🛠 Create Your Own - ESG Due Diligence Assessment

  Estimated Read Time: 8 minutes

➕ Requires the Vendor Portal

⚠️ ESG Due Diligence (Smart Form) Workflow Automatically Creates 169 Custom Fields

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Sections in this article:

• Introduction
  • ESG Smart Form
  • Workflow Diagram
• Mandatory Configuration
  • Add the Template
  • Configure the ESG Status Field
  • Configure the Trigger
  • Add the ESG Status to the Workflow
• Additional Configuration
  • Configure Recurring ESG Reviews ♻️
  • Hide Phases from Vendor Users
• Additional Setup Outside the Workflow
  • Add the Custom Status Field to Other Workflows
  • Add Vendor Users
• ⚡️Getting Started - Activate the Triggers⚡️
• Additional Reading

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Introduction

This workflow helps you assess the ESG practices of your vendors using a structured form covering four topics: sustainability, environmental impact, social impact and internal governance. 

It runs alongside any existing onboarding and due diligence activities, so you can gather quantifiable insights without delaying new vendor relationships. It also supports ongoing re-assessments, for example quarterly, bi-annually or annually.

See the demonstration below for a walkthrough: 

There are two versions of this workflow. They share the same phases, trigger and setup steps, and differ only in how the questionnaire stores its responses:

• ESG Due Diligence: The questionnaire is a standard workflow form. Responses are stored on the vendor’s workflow card only, not on the vendor record.
• ESG Due Diligence (Smart Form): The questionnaire is built from custom data, so responses are saved to the vendor record. Answers are weighted and scored automatically, with the final score stored on the vendor record.

ESG Smart Form

If you need to report on ESG data or compare vendors from the vendor repository, it’s recommended to use the Smart Form version of the best practice template.

The Smart Form version is pre-configured with ESG-specific fields, questions and scored weightings, so there’s no need to create your own. The four assessed areas, Sustainability Governance, Environment, Social and Governance, are weighted at 25% each. Each question is answered with either Yes (scored at 100%) or No (scored at 0%).

For certain questions, selecting Yes triggers a follow-up multiline text field for additional detail.

Once the vendor completes this form, their responses are weighted and scored automatically. The final score is stored on the vendor record for easy access and transparency. 

 

Workflow Diagram

Mandatory Configuration

The steps in this section outline the essential setup required to make your workflow fully functional:

• Add the ESG Due Diligence workflow template to your tenant as the starting point for the build
• Create the custom ESG Status field that pulls vendors onto the workflow
• Configure the trigger to start the workflow when a vendor’s ESG Status is set to Assessment Required
• Add the ESG Status to the workflow form, and configure the AutoAction so that the status updates when the review is complete

See the Additional Configuration section covers optional additions to expand the scope of your process or tailor the workflow to better align with your organisation’s unique policies and procedures.

Add the Template

To get started, you'll need to add the template workflow:

1. From the navigation menu, click Workflows.
2. Click Add, then select Workflow Template.
3. Click Create on the ESG Due Diligence template.
4. Amend the title if needed, then click Create.

Configure the ESG Status Field

A custom ESG Status field is required so that vendor records are pulled onto the workflow automatically. To configure this:

1. From the navigation menu, expand Settings, then click Configuration.
2. Click Custom Data.
3. Click an existing vendor custom data group to open it, or add a new one to store this field in. If you're planning to run more contract and vendor management processes in parallel, consider adding a custom data group to store all related statuses.
4. Within the custom group, clickAdd New Custom Field.
5. Enter a label for the field, e.g. ESG Status, and select Dropdown list as the type.
6. Add the following dropdown options, then click Save.
   1. ESG Assessment Required
   2. ESG Assessment Complete
   3. N/A

Configure the Trigger

After creating the custom ESG Status field, configure the trigger using this as a condition:

1. From the navigation menu, click Workflows.
   
2. Expand the 3 dots on the ESG workflow, then select Workflow Triggers.
3. Click the New ESG Form Required trigger.
4. Click 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 Form

You'll need to add the ESG Status field to the workflow form, so that it can be updated automatically once a vendor completes the process.

1. Click the start phase of the workflow to edit it.
2. Navigate to Form, then click Add Section and enter a section name.
3. Select the following from the dropdown lists:
   1. Predefined: Vendor
   2. Custom Data Group: The custom group that contains the ESG Status field.
4. Click Save.

You should then hide this field on the workflow form, so that users cannot update it manually. To do this: 

1. Click the cog icon to access the workflow configuration.
   
2. Locate the form section that contains the ESG Status field.
3. Select Hidden from the dropdown list on the start phase, then click the copy icon.
   
4. Select the checkboxes for all other phases in the workflow. This will apply the settings for this section from the start phase to all other phases.
   
5. Click Copy to save the changes.

Once you've added the ESG Status field to the form, configure the AutoAction settings so that a vendor's status is updated when the workflow is complete:

1. Click the ESG Review Completed phase to edit it.
2. From Actions, click Edit AutoAction Values alongside AutoAction | Update Vendor.
3. Select ESG Assessment Complete from the ESG Status dropdown.
4. Click Save.

Additional Configuration

This section covers optional steps to adjust the workflow’s scope or default settings, helping you tailor it to your organisation’s needs.

Configure Recurring ESG Reviews ♻️

If your organisation requires recurring ESG checks, you can configure the workflow to repeat this process at scheduled intervals, for example annually. 

Part 1: Add a custom ESG Date field

First, you'll need to add a custom date field that will be used to automatically pull vendors onto the workflow at the right time.

1. From the navigation menu, expand Settings, then click Configuration.
2. Click Custom Data.
3. Click an existing vendor custom data group to open it, or add a new one to store this field in.
4. Within the custom group, click Add New Custom Field.
5. Enter a label the field, e.g. ESG Yearly Review, and select Date as the type.
6. Click Save.

Part 2: Add the Date field to the form

Next, add the ESG Date field to the workflow form, so that it can be populated automatically as part of the workflow.

1. Click the start phase of the ESG Due Diligence workflow to edit it.
2. Navigate to Form, then click Add Section and enter a section name.
3. Select the following from the dropdown lists:
   1. Predefined: Vendor
   2. Custom Data Group: The custom group that contains the ESG Date field.
4. Click Save.

Part 3: Set the Date via AutoActions

Once you've added the ESG Date field to the workflow, configure the AutoAction settings so that the field is populated on the vendor's record when the workflow is complete:

1. Click the ESG Review Completed phase to edit it.
2. From Actions, click Edit AutoAction Values alongside AutoAction | Update Vendor.
3. For the ESG Date field, select the relevant period of time e.g. 12 Months after Today.
4. Click Save.

Part 4: Create a trigger

Finally, create a trigger to pull vendors onto the workflow automatically when their ESG review date is approaching.

1. From the navigation menu, click Workflows.
   
2. Expand the 3 dots on the ESG workflow, then select Workflow Triggers.
3. Click Add Trigger, then enter a name (e.g., Yearly Review) and click Create.
4. Under Conditions, click Add then locate the newly created custom date field.
5. Configure the condition, for example Next ESG Review occurs in 7 Days, then click Create.
6. Click the pencil icon to set the Trigger Status to Live.

Hide Phases from Vendor Users

You can hide certain phases to simplify the Progress tracker view for Vendor Portal users. This is useful for phases that are not relevant to them, for example AutoAction phases:

To configure this:

1. From the navigation menu, expand Modules then click Vendor Portal.
2. In the Vendor Portal Workflows section, expand the 3 dots on the ESG workflow and click Edit.
3. Select the Hide checkbox for the phases you wish to hide, e.g. AutoStart and Form Abandoned.
4. Click Submit to save your changes.

Additional Setup Outside the Workflow

If you’ve followed all of the steps above, your workflow is nearly ready to launch. However, to help the process run as smoothly and reliably as possible, there are a few additional areas of your Gatekeeper tenant worth reviewing.

Add the Custom Status Field to Other Workflows

When running the ESG workflow alongside other vendor assessment processes, such as onboarding, it’s recommended to start it automatically when a new vendor is added. To do this, add the ESG Status field to the other workflow’s form, then use an AutoAction set it to ESG Assessment Required when the vendor is created. To learn about configuring this, see Parallel Workflows.

Add Vendor Users

Before vendors can complete the ESG questionnaire on the Vendor Portal, ensure that the relevant contacts have been added as vendor users:

1. From the navigation menu, expand the Vault then click Vendors.
2. Click on the relevant vendor record to open it.
3. Click the Vendor Users tab to view existing contact details.
4. Click Add, then select Vendor User to add a new contact.

⚡️Getting Started - Activate the Triggers⚡️

Once your workflow is fully configured, activate the triggers to make it live:

1. From the navigation menu, click Workflows.
   
2. Expand the 3 dots on the relevant workflow, then select Workflow Triggers.
3. For any trigger with a Pipeline status, click on the trigger's name.
4. Click the  pencil icon on Trigger Status.
5. Select Live from the dropdown list, then click Update.
6. Click < Back  to return to the list of triggers.
7. Repeat steps 3-5 until all triggers are live.

 

Additional Reading 📚

• Parallel Workflow - Vendor Onboarding x 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 workflow).
• Gatekeeper Expert - Use AutoActions to Populate and Trigger Dates  - Learn about using a custom date field to automate refresher assessments.
• 🛠️ Create Your Own - Vendor Onboarding Workflow - If you don't have a workflow for onboarding new vendors, follow this guide to configure our best practice template.