🛠 Create Your Own - ESG Due Diligence Assessment

Learn how to set up a structured process for assessing the Environmental, Social & Governance policies of your vendors

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  Estimated Read Time: 8 minutes

   Estimated Configuration Time: 30 Minutes

➕ Requires the Vendor Portal

 

 

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Sections in this Article

Introduction & Demonstration 🎬

Configuration

Mandatory Configuration

Additional Configuration

Before You Start - Other Considerations

Getting Started

Additional Reading

 

 

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Introduction

 

To aid you in the goal to measure & understand your Vendor's (and by effect, your) environmental impact, this workflow comes pre-built with an assessment form comprised of the 4 key ESG topics:

Sustainability

Environmental Impact

Social Impact

Internal Governance

This best practice template allows you to create an automated and streamlined process for assessing your Vendors alongside your pre-existing onboarding & due diligence activities, giving you quantifiable & reportable insights without delays to getting your new relationships up and running!

 

💡 This workflow does not only function as an initial assessment

In the below steps, we also walk through how to configure this process so that you can re-assess your vendors on a variable basis (such as quarterly/bi-annual/annual), enabling you to track the progression of your key partners!

 

Workflow Diagram

 

 

Workflow Demonstration

 

 

 

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Configuration

 

Adding the Template

Step 1) Head to the Workflows page

Step 2) Hit Add > Workflow Template

Step 3) Select the 🌳 ESG Due Diligence 🌳 Template

Step 4) If necessary, amend the new workflow's Title

Step 5) Hit ✅ Create

 

Mandatory Configuration

 

Configuring the "ESG Status" Field

Creating an 'ESG Status' field is mandatory as it allows us to create a field that can then flag Vendors for the ESG Workflow.

Step 1) Head to Settings > Configuration > Custom Data

Step 2*) Select an existing Vendor Custom Data Group or add a new one to host the status field 

Step 3) In the Vendor Custom Group, hit ➕ Add New Custom Field

Step 4) Label your field ESG Status and select the type of Dropdown list

Step 5) Add the below dropdown options & hit ✅ Save

ESG Assessment Required ⚠️

ESG Assessment Complete ✅

N/A

 

Configuring the Trigger

Step 1) Go to the Workflows page

Step 2) Click to edit the workflow then select the Workflow Triggers option

Step 3) Select the New ESG Form Required trigger

Step 4) Use ➕ ADD to assign the field you created as the trigger condition, as below:

ESG Status  ➡️  is one of  ➡️  ESG Assessment Required ⚠️

 

Add the ESG Status to the Workflow and set it as Hidden

Step 1) Open the AutoStart phase, then select Form

Step 2) Scroll to the bottom of the form, then select ➕Add Section

Step 3) Give the section a name. Under Predefined, select Vendor, then select the Custom Data Group that you chose to host the ESG Status question

Step 4) Select ✅Save

Step 5) You should also Hide this field throughout the Workflow. If so, head to the form of each phase you wish to hide the field, then scroll to the bottom and select Hidden

 

AutoAction Setting the Status when done

Step 1) Head to the ESG Review Completed ☑️ phase & hit Edit this Phase

Step 2) Navigate to the Actions tab

Step 3) Alongside ⚙️ AutoAction | Update Vendor, hit Edit AutoAction Values

Step 4) Set the ESG Status dropdown value to ESG Assessment Complete ✅

Step 5) Hit ✅ Save 

 

 

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Additional Configuration

 

Perform your ESG Review Annually via a "Refresh" ♻️

 

As part of this process, you may be required to perform an ESG check on an annual or recurring basis. If you need this process to repeat, please follow the below steps:

Part 1 - Adding a Date field to the data model

Step 1) Head to ⚙️ Settings > ⚙️ Configuration >  ⚙️Custom Data

Step 2) Open your Supplier Data custom data group

Step 3) Select ➕Add New Custom Field

Step 4) In the Type field, select Date. Then in the Label field, add ESG Yearly Review. Then select ✅ Save.

Part 2 - Adding the Date field to the form

Step 1) Head to your ESG Due Diligence Workflow

Step 2) Open the AutoStart phase and select the 3 dots then select Edit this Phase

Step 3) Open the Form tab of the AutoStart phase

Step 4) Scroll to the bottom of the form, then select ➕Add Section

Step 5) In the Predefined section, select Vendor and in the Custom Data Group section, select Vendor Data then select ✅ Save

Part 3 - Setting the Date via ⚙️AutoActions

Step 1) Head to the ESG Review Completed ☑️ phase

Step 2) Select Actions from the right-hand navigation menu

Step 3) Under the ⚙️AutoAction | Update Vendor section, select ⚙️Edit AutoAction Values

Step 4) Scroll to the bottom of the page, and next to ESG Yearly Review select the period of time you would like to pass between reviews

E.g. 12 Months after Today

Step 5) Hit  ✅ Save

 

Part 4 - Creating a Trigger

Step 1) Head to the Workflows page

Step 2) Under the ESG Due Diligence Workflow, select the 3 dots, then select Workflow Triggers

Step 3) Select ➕Add Trigger

Step 4) Name the trigger accordingly

E.g. Yearly Review, then select ✅ Create

Step 5) Under Conditions, select ➕Add then locate the date field created in Part 1.

Step 6) Select your operators

E.g. Next ESG Review occurs in 7 Days, then select ✅ Create.

Step 7) Set the Trigger Status to Live

 

 

 

 

Converting the ESG Form to Custom Data 💾

Before beginning this section, as it requires a lot of manual tasks, it's important to understand the pros and cons of Custom Data versus Form Data

 

 

Part 1) Transcribe all Form fields to Custom Data fields

Go to Settings > Configuration > Custom Data

Create a new Custom Data Group relating to each Form Section within your Workflow. Copy the fields and field settings from the Form to your new Custom groups

Part 2) Add new Custom Data Form Sections to the Workflow

Head back to your ESG Workflow

Select the 3 dots next to the first phase AutoStart. Go to the Form tab scroll to the bottom. Use Add Section to add in each of the newly transcribed Custom Data Groups

Part 3) Remove the old form sections

Locate the Form Data Only version of these fields

Part 4) Set the new fields to ☑️ Take value from form in each of your AutoActions

Part 5) In Settings > Configuration > Custom Data rename the fields to shorter forms of the questions (this will make them easier to read in reports & summary views)

See this spreadsheet for how we have relabelled these fields if you wish

Part 6) Create a new Custom Tab for your ESG data and move all the groups to this tab

 

 

 

 

Hide Phases from your Vendor Users 🫣

When Vendor Portal users see a form in their dashboard, they will also see a step-counter to indicate how far along the kanban board their specific form is

However, for workflows with auto-actions & other phases which your Vendor does not need to know about, you can remove them from the step-counter's progress

 

Before: Default ESG Progress Counter

Dashboard Counter:

 

View More Progress Bar:

After: ESG Progress Counter After the Hiding AutoAction/Abandoned Phases

Dashboard Counter:

View More Progress Bar:

 

Step 1) Head to Modules > Vendor Portal

Step 2) Alongside the ESG Workflow, hit then to edit

Step 3) Check ☑️ Hide alongside the phases you do not wish to be part of the progress counter for your Vendors

Step 4) Hit ✅ Submit to save

 

 

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✋ Before You Start 🤚

If you have followed the above Configuration steps, your workflow should ready to go

However, there are some steps you can take in other areas of your Gatekeeper environment to ensure this will run smoothly and effortlessly fit into your Vendor Management processes

Adding the Status field to your other processes

This assessment is designed to be performed in 2 scenarios:

First, in parallel with other Vendor Assessment processes (i.e. a Vendor Onboarding)

Second, as part of a standalone annual "re-assessment"  ⬆️ see above ⬆️

For the former, we find the best way to leverage this workflow is to have it trigger automatically when a new vendor is being onboarded. This will allow you to be performing multiple onboarding actions at once, speeding up the time it takes to begin working with a new vendor.

 

Adding Vendors Users

Step 1) Click to open a Vendor Record

Step 2) Navigate to the Vendor Users tab to check what user contact details have been already added

Step 3) Hit Add > Vendor User to add a new contact

 

 

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Getting Started

Enable trigger/s

Step 1) Head to the Workflows page

Step 2) Click to edit the workflow then select the Workflow Triggers option

Step 3) Click your trigger's name

Step 4) Switch the Trigger Status from Pipeline to Live

Step 5) Hit < Back and Repeat Steps 3 - 4 for any additional triggers you have configured

 

 

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Additional Reading 📚

 

Custom Tabs

Learn about the feature we recommend for segmenting this data from your Core data model (if you plan on following the ⬆️ above steps ⬆️ to add the ESG fields to your data model)

 

⚡️ Parallel Workflow 2 - Vendor Onboarding  ⓧ Automated NDAs

See a walkthrough to a similar use case to this workflow (i.e. a workflow process which automatically initiates in Parallel with a Vendor Onboarding)

 

⚡️ Dynamic Dates

See a walkthrough of the functionality mentioned above which would facilitate automated refresher assessments

 

🛠️ Create Your Own - Vendor Onboarding Workflow

If you don't currently have a workflow in place for onboarding your new Vendors, follow this guide to configure our best practice template