In order for suppliers to work effectively in the portal, you can set up dedicated dashboards and widgets to be used in the portal.
Setting up supplier dashboards and widgets
Supplier dashboards and widgets are created and managed in the web client. When the supplier portal is included in your license, you will see Supplier Dashboards and Supplier Widgets in the left side of the Administration menu:
In general, supplier dashboards and supplier widgets are created the same way as you create dashboards and widgets to use in Perfion. This article only describes the special things you can do with supplier dashboards and widgets.
Supplier widgets
Supplier widgets are by default linked to the Base feature, you have exposed in the supplier portal. No other base features make sense in the portal. That is why Product is preselected and greyed out in this example:
When selecting Filter and View, you can choose between the items you have created in the Supplier Filter and Supplier View search features selected in portal setup.
If you cannot select filter and/or view for a widget, check if you have selected View and Filter feature in the configuration of the supplier portal.
Filter
The key element of a supplier widget is the filter used to find items to be shown in the widget.
Just like all other filters in Perfion, the filter used for a supplier widget is based on an API query. A typical example of an API query for a supplier widget would look like this:
Select
The Select-part of the query is not mandatory. It is included here for testing and valdation purposes. By including it, you can copy the entire query to the API Query Analyzer (in the Windows client) and test if it works as intended.
From
The From-part of the query should always specify the id of the feature exposed as the Product Feature in Company Settings (typically id 100). In addition, the From-part must always specify repository='supplieritems'. If this is omitted, the widget will not work in the supplier portal.
Where
The Where-part of the query determines which items are returned by the query.
You can include all features exposed in the portal in where-clauses, including features exposed as read-only. The API query will return internal values for features exposed as read only. This makes it possible to build widgets that filters on a combination of supplier values and internal Perfion values.
Where-clauses in supplier filters can uses these specific clauses:
Supplier items with a specific status
<Clause id="_Status" operator="=" value="Draft" /> <Clause id="_Status" operator="=" value="Submitted" /> <Clause id="_Status" operator="=" value="Accepted" /> <Clause id="_Status" operator="=" value="Rejected" />
Specific features with unhandled supplier updates (yellow color in grid)
<Clause id="(1600,210,148,230,218,219,220,102)._Status" operator="=" value="AwaitsOwner" />
Any feature with unhandled supplier updates (yellow color in grid)
<Clause id="*._Status" operator="=" value="AwaitsOwner" />
Specific features with rejected supplier updates (red color in grid)
<Clause id="(1600,210,148,230,218,219,220,102)._Status" operator="=" value="AwaitsSupplier" />
Any feature with rejected supplier updates (red color in grid)
<Clause id="*._Status" operator="=" value="AwaitsSupplier" />
IMPORTANT NOTE: When a widget is “clicked” in the supplier portal, the portal dynamically adds another where-clause to the query. This where-clause specifies the ID of the logged in supplier. This makes it possible to use the same widget for multiple suppliers, as the widget will only return items belonging to the logged in supplier.
If a perfion user is logged in to the portal, the extra where-clause will not be added to the query. This means that the widget will return items for all suppliers mathing the original query.
View
Dashboard widget rely on a view to determine which features to show in grid. Views are built as “normal” API queries that only contain a Select element.
Select
The Select-element can be written exactly like in all other API queries. You can select all active languages, all features in Perfion and make references to all views. You can even select features not exposed to suppliers; these will be filtered out of the result when the query is used in the supplier portal.
With the launch of the supplier portal, four new “views” can be used in these queries:
Expose returns all features exposed for suppliers to manage
ExposeReadOnly returns all features exposed as read only to suppliers
Mandatory returns all features marked as mandatory in the configuration
AutoAccept returns all features set to Auto Accept in the configuration
Supplier dashboards
Building a supplier dashboard is done exactly the same way as when you build a dashboard to be used in Perfion. Supplier dashboards will only allow you to add supplier widgets:
User / Group Access
In the left menu, you can grant Perfion users / Perfion user groups access to the supplier dashboard. If you do not grant a Perfion user access to a dashboard, it will not be shown when that user logs in to the portal.
Supplier Access
In the left menu, you can grant suppliers access to the supplier dashboard. By default, all suppliers will have access to new dashboards. You can limit supplier access by moving the radio button and specifying which suppliers should have/not have access.
