This is the simplest (but most burdensome) way to add new Vendors to Gatekeeper which we only recommend if you are dealing with small volumes of records

For more methodical & scalable ways to add your Vendors, see the Additional reading articles below ⬇️

Where to Create a Vendor

The steps to get started adding a new Vendor are:

Step 1) Go to your Vendor repository

Step 2) In the top right-hand corner, hit ADD

Step 3) Select Vendor

From here, Gatekeeper will guide you through the step-by-step process of adding populating the necessary information to add a new Vendor.

You must have Administrator permission to create a Vendor directly in the repository

Getting Started Using AutoBuild

AutoBuild is our native integration with Clearbit which you can leverage to speed up the data population process

With AutoBuild enabled, when adding a new Vendor Gatekeeper will first ask for the Website URL

Then, after checking the website with Clearbit, Gatekeeper will populate Vendor core metadata for you and unfreeze the remaining fields, allowing you to continue populating & amending the data:

If you are not using AutoBuild, when adding a new Vendor, Gatekeeper will immediately allow you to start populating all Vendor Data fields - i.e.without requiring a Website

If using Market IQ Financial, Gatekeeper will also allow you to connect the Vendor to CreditSafe using the data from AutoBuild!

Enabling AutoBuild

To enable AutoBuild when creating new Vendor records, follow the below steps:

Step 1) Go to Settings > Configuration

Step 2) Open the AutoBuild menu

Step 3) Enable AutoBuild and AutoBuild for Vendors

As seen above, once you have enabled AutoBuild, Gatekeeper will add a "Vendor AutoBuild" metadata group to your data model - this is a prebuilt set of fields which can be automatically populated with details about your Vendor directly from Clearbit

If there are some fields from this section you do not wish to keep, feel free to delete these like this:

Dismissing / Disabling AutoBuild

If you don't want to use AutoBuild, Gatekeeper allows users to choose to dismiss it when getting started on the Vendor Data tab, opting to enter data manually:

However, if you definitely do not wish to use this feature at all, it can be disabled so that users will always populate the vendor metadata fields manually:

Step 1) Go to Settings > Configuration

Step 2) Open the AutoBuild Menu

Step 3) Switch the AutoBuild setting to Disabled

Populating the Vendor Data

For a deep dive into Gatekeeper's Core Data, see this overview of the Data Model:

📖 Contract & Supplier Core Data Tables

Whether using AutoBuild or not, once you get to the Vendor Data tab in edit mode, you can use the fields to input the values which will be stored in your repository:

On this Vendor Data tab, you will be required to populate the below mandatory core fields before you are able to hit Save to create your new vendor record:

Vendor Name, Status, Type, Approval

On this same tab, you also have the opportunity to populate some non-mandatory core fields for additional basic information about the vendor itself:

Legal Name, Registered Address, Company Number, Tax ID, External ID, Website

If you have added Custom Fields to the prebuilt Vendor Data custom group, these will also appear on this first tab:

Pictured below: The custom field Configuration page

⬇️

Pictured below: The custom field available to be populated on the Vendor Data tab

Custom Data Groups

If you have added Custom Metadata Groups to your data model, these can also be populated on this first Vendor Data tab

What next?

Once you are done on this tab (and have populated the above mandatory fields), you can choose to proceed by hitting ➡️ Save & Next

This will take you to the next tab of Vendor metadata (Vendor Dates) where you can continue populating fields

Congratulations! You have now created a Vendor record!

You can stop here, or continue on populating more data via the below tabs

You will notice on this next tab (and on all subsequent tabs) that you have two options on how to proceed:

Save & Next which, same as above, will store the metadata you have provided and open up the next tab in the list

Save and Exit which will store the current metadata and exit the editor, taking you to view the new Vendor record!

Additional Data Tabs

The remaining tabs (& fields) of metadata you can populate are:

Vendor Dates

Financial Year End - The financial end-of-year for this Vendor

Relationship Since - The date of the beginning of your relationship with this Vendor

Like withe above Custom Group, if you have added Custom Fields to the predefined Vendor Dates custom group, these will also appear on this Dates tab

RAG Status

RAG Status - A Red/Amber/Green status to indicate the Risk/Health of the relationship

RAG Narrative - Comments which can provide necessary context about the RAG Status

Owners

Internal Manager - The internal owner of the Vendor within your business

Vendor Manager - The main point of contact with the Vendor (External)

Relationships

These are the way to keep track of connections between your Vendor records

For instance, if you want to store details about a company and any subsidiaries/sister companies, you can add them as separate vendor records & add relationships, like below:

💡 If you have Market IQ Cyber & Financial, these risk scores will also display within the Relationships tab!

Creating Relationships

To create a relationship, first, select any Vendor Record from the vendor repository.

Then, scroll down to the Relationships data group and select 'Edit'

You can now use the Green 'Add' button to begin creating Relationships.

When you are happy with the Relationships you created, select Save & Next or Save & Exit

Relationship Types

Linked - A standard link between 2 Vendor Records. Best used when 2 Vendors are of equal within a hierarchy, or the relationship type does not fit within the Parent/Child model - the Description field can be used to capture additional context

Parent - The Vendor from the dropdown list will become the Parent of the Vendor Record currently being edited

Child - The Vendor from the dropdown list will become the Child of the Vendor Record currently being edited

Custom Tabs

If you have created custom tabs to organise the storage of additional metadata in your Vendor data model, this will be where you can populate this metadata:

For more information this feature see 📖 Custom Tabs

Additional Reading 📚

Other ways to add Vendors to Gatekeeper

📖 Bulk Importing (& bulk-updating) Vendors

If migrating a large amount of Vendors (e.g. from another repository), you can import a spreadsheet in csv format to create may vendors at once!

📖 Vendor Portal Self Registration

If using Vendor Portal, you can enable your vendors to set up their own vendor records & user profiles

🛠️ Create Your Own - Vendor Onboarding Workflow

Once your repository is set up, we recommend ensuring any new vendors go through a thorough onboarding & due diligence process. You can build & configure this workflow using our templates

🛠️ Create Your Own - Touchless NDA

Similar to the above Vendor Onboarding & Self-Registration, you can build this workflow to allow your Vendors to set up their own vendor records & user profiles as part of a process to generate & sign a new NDA contract!

Other settings to be aware of

📖 Configuring Additional Owners

Learn about how to configure additional owners to capture more stakeholders involved in your Vendor relationships

📖 Configuring Custom Data

Learn how to configure additional fields to store metadata about your Vendors which is not covered by our Core data model