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Procedure documentationManaging Supplier Certificates

 

When managing your supplier portfolio, you can request that your suppliers provide certificates. SAP Supplier Lifecycle Management enables you to manage these certificates as follows:

  • You create certificate types corresponding to the actual certificates you want your suppliers to provide, such as ISO 9001. You do this under Start of the navigation path Certificate Management Next navigation step Certificate Types End of the navigation path.

  • You use certificate types to request the actual certificates from your suppliers:

    You can assign certificate types to purchasing categories.

    As a consequence, suppliers assigned to a purchasing category are reminded on the sell side of SAP Supplier Lifecycle Management to provide the relevant certificates.

    You can mark certificate types as mandatory for certain purchasing categories.

  • You can assign certificate types to certificate questions in the question library.

    You can include these certificate questions into qualification questionnaires. This enables you to request certificates from your suppliers in the supplier qualification process.

In the supplier details, all certificates uploaded by a supplier on the sell side of SAP Supplier Lifecycle Management are displayed. Certificates sent in response to a supplier qualification are displayed in the supplier details if the following conditions are met:

  • The qualification response has been approved.

  • The moment the qualification request was sent, a certificate type was assigned to the question with which you requested the certificate.

  • The certificate type was assigned to one or more purchasing categories assigned to the supplier.

You can gain an overview of all supplier certificates and their statuses in the Certificate Status personal object worklist (POWL) under Supplier Portfolio. For more information, see Monitoring Certificate Statuses.

Procedure

Creating Certificate Types

  1. Click Create Certificate Type.

  2. Provide the following General Information:

    • A certificate Name.

      The name is an alphanumeric internal identifier, which is unique and which is not visible to your suppliers.

    • A certificate Description.

      The alphanumeric description is visible to your suppliers.

    • Optionally: An Explanation

      You can use the explanation to provide details about certificate types.

  3. You can provide an Internal Note for certificate types to convey information to other purchasers or to translators.

Note Note

The Assignments table is filled as soon as you have assigned the certificate type to certificate questions or purchasing categories.

End of the note.
Certificate Type Statuses

Certificate types can have the following statuses:

  • In preparation:

    This is the initial status of certificate types. In status in preparation, certificate types cannot be assigned to purchasing categories or certificate questions.

  • Released

    Releasing certificate types saves them and makes them available for usage. Released certificate types can be assigned to purchasing categories and to certificate questions.

  • In phase-out

    This status is intended for certificate types that you do not want to use any more in the future, but that are currently still assigned to purchasing categories or to certificate questions. You cannot edit or assign certificate types in the status “in phase-out”. The status “in phase-out” does not have any effects on the sell side of SAP Supplier Lifecycle Management: Suppliers are still requested to provide the related certificates according to the certification requirements defined for their purchasing categories. For more information, see Managing Purchasing Categories.

    The status “in phase-out” is a temporary status set by the system before you can set certificate types to “obsolete”. However, it is also possible to change the status of certificate types from “in phase-out” back to “released”.

  • Obsolete

    This is the final status for certificate types that are no longer used. The status obsolete is irreversible.

Requesting Certificates from Suppliers

You can request certificates from your suppliers either by assigning certificate types to purchasing categories or by assigning certificate types to certificate questions. You can automatically remind suppliers of expiring or missing certificates.

Certificates provided by suppliers require an approval from the purchaser responsible on the buy side of SAP Supplier Lifecycle Management. Only after approval are they visible in the supplier data. In the Certificate Status POWL, however, purchasers can also see certificates that have been uploaded by suppliers and that are still pending approval.

For more information, see:

Certificates in Supplier Portfolio Management

As a purchaser, you can see all certificate types assigned to the purchasing categories to which a supplier belongs on the Certificates tab in the supplier details. The validity statuses of the supplier's own certificates are displayed.

Handling of Certificates by Suppliers

Suppliers assigned to purchasing categories with assigned certificate types can view these certificate types on the sell side of SAP Supplier Lifecycle Management. For each certificate type, all certificates are displayed that have been provided over time. Suppliers can check which certificates are still valid. They can upload new documents not only for invalid certificates, but also in advance. For more information, see Maintaining Supplier Data.

Furthermore, suppliers can provide certificate in response to certificate questions as part of the supplier qualification process.

Translating Certificate Types

To enable suppliers to see certificate type descriptions in several languages on the sell side of SAP Supplier Lifecycle Management, you can translate certificate types. For more information, see Translating Certificate Types.

More Information

Required Roles

Depending on the tasks you have to perform, you have been assigned the following roles:

Task

Required Role

Creating and editing certificate types

Certificate Manager (/SRMSMC/CERTIFICATE_MANAGER)

Assigning certificate types to purchasing categories, viewing the Certificate Status POWL

Category Manager (/SRMSMC/CATEGORY_MANAGER)

Assigning certificate types to certificate questions

Questionnaire Manager (/SRMSMC/QUESTIONNAIRE_MANAGER)
Required Customizing Switches

You must have enabled certificate types in Customizing for SAP Supplier Lifecycle Management on the buy side and on the sell side:

  • Start of the navigation path Buy Side Next navigation step Supplier Portfolio Management Next navigation step Supplier Certificates Next navigation step Enable Certificate Types End of the navigation path

  • Start of the navigation path Sell Side Next navigation step Supplier Data Management Next navigation step Supplier Certificates Next navigation step Enable Certificate Types End of the navigation path

Customizing

The activities under the following nodes are relevant in Customizing for SAP Supplier Lifecycle Management:

  • Start of the navigation path Buy Side Next navigation step Supplier Portfolio Management Next navigation step Supplier Certificates End of the navigation path

  • Start of the navigation path Sell Side Next navigation step Supplier Data Management Next navigation step Supplier Certificates End of the navigation path