Learn how to create a collaborative process for getting your new vendors added to Gatekeeper and centralising all the data, documents and audit trails
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Estimated Read Time: 18 minutes
Estimated Configuration Time: 1-2 hours
Sections in this Article
π Mandatory Configuration Steps π
π Additional Configuration Steps π
Adding Custom Metadata to the Form
Change to a "triggered" Workflow
Disable the Public Request Form
Hide phases from Vendor/Employee Portal
Getting Started - How to start using your new workflow
The Workflow - Introduction
This workflow will allow you to digitise your Vendor Onboarding & Risk Assessment process.
The structure of this workflow is inspired by the most pragmatic layouts seen across our client-base, but will allow for expansion in scope and sophistication to fit your processes.
By the employing this workflow, you will be guaranteeing that all new vendors you work with have been thoroughly documented and risk-assessed, so when it comes to doing business, you have all the necessary data to make informed decisions
π Configuring the Workflow π
Adding the Template Workflow
Before you get started with the configuration, you will need to add the Template workflow to your tenant.
Step 1) Head to the Workflows page
Step 2) Hit Add > Workflow Template
Step 3) Select the Vendor Onboarding Template
Step 4) If necessary, amend the new workflow's Title
Step 5) Hit β Create
π Mandatory Configuration Steps π
These are the basic steps required to make the workflow functional
Technically, once you complete this chapter, your new workflow will work as an end-to-end process
The β¬οΈ Additional Configuration β¬οΈ steps are optional additions to change the scope of the process & adapt the workflow further to fit your organisation's practices & Gatekeeper subscription
Create Workflow Groups
There are 2 uses for Workflow Groups in your Vendor Onboarding process:
A) Granting Access to groups of users to perform actions/update the form data/grant approval for the vendor relationship
B) Sending Notifications to these groups of users
Step 1) Head to Settings > Users
Step 2) Hit Add > Workflow Group
Step 3) Enter the Title of this new group
Including a Description is optional but can help you identify the group if making updates in future. It may be useful to mention the team and processes this group has been created for
Step 4) Edit your new Group to begin adding Members
If you have many workflow groups to populate with members, you don't have to do this one-by-one. You can bulk-update via spreadsheet to save time!
See the below knowledgebase article for more information
Standard Workflow Groups for a Complete Vendor Onboarding
-
-
- Procurement/Vendor Management Team
- Legal/Contract Management Team
- Finance Team
- InfoSec/Data Privacy Team
- Dedicated Compliance Teams for reviewing ESG/Modern Slavery/AML risks
(unless these categories fall under the remit of Procurement/Vendor Management)
-
Assign Approver/s
Two Phases are designated for approving Vendor Onboarding forms:
Approval Phase 1 - "Approval/s β "
This phase is designed to review the initial scope of the Vendor Onboarding request
This is to prevent unnecessary work later in the workflow - maybe if the new vendor/service is not in budget or there is already an existing Vendor in place which already provides the same services your organisation
π‘ Having a dynamic approver (like the "Team Owner") or a single Workflow Group (e.g. a Procurement team) is recommended here
Approval Phase 2 - "Onboarding Review βοΈ"
This phase is designed to perform all final checks & risk approvals
By this point of the workflow, all necessary data & documentation should have been provided so your teams will be able to assess, catalogue & approve all the possible risks.
π‘ Here you should configure any & every possible group/user who be involved in assessing risks of new relationships or interacting with your 3rd parties
Option 1 - Simple Approval β
This setting can be used if only one user/group needs to provide approval for onboarding forms.
Step 1) Edit your approvals phase
Step 2) Go to the Approval tab to check that Approval is π Enabled & set to π Single
Step 3) Now go to the Form Access tab
Step 4) Select the User/Group who should provide the approval and hit β Save
Any of the users/groups you populate on the Form Access tab will be able to provide the single approval for the onboarding form to proceed past this phase of the kanban board
Option 2 - Parallel Approvals ![](https://knowledge.gatekeeperhq.com/hs-fs/hubfs/parralelApproval-png.png?width=38&height=25&name=parralelApproval-png.png)
This setting can be used if multiple users/groups need to approve onboarding forms
Step 1) Edit your approvals phase
Step 2) Head to the Approval tab to check that Approval is π Enabled
Step 3) Select π Parallel
Step 4) In the pop-out Parallel Approvals view, select the required Users/Groups and hit β
Save
ALL of the users/groups you populate in the "Parallel Approvals" view will need to provide approval for onboarding forms to proceed past this phase of the kanban board
Option 3 - Conditional Parallel Approvals ![](https://knowledge.gatekeeperhq.com/hs-fs/hubfs/ConditionalApproval-png.png?width=30&height=29&name=ConditionalApproval-png.png)
This setting can be used if multiple users/groups need to approve onboarding forms but these users/groups can change depending on the scope of the request
Step 1) Go to your approvals phase & hit Edit this Phase
Step 2) Go to the Approval tab to check that Approval is π Enabled and set to π Parallel
Step 3) Hit β ADD NEW PARALLEL APPROVAL
Step 4) In the pop-out Parallel Approvals view, select the required Users/Groups
Step 5) Select π Conditional & hit β Save
Step 6) Hit β ADD to begin assigning conditions for the selected user/group to require approval
Step 7) Repeat Steps 3 - 6 until all conditional approvers are set
Gatekeeper will check the rules for all conditional approvals and apply those where the specific onboarding form matches.
π‘ If using conditional approvals, you should ensure that at least one group will be assigned to prevent forms being forgotten/delayed
You can do this by either carefully considering the conditions you use, or by having Unconditional ("Always Active") approvers alongside "Conditional" (see below gif)
See our Form Access Masterclass Article for all possible owners you can assign to these phases
Configure the Pre-built Forms
Two Form Sections have been added as '"placeholders" to allow you to build out the fields for your specific onboarding questionnaires:
Form 1) The "REQUEST FORM"
This form is designed for Internal users to provide details about the new vendor besides the core metadata
Details like context about the reason for and nature of the new vendor relationship
This should emulate an existing "intake form" if your organisation has one of these already!
Form 2) The "VENDOR ONBOARDING FORM" which has been added with some example questions
This form is designed for Vendor users to provide details about their organisation & compliance standards
This form should be used for any details/attachments you need to capture from Vendors which does not need to stored as metadata
Step 1) Head to the New Vendor Request Form phase and hit Edit this Phase
Step 2) Navigate to the Form tab
Step 3) In the REQUEST FORM section, use the β ADD FIELD button to begin building out the questionnaire
Example fields for the "REQUEST FORM"
Add fields capturing the context/reason for the vendor request, such as
Reason for new Vendor Request [Multiline text]
Add fields capturing the potential commitment & reviews needed, such as
Relationship type [Dropdown: One off Purchase, Ongoing/recurring services]
Estimated Budget for vendor expenditure [Monetary value]
Service Category [Dropdown: Software, Transportation, Maintenance, etc.]
Set Vendor Type
Vendor Type is a key field for classifying your Vendors
Amit Singh from Google explains a key Procurement Use Case for this classification here:
This is why Gatekeeper makes this a mandatory field for Vendors in your Gatekeeper repository This also means that your workflow needs to be configured to ensure this is populated for all new vendors, using one of the below methods...
Option 1 - Make the field "Mandatory" before the Auto-Create Vendor action
Step 1) Select the phase of the workflow where the Type field should to be populated
For the template workflow, this can take place on either of the below phases:
New Vendor Request Form π³
Approval/s β
Step 2) Hit Edit this Phase
Step 3) Navigate to the Form tab
Step 4) For Type, tick the βοΈ Mandatory checkbox
Step 5) If Vendor Details is currently set to Read Only, change it to Editable (or Custom:Editable)
Option 2 - Set up a "backup" value within the AutoCreate Vendor action
Step 1) Navigate to the Auto-Create Vendor phase & hit Edit this Phase
Step 2) Navigate to the Action tab
Step 3) Alongside βοΈ AutoAction | Create Vendor, hit Edit AutoAction Values
Step 4) For Type, choose a backup value from the dropdown
Step 5) Hit β Save
π Additional Configuration Steps π
This chapter will contain optional steps to amend the scope or preconfigured settings of the workflow so that it works optimally for your organisation & users
Configuration Video Coming Soon...
Add Custom Metadata to the Form
The β¬οΈ above configuration task β¬οΈ involves adding fields to the form which will be useful for influencing the reviews & other actions which take place during the onboarding workflow
However, you may wish to capture additional data in the form which also can be stored in your Vendor repository, allowing you to report & filter on this metadata later on
This is ideal for Due Diligence Forms & other data points about the vendor which you normally capture
When this custom data is added to your forms, the values users populate on the workflow can be published to your repository records via Create/Update Vendor actions
Suggestions
Financial Details - to aid with payment processes later on or even with assessing financial risk
Risk Assessment forms such as InfoSec/GDPR, Modern Slavery (MSA), Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Environmental Social Governence (ESG)
Part 1 - Adding Metadata to your Data Model
Step 1) Head to Settings > Configuration > Custom Data
Step 2) Hit Add > Add Custom Group
Step 3) Name this group & select Allocated to: Vendor
If you wish, you can restrict the Vendor Types for which this set of data should appear by selecting π Apply to specific Vendor Types
Step 4) Hit Add > Add New Custom Field
Step 5) Create your new custom field, populating Label & Type
Step 6) Repeat Steps 2 - 5 until the data groups & fields are all added
Part 2 - Adding the Metadata to the Workflow Form
Step 1) Go to the start phase of the workflow & hit Edit this Phase
Step 2) Navigate to the Form tab
Step 3) Scroll to the bottom and hit ADD SECTION
Step 4) Give the section a Name
This can be the same as you chose for the Custom Data group, but does not need to be!
Step 5) Select Predefined: Vendor, then for Custom Data Group choose the new group you created
Step 6) Hit β Save, then use REORDER to drag & drop this new section to where you wish for it to appear in your form
π‘ You can also hit then
alongside these new form fields to relabel them!
For example, you may have a field in your data model such as:
Data Processor [Yes/No]
Which, when being answered by the vendor, would be better if it were changed to:
Do you/will you process data as part of your services to us? [Yes/No]
Part 3 - Setting Visibility rules
Once you have added a section to your form, it will technically exist on every Phase. However, whether or not users can see or edit the section at every phase is something you can control
π‘ When you add a new section to a form, by default it will be set to Editable for the phase you have added it, and Read Only for all other phases
Step 1) Choose a phase where you want to change this setting & hit Edit this Phase
Step 2) Navigate to the Form tab
Step 3) Find your form section and choose whether the section should be Read Only, Hidden or Editable for users at that phase
If a form section is editable, you can also make some or all of the fields "Mandatory"
This means users will not be able to submit the form until they have been populated
Step 4) Repeat Steps 1 - 3 for all phases of your workflow
β‘οΈ Expert Use Case: Dynamic Onboarding Forms β‘οΈ
A sophisticated application of custom data forms in your workflow is to configure conditions when they should be presented to users for completion
For example, if you follow the above steps to add an "InfoSec Questionnaire" to your form, there are some vendors where this might be relevant - like an IT vendor providing Software or services
However, a delivery or cleaning company might not see this as relevant at all to their services
While this is a minor inconvenience for short questionnaires. if your onboarding form grows in size, vendors providing simple services to you may not enjoy needing to answer every question!
Learn more about Form visibility in our article here: Setting up a Form π
Part 4 - Setting values in AutoActions
Step 1) Choose a phase of the workflow where vendors are created/updated Edit this Phase
In the Template, you may configure these values on the following phases:
π AutoCreate Vendor π
π AutoUpdate Vendor π
These phases exist near the start of the workflow to create/update the appropriate metadata values before the Vendor Portal onboarding form is sent
The "Update" action phase exists to allow this workflow to facilitate re-onboarding existing vendors
β Vendor Onboarded β
This exists as the "Done" phase of the workflow to take any updates which were provided after the above 2 actions (i.e. updates made by the Vendor or any approvers) and publish these to your Vendor repository records
Step 2) Navigate to the Actions tab
Step 3) For the enabled AutoAction, hit Edit AutoAction Values
Step 4) For the new fields, check the corresponding βοΈ Take Value from Form box
Step 5) You can optionally also set a "backup" value in case the form is left blank
Step 6) Hit β Save
β‘οΈ Expert Use Case: Automated NDA β‘οΈ
Want to leverage custom data to enable an automated NDA generation while completing the onboarding process?
Learn how in our knowledge base article here: Parallel Workflows π
Configuring Rejections
Currently, this workflow has 2 Phases where a Vendor Onboarding form can be "Rejected":
First is near the start, where a manager/admin user reviews the onboarding request: Approval/s β
A rejection here will transition the form to "β Vendor Rejected β DONE" and essentially means "No"
To change this, we recommend following the instructions in this article:
β‘οΈ Workflow Resubmissions & Appeals β‘οΈ
Second is at the end where the Vendor's Onboarding form is assessed: Onboarding Review βοΈ
Any rejections here will send the form back to "Vendor Onboarding Form π·" for revisions and essentially means "Update the form & try again"
However, there may occur scenarios where a rejection at this late stage of the workflow is in fact a hard-stop: The rejection means "We cannot work with this Vendor"
To change this, similar to the above "Resubmissions & Appeals" walkthrough, you could configure a Review Rejection phase where an admin user/team decides which of the responses is appropriate:
Send the form back to the Vendor or Send the Form to the Rejected-Done phase
Add Market IQ Financial
For more guidance & context about the Market IQ Financial module see below article/s:
π Market IQ Financial
Part 1: Adding the Market IQ Metadata Fields to the Form
Step 1) Navigate to the start phase of the workflow & hit Edit this Phase
Step 2) Navigate to the Form tab
Step 3) Scroll to the bottom and hit ADD SECTION
Step 4) Give the section a Name (e.g. "Market IQ Financial Data")
Step 5) Select Predefined: Vendor, then for Custom Data Group choose Market IQ | Financial
Step 6) Hit β Save, then use REORDER to drag & drop this new section to where you wish for it to appear in your form
Step 7) For each phase, set the visibility of this new data section
β¬οΈ See above actions for setting Form Section visibility β¬οΈ
Since these fields will only be populated by the action configured in Part 2 below, it is wise to set them as Hidden for all phases before the action has run
Part 2: Enabling the Sync Action
Step 1) Choose a phase where you wish for the Vendor to be linked to the Market IQ data feed and hit Edit this Phase
If this does not fit well with an existing phase (such as Onboarding Review), you can add a new phase for this
Step 2) Navigate to the Actions tab and enable Update Vendor with Market IQ | Financial
β‘οΈExpert: Using the Score for a Conditional Approval β‘οΈ
Step 1) Choose your phase where an approval could take place and hit Edit this Phase
Step 2) Navigate to the Approval tab
Step 3) If not already, set Approval to π Enabled and Approval Type to π Parallel
Step 4) Hit β ADD NEW PARALLEL APPROVAL
Step 5) In the pop-out Parallel Approvals view, select the required Users/Groups, select π Conditional then hit β
Save
It is recommended to have a user/group representing Finance/Risk Management perform this approval
Step 6) Hit β ADD to assign conditions, choosing the Credit Rating field and a set of values which you deem risky-enough to require approval
Add MIQ Cyber
For more guidance & context about the Market IQ Cyber module see below article/s:
π Market IQ Cyber
Part 1: Adding the fields
Step 1) Navigate to the start phase of the workflow & hit Edit this Phase
Step 2) Navigate to the Form tab
Step 3) Scroll to the bottom and hit ADD SECTION
Step 4) Give the section a Name (e.g. "Market IQ CyberSecurity Data")
Step 5) Select Predefined: Vendor, then for Custom Data Group choose Market IQ | Cyber
Step 6) Hit β Save, then use REORDER to drag & drop this new section to where you wish for it to appear in your form
Step 7) For each phase, set the visibility of this new data section
Part 2: Enabling the Sync Action
There is no dedicated "workflow action" to connect Vendors to Market IQ Cyber like there is for Market IQ Financial
All you need to ensure is that the Vendor Website is populated and published to the record in the repository
To achieve this, you can follow the same steps for making Vendor Type mandatory
β‘οΈExpert: Using the Score for a Conditional Approval β‘οΈ
Step 1) Choose your phase where an approval could take place and hit Edit this Phase
Step 2) Navigate to the Approval tab
Step 3) If not already, set Approval to π Enabled and Approval Type to π Parallel
Step 4) Hit β ADD NEW PARALLEL APPROVAL
Step 5) In the pop-out Parallel Approvals view, select the required approving Users/Groups, select π Conditional then hit β
Save
It is recommended to have a user/group representing an InfoSec team perform this approval
Step 6) Hit β ADD to assign conditions, choosing the Cyber Score or Grade field and the values which you deem require approval
Add a NetSuite Sync
Step 1) Choose the phase where a vendor should be sync'd to NetSuite and hit Edit this Phase
Step 2) Navigate to the Actions tab
Step 3) Enable Update Vendor
(It is also possible to enable a NS Sync using Create Vendor)
Step 4) Underneath this action, check βοΈ Sync to NetSuite on Action
If using this feature, it is recommended to enable the action after the onboarding review phase. This way, you will avoid syncing vendors to NetSuite who may not pass your compliance checks!
Add Extra Phases
This template has been configured to be as succinct as possible while leaving room for expansion of scope within the framework of pre-configured phases
For instance, there is a single Onboarding Review phase where you can have multiple reviews & approvals take place depending on your team structures
However, you may wish to add additional steps to your workflow for additional processes (or to re-structure the existing processes!)
See our Knowledge Base article here for more guidance:
Step 1) Navigate to the right hand side of the workflow board
Step 2) Next to New Phase, hit ADD
Step 3) Choose a phase title (& Description) for your phase, then hit β Save
Step 4) Hit Reorder & Minimise to move your phase to the point in the workflow where it fits your process
Step 5) Now configure the rest of your phase for its dedicated purpose
Example Use Case 1: Adding a new phase before Onboarding Review for MIQ Finance Linking
Context: To make the most of the Market IQ data in your risk assessments/approvals, you should ensure that the connection is performed before the final Onboarding Review phase
β¬οΈ See above action for context β¬οΈ
Example Use Case 2: Adding a new phase after Onboarding Review for NetSuite Sync
Context: It is recommended that Vendors should only be added to NetSuite once they have been fully approved and will definitely be worked with!
β¬οΈ See above action for context β¬οΈ
π‘ Once you have configured a new phase, always remember to re-configure transitions from the other phases in the workflow so that your new phase will be included the end-to-end path of your forms
Alternative Initiations: Change to a "triggered" workflow
Internal request forms are (in our opinion) the best way for your Vendor Onboarding process to begin...
They give you clear information about who requested the new vendor, why they need a new vendor and (if you have a well designed Request form) can handle the compilation of key information about the new relationship up front
They also put you in control of you vendor relationships. You can guarantee that a new vendor does not begin onboarding until it has been approved by the right parties, avoiding wasted time
However, depending on where this vendor onboarding fits into your Procurement, Vendor & Contract Management life-cycle, you may want to change the way the workflow process begins...
Part 1: Changing the Form Access
To remove the possibility that this process is manually initiated:
Step 1) Navigate to the start phase of the workflow & hit Edit this Phase
Step 2) Navigate to the Form Access tab
Step 3) Set the Authorisation Type to π Internal
Step 4) Select the Key stakeholder who should be responsible for completing the start form
If the Internal Supplier Manager is populated, they are our recommendation (using Card Creator as a backup)
Otherwise, a team like Procurement/Vendor Management may suffice
Part 2: Changing how the workflow starts
Step 1) Head to the Workflows page
Step 2) Click to edit the workflow then select the Workflow Triggers option
Step 3) Hit β ADD TRIGGER
Step 4) Choose a Name for your trigger then hit β Create
Step 5) Hit β ADD to compile your rules for trigger to fire
If you want to use trigger conditions based on the actions of Vendor Users, you can select:
Vendor Portal Self Registration or Vendor Portal Invitation
See below article about how each of these invitation/registration features work:
Otherwise, you can use trigger conditions where your Vendor record matches metadata values
such as "Vendor / Approval is Awaiting Approval"
β‘οΈ Expert Use Cases β‘οΈ
Automatically Initiate Vendor Onboarding during a Contract Approval Workflow
See this π Parallel Workflows Article
Automatically Initiate Vendor Onboarding upon completion of an NDA Workflow
See this π Parallel Workflows Article
Disable the Public URL Request Form
If using the Authenticated Employee Portal Form to start the workflow, you may want to disable the Public Form option (to prevent any users from finding & using the less secure of the 2 options)
Step 1) Head to the start phase of the workflow & hit Edit this Phase
Step 2) Navigate to the Form Access tab
Step 3) Uncheck the βοΈ Public Form option
Step 4) Hit β Save
Hide Phases from the Vendor/Employee Portal Progress Tracker
Step 1) Head to Modules > Vendor Portal
Step 2) Find your workflow then hit the Menu then
Edit Icon
Step 3) Check βοΈ Hide for the phases you wish to hide from your user dashboards
Step 4) Hit β Submit
Step 5) Repeat for Modules > Employee Portal (if necessary)
We suggest you hide the AutoAction phases since these won't really mean anything to your users who do not understand workflow configuration
It is also unlikely any cards will sit in an AutoAction phase for any length of time (they are designed to be instantaneous actions, after all!)
Amend Workflow Description
When using this workflow in Employee Portal, your users will see a brief description within the request form on the Submit Requests dashboard:
Step 1) From the Workflows page, go to your Vendor Onboarding workflow
Step 2) Click to Edit this Workflow
Step 3) In Description, enter a short summary to explain to your users what the workflow is for & hit β Save
Example Text:
This request form can be used to initiate a new vendor onboarding. This is a key step before we can enter into a contract agreement with vendors
π‘ Simple HTML tags can be used to amend the text formatting
Getting started! β‘οΈ
If using the Employee Portal
Once your workflow is configured, it's ready to go
Your users can access their Submit Requests dashboard and initiate a new Vendor Onboarding request
If you wish to embed the URL for this form elsewhere in Gatekeeper (or even in another system), you can obtain it by right-clicking the Request button:
If Using a Public Form
Step 1) Head to the start phase of the workflow & hit Edit this Phase
Step 2) Navigate to the Form Access tab
Step 3) Here, you can find (& copy) the url for this workflow form to be shared with your users
If "Triggered"
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
If "Triggered by Self-Registration"
Part 1 - Enabling the Trigger
Part 2 - Sharing your Vendor Portal Registration Link
Decide how you wish to share this registration link with your Vendors, this could be manually shared with them or stored somewhere they can access in their own time (e.g. a Vendor-facing website page)
Step 1) Head to Modules > Vendor Portal
Step 2) Set SELF REGISTRATION to Enabled
Step 3) Hit the Copy button to store the url in your Clipboard
This is your Vendor Portal Registration page - you can share it by storing the link on your website/confluence page/email signature!
Additional Reading π
β‘οΈSupplier Portal Expert - Invitation Emails
Review the best way to configure how your Vendor users will be invited to the Gatekeeper platform
A simple configuration task but extremely important if you want to set clear expectations from the outset and operate with transparency in all your new relationships
β‘οΈSupplier Portal Expert - Workflow Phase Notifications
Similar to above, some useful tips for ensuring that every automated email your vendors receive is clear, information and well-received
β‘οΈSupplier Portal Expert - Workflow Phase Reminder Emails
Find guidance on configuring automated reminder emails for your vendors phases, so you don't have to spend as much time chasing for responses!
β‘οΈGatekeeper Expert - Workflow Access Masterclass
Learn about all the levels of configuring access to your workflow cards so each of your phases always involve the right stakeholders and collaborators
What is the Supplier Classification System?
A quick walkthrough of a popular Vendor Classification System from a Google Supply Chain Manager