Introduction

This document describes how Perfion users work with supplier items and supplier data in the supplier portal and in Perfion.

 

Prerequisites

Perfion users must be granted access to supplier portal and to accept/reject supplier data. This is done via two new roles which can be assigned directly or via membership of a user group:

• Can access supplier portal and accept/reject supplier items; with this role Perfion users can log into the supplier portal and decide which supplier items to accept (create as items in Perfion) and which to reject. See Accept/reject items below.
• Can accept/reject supplier data; with this role Perfion users can accept/reject supplier data (updates) inside Perfion. See Accept/reject data updates below.

Accept/reject items

If your suppliers are allowed to create items in the supplier portal, you have a recurring tasks to decide which of the created supplier items you want in Perfion. This task is done in the supplier portal, and the process is explained below.

Open supplier portal

The supplier portal can be accessed via the 9-dot menu in the top left corner of the web client:

The supplier portal opens on a separate browser tab. Log in with your normal Perfion credentials:

Locate submitted items

After login, you need to locate submitted items. These are the items you need to accept or reject. Submitted items are indicated by the yellow hourglass icon.

Via dashboard widget

The easiest way to locate submitted items is via a dashboard widget:

Via browsing

You can also locate submitted items via browsing by category:

• Click Items in the top menu
• Select an Exposed Configuration (from 2025-R1)
• Select a Category in the left pane
• Sort items by status by clicking the Status headline in the first column

Via search

You can easily locate submitted items via Search:

• Click Items in the top menu
• Select an Exposed Configuration (from 2025-R1)
• Select Search in the drop down to the left
• Check Submitted at the top click Search

Accept or reject items

To accept or reject one or more items, simply select the relevant items in grid and click the green Accept icon or the red Reject icon in toolbar. You will be prompted to confirm:

When you accept items, the system checks if items with identical key values (Supplier Identifier Value and Supplier Key Value - see Supplier Portal - Configuration) exist in Perfion:

• If yes: supplier items are linked to existing Perfion items
• If no: copies of supplier items are created in Perfion and linked to supplier items

Either way, supplier items change status to Accepted.

When you reject items they simply change status to Rejected. Nothing happens in Perfion.

In Perfion, you can now see the accepted items in your normal category structures or via dashboard widgets:

Rejecting previously accepted items

It is possible to reject items that has previously been accepted. Using the context menu or the Reject button users can remove the link between the Perfion item and the Supplier item.

The item returns to status Draft and the supplier can update and resubmit the item. If the item is resubmitted and reaccepted the link between the Perfion item and the Supplier item is restored, any differences in data are highlight just like the regular acceptance workflow.

Lock supplier items

When the supplier and the Perfion owner have agreed on the are aligned on the information on a product, it can make sense to lock the item to prevent the supplier from further updating the item.

When a supplier item is locked, the supplier will not longer be able to edit the item, it will appear as fully read only.

The Lock item option is available in both the supplier portal for the Perfion owner, and from both the regular grid when the supplier columns are visible and in the Supplier Details work mode.

Locked items can be unlocked.

Accept/reject data updates

Suppliers are allowed to update values on their items in the portal at any time. You have a recurring task of deciding which of these updates you want to accept and which you want to reject. This task is done in the Perfion web client (not supported in the Perfion windows client), and the process is explained below.

Locate items with pending supplier updates

You can use any search panel to find items with pending supplier updates. Select a search panel and click the supplier icon in the toolbar. This inserts a special “Supplier Values” search option at the top of the panel. Search for Awaiting Approval to see items with with pending supplier changes:

It is also possible to build dashboard widgets to locate items with pending supplier changes. Widgets can be built to search for selected suppliers and/or updates to selected features. Please refer to Supplier Portal - Dashboards in Portal for further information.

Review and manage updates

When you have located items with pending supplier updates, you need to see and manage the actual updates. This can be done in three different ways.

Highlight Unhandled Changes

This option is well suited when handling a small amount of updates from suppliers.

First, choose a view that includes features exposed to suppliers. There is a standard view called Expose which automatically shows all features exposed to the supplier.

Second, click the Supplier Data View button in the toolbar of the main grid and select Highlight Unhandled Changes. This highlights all cells with pending supplier changes.

To see the pending changes from the supplier, right click a yellow cell and choose View Supplier Value. This opens an overlay where supplier's updated value is visible:

At this point, you have three options:

• Accept copies supplier’s value to the Perfion cell and changes cell color to white. Your data is now identical to supplier’s data.
• Reject does nothing to data but it changes cell color to red. Supplier will see same color in the portal. This is an indication that you could not accept the supplier’s value and expect a new update
• Ignore does nothing to data and it changes cell color to white. Use this when you do not want supplier’s value copied to your data, but you do not expect supplier to deliver a new update. Basically, you “agree to disagree”.

Show Supplier Columns

This option is well suited when handling larger amounts of updates from suppliers with the expectation to accept all (or most).

Start by loading a suitable view (see above).

Next, click the Supplier Data View button in the toolbar of the main grid and select Show Supplier Columns. This loads two columns for all features exposed to suppliers and highlight all “data pairs” with pending supplier changes.

To accept, reject or ignore pending changes (see details above), right-click any yellow cell and choose the relevant option from the context menu.

Supplier Details

This option is well suited when you want to review and manage multiple updates for one item at the time.

Start by selecting Card layout in the main grid (optional).

Then, select work mode Supplier Details.

Click the filter Awaiting Owner at the bottom of the screen (this setting will be remembered throughout your session). You will see a result like this:

Updated supplier values are shown in the left column. Values in Perfion are shown in the right column.

Use the action buttons between columns to accept, reject or ignore updates (see above).

Click Accept all updates in the top left corner to accept all yellow values in one go.

When done, click:

• Save to save all changes and keep Supplier Details open (ready for next item)
• Save & Close to save all changes and close Supplier Details
• Cancel to “undo” all changes and close Supplier Details
• [another item in main grid] to load a new set of data - you will be prompted to save your changes before new data is loaded