It's Easy to Get Started with Ariba

Ariba offers a variety of ways to connect to the Ariba Network so you can transact business and collaborate on order, invoice, and payment processes with your customers. You can use entry-level connectivity options, or you can integrate your backend systems directly using cXML, EDI, or PunchOut. Whichever option you choose, Ariba provides an evolutionary path for suppliers who want to grow their B2B eCommerce initiatives.

Connectivity Options for Order Collaboration

As an Ariba supplier, you receive purchase orders, change orders, and cancellations from your customers through the Ariba Network, which can route them to you several ways, including:

• A Web portal: Using just a computer and an Internet connection, log into our portal to view customer orders and change orders, as well as respond to your customers using an intuitive Webform.
• Fax: Have orders, change orders, and cancellations sent directly to your fax machine.
• Email: Receive orders, change orders, and cancellations at one or multiple addresses.
• EDI: Leverage your legacy EDI infrastructure, interfacing with Ariba using EDI over the Internet, or through your VAN.
• cXML: Use Commerce eXtensible Markup Language (cXML) to enable your backend systems to communicate with your customers' backend systems. Automatically receive customers' order, change order, and order cancellation outputs, and then publish your responses to customers' backend systems - all without any manual intervention.

Connectivity Options for Catalog Collaboration

To place accurate and comprehensive orders, Ariba customers need a way to access your catalog content quickly and easily. Ariba provides a variety of ways for you to expose your content, including:

• Catalog Interchange Format (CIF): Create CIF catalogs quickly and easily with any word processor, text editor, or spreadsheet application. CIF is best for suppliers who do not maintain a catalog on their website, have catalogs that contain relatively few items (e.g., under 1,000 items), and have catalog content that changes fairly infrequently.
• PunchOut: Use Ariba PunchOut to easily extend the product and service content on your B2B eCommerce website and backend systems so that buyers can access it interactively. PunchOut is best for suppliers that are already maintaining online catalogs. The direct integration to your backend systems ensures that price and availability data is always up to date for your customers. Ariba recommends PunchOut if you have catalogs with frequently changing content and/or have over 1,000 items.
• Level II PunchOut: Offer Level II PunchOut to customers who want all of the advantages of PunchOut and also need the ability to search across multiple suppliers.
• cXML format: Create cXML catalogs using any XML or text editor, or automatically generate and parse data from your backend product information management system.

Connectivity Options for Invoice and Payment Collaboration

Ariba provides several connectivity options to support invoice and payment collaboration, including:

• A Web portal: Using just a computer and an Internet connection, log into our portal to submit invoices via our intuitive Webforms. You can also view invoice and payment status online.
• EDI: Leverage your legacy EDI infrastructure, interfacing with Ariba using EDI over the Internet, or through your VAN.
• cXML: Use Commerce eXtensible Markup Language (cXML) to enable your backend systems to communicate with your customers' backend systems. Automatically publish invoices to customers' financial systems directly from your backend systems and subscribe to customers' responses - all without any manual intervention.

Which Choice is Right for You?

The best options for your business depend on where you are on your B2B eCommerce journey:

• For suppliers just getting started: Ariba's intuitive Web portal, fax, and email options are easy ways to get started with viewing and responding to customer orders. Suppliers just beginning with online invoicing can also opt to use our Web portal. For catalog collaboration, if you do not currently maintain an online catalog, CIF is a good choice; you simply upload your product catalog via a spreadsheet or word processor. As your Ariba-driven business grows, you can evolve to direct, backend integration with PunchOut and cXML.
• For suppliers with a legacy EDI infrastructure: Ariba enables you to transmit EDI documents over the Internet or via a VAN. As you modernize your infrastructure, we offer a path to evolve to cXML.
• For suppliers with a modern, B2B infrastructure: You can easily leverage your existing infrastructure and XML maps to accommodate cXML documents and then let your backend systems publish and subscribe to your customers' backend systems.

Learn More

If you're ready to move to cXML or PunchOut, take advantage of Ariba's Supplier Consulting Services for strategic and technical expertise and Supplier Technical Support , which gives you an enhanced level of technical support for Ariba's backend integration technologies.

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