Welcome to this comprehensive and informative series on SAP S/4HANA Integration with Ariba. In this integration journey, I will explain the complete end-to-end configuration required to integrate S/4HANA with various Ariba solutions for smooth and accurate data transformation.

This series is divided into multiple parts, so before reading any specific integration topic, please ensure that you have gone through the previous parts for a better understanding.

To better understand the integration configuration, you can also refer to our Ariba Solutions blogs, where I have explained all Ariba solution architectures in detail. Once you understand how each Ariba solution works, it will greatly help during the integration configuration process.

Note: This integration approach is also valid for the SAP ECC system.

Very Important Note

In this series, you will often hear the term CIG. CIG stands for Cloud Integration Gateway (now renamed to Managed Gateway for Spend Management and SAP Business Network). For simplicity, we will continue to call it CIG. CIG is the cloud integration tool provided by Ariba, and it plays a very important role:

It manages the integration process
It handles data transformation
It connects S/4HANA with different Ariba solutions

So, even though we commonly say “SAP S/4HANA Integration with Ariba”, technically we are integrating S/4HANA with CIG.
Once S/4HANA is connected to CIG, the gateway automatically sends the data to the appropriate Ariba solution (such as Buying, Sourcing, or Contracts).

Integration flow:
👉 S/4HANA → CIG → Ariba Solutions
Since CIG is already integrated with Ariba, our main task is to integrate S/4HANA with CIG.
So, don’t get confused whenever the term CIG is mentioned. Please keep this in mind throughout the series—it will make every configuration step easier to understand

SAP S/4HANA Integration with Ariba Integration – Prerequisites

Before starting the actual integration configuration, it is mandatory to complete all the required integration prerequisites.
These prerequisites are spread across the initial parts of this series and must be completed step by step before moving on to the core integration configuration.These prerequisite activities involve coordination with both the Basis team and the Network team.
Let’s discuss, one by one, the essential prerequisites needed to integrate S/4HANA with Ariba.

System Backup

The first step of Prerequisites is to take a complete backup of your S/4HANA system and keep it in backup mode. The significance of this step is that if any issue occurs during configuration and the S/4HANA system goes down, your integration configurations will remain safe and can be restored without any loss.

What Is Ariba Add-ons

The next step of Prerequisites is Add-ons Installation. Add-ons are packages that need to be installed in the S/4HANA system but
What is Ariba Addons. Why do we need them?
The answer is simple—let’s understand this with an example.
When using Google Chrome, we often install extensions like Loom for screen recording. To use Loom, we must first install the extension in the browser.
Similarly, when integrating S/4HANA with CIG, we must install CIG specific extensions/add-ons in the S/4HANA system.
Only after installing the CIG add-ons in S/4HANA will you be able to see the CIG configuration details in SPRO.

SAP Ariba CIG supports the following versions of SAP S/4HANA systems:

SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1909
SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1809
SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1709
SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1610
SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 2020
SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 2021
SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 2022

Below are the add-ons that need to be installed in S/4HANA:

• ARBCI1 10S – Primary and mandatory
• ARBCI2 10S – Required if you are using the Contract Service features of Ariba Sourcing
• ARBCIGR 10S – Required for Retail Master Data

SAP Ariba supports only the current version (version n) and the version immediately preceding it (version n–1) of these add-ons.
You can download these add-ons from the SAP Marketplace. As a CIG consultant, you do not need to download them yourself—simply coordinate with your Basis team. They will download the required add-ons and install them in the SAP S/4HANA system.

After the add-ons are installed, you can verify their details and version information directly in the S/4HANA system.

Step 1 – Extecute SAINT t-code
Here you can see Addons are successfully installed in S/4HANA system.

Now that the add-ons are successfully installed in S/4HANA, the next prerequisite steps will be discussed in Part 2.
Make sure you go through each and every part for a better understanding.