🛠️ Create Your Own - Vendor Portal Update Request Form

   Take Control                                                              Estimated Configuration Time: 10-20 Minutes

☑️     Requires: Vendor Portal                                    Estimated Read Time: 5 minutes

 

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Sections in this Article

Introduction & Demonstration

Workflow Diagram

Configuration

Mandatory Configuration Steps

Additional Configuration Steps

Before you start - other Gatekeeper considerations

Getting Started - How to start using your new workflow

Additional Reading

 

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The Workflow - Introduction & Demonstration

 

This workflow gives your Vendor Users the option to Request changes to the metadata you store on file for them ad-hoc

This means that some of the administrative burden of keeping Gatekeeper as your Central-source-of-truth can be reduced

🚫 No more cumbersome messaging back & forth between Vendors, Internal Vendor Managers and Gatekeeper admins to make simple changes

🚫 No more data getting out of date because Vendors didn't know whom to inform

🚫 No more manually transcribing metadata updates from emails to Gatekeeper

✅ Clear history behind updates and data changes, provided by the Vendor themselves!

 

 

Workflow Diagram:

 

 

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🛠 Configuring the Workflow 🛠

 

Adding the Template Workflow

Step 1) Head to the Workflows page

Step 2) Hit Add > Workflow Template

Step 3) Select the Vendor Portal Update Request Form Template

Step 4) If necessary, you can amend your new workflow's Title here

Step 5) Hit ✅ Create

 

 

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🛠 Mandatory Configuration Steps 🛠

 

Add a Custom Field for the Form Status

 

Step 1)  Go 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 Update Request Form Status and select the type of Dropdown list

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

Update In Progress ⏳

Form Permitted ✅

N/A

 

Add the new Status field to the Workflow

Part 1 - Adding it to the Form

Step 1) Go the Start Phase of the Workflow & click to edit

Step 2) Go to the Form tab

Step 3) At the bottom of the page, hit ADD SECTION

Step 4) Name this section, & select the below values, then hit ✅ Save

Predefined: Vendor

Custom Data Group: [name of your group from above]

Step 6) Set this Form Section to Hidden for the Vendor Portal Users

 

Part 2.1 - Configure the "In-Progress" AutoAction

Step 1) Click to edit the ⚙️ AutoUpdate | Set Status ⚙️ phase

Step 2) Go to the Actions tab

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

Step 4) For your Custom Status field, set the value in the dropdown to "in progress"

Step 5) Hit ✅ Save

 

Part 2.2 Configure the "Done" AutoAction

Step 1) Click to edit the Update Completed ☑️ phase

Step 2) Go to the Actions tab

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

Step 4) For your Custom Status field, set the value in the dropdown to "Form Available"

Step 5) Hit ✅ Save

 

Configure the Workflow Trigger

Step 1) Go to the Workflows Page

Step 2) Click the edit menu for your workflow & select Workflow Triggers

Step 3) Click to open the Update Request Form Permitted trigger

Step 4) Under Conditions, hit ➕ ADD

Step 5) Choose your new status field & select "Form Available" as the value

 

Assign an "Update Vendor" Owner

This workflow is designed to simplify the process for Vendors to request updates.

It is not recommended that their changes are automatically committed to you repository. To keep control, you can assign a stakeholder/team to review the change requests and commit these

Step 1) Click to edit the Internal Data Review 🧑‍💻 phase

Step 2) Go to the Form Access tab

Step 3) Select a Dynamic Owner or Team/Group (or both!) as the owner of this phase

Step 4) Hit ✅ Save

 

 

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🛠 Additional Configuration Steps 🛠️

 

Add other Vendor Metadata to the Update Form

This form - by default - will allow Vendors to update their core metadata. However, if you have added Custom Data to your Vendor data model, you may want to give Vendors the option to update this custom data too!

Step 1) Go the Start Phase of the Workflow & click to edit

Step 2) Go to the Form tab

Step 3) At the bottom of the page, hit ADD SECTION

Step 4) Name this section, & select the below values, then hit ✅ Save

Predefined: Vendor

Custom Data Group: Name of Group you wish to add

Step 5) Repeat steps 3 & 4 for any groups you wish to add

 

Amend the Vendor Portal Phase Access

By default, this form will be present & accessible to any Vendor User who logs into the Portal.

However,  requesting edits to a company's details may only be a privilege reserved for the key contact or representative:

Step 1) Go the Start Phase of the Workflow & click to edit

Step 2) Go to the Form Access tab

Step 3) Switch the setting from 🔘 All Vendor Users to 🔘 Vendor | Owner

Step 4) Hit ✅ Save

 

 

Add a NetSuite Sync to the Update

If you have set up a Gatekeeper ↔️ NetSuite connection using our Native Integration, it makes sense to ensure any updates made via this Workflow are sync'd to NetSuite too

Step 1) Click to edit the Internal Data Review 🧑‍💻 phase

Step 2) Go to the Actions tab

Step 3) Alongside Update Vendor, enable ☑️ Sync to NetSuite on Action

 

 

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✋ Before you start 🤚

 

 

Populating your Vendor Owners

 

Add the Custom Status field to your other workflows

Part 1

Step 1) Open the Workflow you use for getting new Vendors added to Gatekeeper

Step 2) Repeat all the steps from the ⬆️ above Mandatory Configuration section ⬆️

Step 3) Since this field will not be used by anyone during this workflow, set it to be Hidden on all phases

 

Part 2

Step 1) While still on this other Workflow board, click to edit the Done phase

Step 3) Go to the Actions tab

Step 4) Enable (if not already enabled) AutoAction: Update Vendor

Step 5) Hit Edit AutoAction Values, then for your custom status field, set the value to "Form Permitted"

 

Providing guidance about this Form to your Vendors

Not all of your Vendors will be as tech-savvy as to instantly understand what this form is & when/how to use it

Therefore, it would be useful to include some context/guidance to your Vendors when they are joining your Vendor Portal about what this is:

 

 

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Getting Started

 

Switching on the Trigger

Step 1) Go to the Workflows Page

Step 2) Click the edit menu for your workflow & select Workflow Triggers

Step 3) Click to open the Update Request Form Permitted trigger

Step 4) Switch the trigger status from Pipeline to Live

 

⚡️ Expert Video: Bulk Triggering

If want to make this form available to all of your already-onboarded Vendors (without setting the status for them one-by-one), the below video walks through how to instantly trigger the workflow for many vendors!

 

 

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Additional Reading 📚

 

⚡️ GK Expert: Vendor Portal Request Forms

Read about this specific workflow use case, as well as some other ideas for how to leverage Vendor Portal request forms