GFwbdJH4znxjE

Certification details and Cost :

https://training.sap.com/shop/certification/c_ar_p2p_13-sap-certified-application-associateariba-procure-to-pay-p2p-g/

Ensure you download the practice exam PDF from the link above. The exam covers the basics of

  • Contract Management and compliance
  • Receiving
  • Requisitioning
  • Ariba features
  • Managing Invoices

There are 3 main books 510 , 520 and 530 which are available as handbooks as well as E-Books in learning hub. However, the books just constitute around less than 24% of the course. Hence it is important that the entire learning room map be carefully read to cover the entire syllabus

What do you gain practically from SAP Ariba certification?

Its always good to be certified but sometimes you do not quite understand the actual benefit of the tool and product that you are going to study. In order to gain a good understanding of the certification, it will be helpful if you have worked on an Ariba implementation/ Support project which will make more sense to you when you browse through the material. However, most of the people who give the certification are hoping to get some opportunity after they are able to clear the exam. So the best value of getting certified is when you have actually managed to be in a project or if a certification can land you a job in doing Ariba implementation or as a pre-sales consultant.

Current certification in P2p though will give you a basic know-how is not essentially a deep dive of how a system admin will manage the system. Being a cloud product, it surely limits the ability to allow for customization and development when I compare it to its complementary product SAP SRM. As mentioned in the SAP page it says This certificate proves that the candidate has an overall understanding within the SAP Ariba Procurement application consultant profile and can implement this knowledge practically in projects under the guidance of an experienced consultant. It is recommended as an entry-level qualification to allow consultants to get acquainted with the fundamentals of Ariba Procure-2-Pay.

Difficulty: On a scale of 1to 10 I would rate this certification as being 6 /10 (even though I cleared it in the 2nd attempt) as it’s not a difficult exam and consists of basic concepts that you come across in a P2P scenario. If you miss out some of the facts and figures from the documents in the learning room you will be surprised as a lot of actual numbers and basic questions are picked from that section.

How did I prepare for the SAP Ariba certification?

In general for any certification, I read recommended books from the learning hub which was all 3 Books 510,520 and 530. The first time you may find it an information overload but just continue with it.Once you complete all 3 books the first time then it will be a lot more quickly to the same thing the 2nd time and you’ll realize a lot of the topics also get repeated in many of these books. By now ensure you have condensed form of notes which you can refer to in case you need to revise the content again.Now, Start reading the learning map documents. Read all the content once from the learning room and make notes of important thing you need to remember.

How much time does it take to complete the course: SAP ariba certification

Each of the book 510, 520 and 530 can be completed within a 1-2 weeks time as it should not take more than 20 hours to go through all these books in the first attempt. Then coming to the learning room contents where it took me approx. 35 hours or so to complete all the content from the learning room. My notes from the learning room document is as below which might be useful. So, in total it took me 3-4 weeks to complete the certification study guides and then I booked an online proctor using the certification hub and was able to clear my exam in the 2nd Attempt. (In the first one I ignored all the learning content room thinking its too generic to be asked). Online examination was a fun thing to do and yes absolutely hassle free. Then you can download the credentials and a logo as nice as shown in my picture after you cleared the exam. Learning Map course details

Ariba software knowledge: [Reading time approx. 3.5 hrs.]

  • 01*[PDF Document]: Ariba Solutions Description For purposes of the certification focus on the Ariba Procure-to-Pay Professional section. Ensure you pick the latest version of the document mentioned in the comments section. Only Page 149 to 160 is what has been mentioned needs to be read (1.5 hrs)
  • P2X parameter Table- These are the configurations provided by the software its good to know them just do a quick read through but difficult to learn from an exam perspective. The ones which are important are anyway part of the other documents. So I did not focus on this one a lot. (1 hr)
  • User and group overview: I did not read through this a lot just a glance through. (< 1 hr )

End of Section Ariba software knowledge. Remember this section along with the 3 books constitute 12%of the course so you would not want to waste a lot of time on this.

Consulting Activity [Reading time approx. 7 hrs.]

  • Federated Process control documentation: For certification purposes, focus on the Overview chapter. (<1 hr)
  • Functional discussion document and Functional design document: Glance through More useful in an actual project implementation but from a certification perspective its just good to read through once but I did not rem anything as such from this (3 hrs)
  • 07*[Others]: Value Proposition of Ariba to Sellers: This document has some outdated numbers is what the owner of the document says. There are some question and answers at the end which were important from a certification perspective (1 hr)
  • On deployment technical deployment methodology: One of the important ones in this section needs to be covered in detail. (~ 2 hrs)

Procurement Knowledge: [Reading time approx. 3 hrs.]

  • Catalog Kick off: Read details about the CIF format and other details (1.5 hrs)
  • P2X narrative ordering: understand the transmission mechanism (1 hr)
  • P2X process flow: Just one diagram nothing to read (10 mins)

Integration: [Reading time approx. 7.5 hrs.]

  • Introduction to downstream integration: Has important details which covers the basics of integration concepts (1.5 hrs)
  • P2X Integration overview: Contains integration aspects with different documents (2 hrs)
  • Creating form templates: For certification purposes, focus on the module €œFlex Master Data.Page 60-79. (1 hr)
  • Suite integration: This has details on how the data flows in upstream and downstream solutions (1 hr)
  • Upstream functional training: Read about the ITK details (<1 hr)
  • Technical specification: This is more related to the technical aspects and make not make a lot of sense unless you have done an implementation/ integration project (1 hr)
  • On Demand Technical deployment (Repeat from the previous sections )

SAP Ariba certification process knowledge: [Reading time approx. 5 hrs.]

  • Introduction to downstream integration: Repeat from previous section
  • P2X integration overview: Repeat from previous section
  • Project Kick off: understand the responsibility of Ariba team and customer in detail. (1.5 hrs)
  • Catalog Kick off: Repeat from previous section
  • Ariba Network 101: Details on supplier onboarding and other areas are important (1.5 hrs)
  • P2X technical and functional configuration: general Guidance template. I did not focus on this one a lot (>.5 hr)
  • On Demand Technical deployment: Repeat from previous section
  • Working together for customer success: Read concepts of consulting and shared services (1 hr)

Best practices: [Reading time approx. 7 hrs.]

  • P2X delivery guide: Important document for certification ( 1 hr)
  • Test Plan template: Understand the responsibility of the client and Ariba team for testing(2 hrs)
  • Ariba catalog introduction: Understand the different catalog types and their differences( 2 hrs)
  • Ariba network 101: Repeat from previous section
  • P2X parameter Table: Repeat from previous section
  • P2X best practice summary: Understand the default configuration of template realm (2 hrs)

I hope this was found useful for those looking for help in clearing Ariba exam.                                                  For more information and services:https://peritossolutions.com/newdev.peritossolutions.com/services/sap-consulting-services/