Increases vendor autonomy in confirming loading dates and consulting documents

Module Description

The vendor portal is a web portal that can be made available externally and allows selected vendors to consult documents and enter and confirm delivery dates.

All views are filtered only to documents registered to the logged in vendor.

Setup

vendor Portal - Setup

The main portal management fields are found on the B2B Setup page, which can be found in the menu. The fields required for BC-to-Portal connections are also found here.

• General Tab
  • Password Lifetime: Indicates the duration of passwords for users who access the portal. After the password expires, the portal will prompt for a new one.
  • vendor Portal - Public URL: Required for the connection between BC and the WEB portal.
  • Default language: Enter the default language of the portal.
  • Send email for confirmation dates: Activate the feature that sends an email for each order line with the delivery date confirmed by the portal to the purchasing agent set for the order itself.
  • Add. Backup Purchase for Confirmed Dates: Enter the purchasing agent to whom the email for confirmed dates will be sent if there is no purchasing agent set up on the purchase order header.
  • Show costs: by enabling this flag, the unit cost and line discount % fields can be displayed within the portal pages.
• Home Tab
  • Hide Dashboard: This is used to hide the demo dashboard inserted as an image on the home page
  • Hide Expiring Orders: Allows you to remove the display of expiring orders from the home page.

Navigation bar

In the action bar of the vendor Portal - Setup you can open the configuration setup of the portal navigation bar.

Under Actions - Navigation Bar - Go to Setup you can view all the available views:

Each row corresponds to a list displayed in the portal.

Document lists are grouped into subfolders identified by the “ Group ” field. Within these groups, the lists are displayed in the sequence set in the “ Sort by group ” field.

If you do not want to display a view within the portal, you need to disable the “ Enabled ” flag.

Using the Filters function, you can set custom filters for each list:

vendor Portal - Label Translations

In this setup, you must indicate, if necessary, the translations of all the labels displayed within the portal, for each language used.

The display will use the language indicated on the logged-in vendor's profile.

Notifications

vendor Portal - Standard Notifications

On the vendor Portal - Standard Notifications page, you can add standard notifications that can then be copied to vendors authorized to access the portal. The copy function is available on the individual notification:

By clicking it, the system will display the list of vendor portal users. Here, you can also select more than one user at a time.

The notification will be copied to all selected vendors:

Standard notifications will not be visible from the portal until they are linked to users.

Notifications can be entered manually directly on the vendor Portal - Users.

Banner

By importing banners, you can display short messages on the vendor portal home page.

If there is more than one banner active at that time, they will scroll across the home page like a carousel:

Notification

Unlike the banner, the Notification type is a real email.

in this case it will be displayed within the portal in the dedicated section that opens from the envelope at the top right:

The icon will have a red number when there are unread notifications from the provider. When the notification is opened, this number will disappear, but the notification will remain available in the list.

Users

To grant vendors access to the web portal, you need to enable them on the dedicated page, which can be found in the "vendor Portal - Users" menu.

To add a new user, you must fill in the following fields:

• vendor No.: You can select the vendor directly from the list of vendors entered in Business Central.
• vendor Name: This is automatically filled in based on the vendor No. selected in the previous field
• Username: Enter a username that the provider will use for authentication
• E-Mail: enter the email address to which the portal access notification with the credentials will be sent
• Show costs: Enabling this flag allows you to display the unit cost and line discount % fields in the document lists in the portal. This flag overrides the one in the vendor Portal - Setup.

After adding users, they must be activated using the Enable access to the vendor portal function.

This feature will automatically generate a password and send a welcome email to the email address you entered in the appropriate field. The email will also contain a link to the portal.

Instead, you can disable the user by using the Disable vendor Portal Access function. The Status field clearly shows whether the user is active or not from the list.

Also from the users page, you can:

• Start password recovery: This will reset the user's password. The first time the user logs in, they will be prompted to enter a new password.
• Send welcome email: Allows you to resend the initial email containing the portal link, username, and password.
• Reset Terms and Conditions: Allows you to reset the reading of the terms and conditions that the user accepts upon first access.

Additionally, you can customize the navigation bar for individual vendors. Using the Reset Setup function, you can restore the setup configured on the vendor Portal - Setup, which can then be customized using the Open Setup function:

Using the Banner & Notifications actions, you can customize the notifications sent to the portal. As shown in the relevant section of this document, you can copy standard notifications and/or banners to active users using the Banner & Notifications - Open action:

Here you can edit copied notifications or add new ones dedicated to the individual user:

To create a new notification or banner, enter the following fields:

• Nr.: Please indicate an identification number
• Language code: enter the vendor's language
• vendor No.: Enter the reference vendor
• vendor Name: This will be automatically filled in based on the vendor No. entered in the previous field
• Description: Enter a meaningful description. For notifications, this description will be visible as a message preview.
• Start Date and End Date: Enter the dates needed to display banners on the homepage. This information is not required for notifications.
• Read: The flag is automatically set when the notification is read by the portal user.
• Linked to Text No.: Filled with the No. of the standard text from which it was copied
• Message type: Banner or Notification. They will be displayed differently on the portal. The first is a short message that will appear on the home page, while the second is a full-blown email.
• Message: In this section, you can enter the actual message. You can also add images for notifications.

Functionality

Login

On the initial login page, enter your username and password.

If necessary, you can also start the password recovery procedure on the login page.

Upon first login, the user will be shown a dedicated screen that allows them to change the password automatically sent by the system. The same screen is displayed if the password has not been changed for longer than the time entered in "Password Lifetime" in the vendor Portal - Setup:

Upon first access, you will also be asked to accept the terms of use. The date and time of acceptance will be logged.

Home Page

On the portal home page, users will see:

• The company logo is visible at the top left
• At the top right is the user's name.
• At the top left, near the name, there is an envelope from which you can open the notification list.

In the Nav bar at the top you can view a series of lists and documents whose visibility can be set per user, as indicated above in the dedicated section.

A sample graph that can be created is visible on the home page; you can hide it by using the "Hide dashboard" flag.

In the lower section, the 5 expiring orders are visible.

Profile

The profile contains the following sections:

• Detail: where the vendor's details are visible

• Change language: if necessary, you can change the language of the portal

• Change password: allows you to activate the password recovery/change procedure

• Logout: Logs out of the portal, returning the screen to the login page

Documents

In the following sections of the Nav bar you can consult the documents for which you have been enabled.

The documents that can be shown on the portal are:

• purchase offers
• Purchase orders
• Purchase return orders
• Scheduled purchase orders
• Purchase receipts
• Return shipment
• Recorded purchase invoices
• Recorded credit notes

All document sections look the same.

In the list you can view header data such as Document No., Document Date, Payment Terms and Conditions.

Using the buttons at the bottom right of the list you can move forward through the pages and also view the other documents

By selecting a row in the list you can open the tab where you can view the rows contained in the document.

In this section, using the “Download PDF” button, you can print the PDF of the document.

Confirm dates

Through this page you can give the vendor the opportunity to confirm delivery dates on outstanding order lines.

The lines are only those that are unfulfilled and purchase orders in the released status that have not yet been confirmed.

The blank lines are those for which the vendor has not yet entered the promised loading date.

The blue lines are those for which the vendor has already entered the promised loading date but the purchasing agent has not yet accepted the proposal made by the portal in Business Central.

If the offer is accepted, the purchase line disappears from the portal list. If the upload date is rejected, the line turns red.

After entering the date in the appropriate field, you must submit it using the "Confirm Dates" action. When the dates are entered but not yet submitted to BC, the rows are marked in yellow.

If the operation is successful, this message will be displayed and the lines will turn blue:

Notifications

Before confirming the dates, you can enter notes to send to the purchasing agent in Business Central using the “ Notes ” action on each order line.

In the section that appears, you can enter notes. By closing with the X, they will remain saved in the Notes section until you "Confirm Dates."

Once confirmed, the inserted notes will no longer be visible in the Notes section but will be moved to the "Note History"

Confirm dates in Business Central

The lines for which vendors confirm dates via the portal can be viewed on the "Purchase lines to be confirmed" page, which can be found in the menu. The side factbox displays the history of notes entered or sent to the portal.

By selecting the row, you can accept or reject the loading date proposed by the vendor using the actions in the ribbon:

Using the Notes field, you can enter new notes to send to the portal in case of rejection.

These will also be historicized in the history notes.

In the note history you can also see the direction of the message, the date and the person who created it.