Use the Vendor Restricted Pool feature (Sensitive Clients and Trusted Vendors)

Owned by Oksana Vishchuk
Last updated: Nov 27, 2024 by Damian Rozmiarkowski
4 min read

Overview

The Restricted vendor pool feature enables you to define clients that have strict vendor selection rules (Sensitive Clients) and create lists of vendors that are allowed to perform jobs for such clients (Trusted Vendors). By using the Restricted vendor pool, you can easily ensure that only the trusted vendors are assigned to sensitive clients' Smart projects and quotes.

You can create a general list of trusted vendors that will be used by all your sensitive clients or make client-specific lists that will reflect the requirements of particular clients.

To manage sensitive clients and trusted vendors, Home Portal users need to have the appropriate rights (Sensitive Clients & Trusted Vendors) assigned to their user group in the Configuration menu > User Management > User Groups and Rights. By default, those rights are given to the Administrators, Management and Project Managers groups.

When you have both sensitive clients and trusted vendors defined, only the trusted vendors will be available for manual and automatic selection (including the Advanced job offers solution) in Smart projects and quotes created for sensitive clients.

Vendor selection.png

Mark clients as Senstitive

To select clients that will be marked as Sensitive, go to the Configuration menu > Clients and Vendors > Sensitive Clients & Trusted Vendors.

Marking or unmarking a client as Sensitive will not affect any ongoing projects and quotes.

Senstitive Clients 2.png

In the Select Sensitive Clients section, open the Select Client… dropdown and click on the clients you want to add to the sensitive clients list. The selected clients will be marked in bold and listed in the dropdown field.

In the profiles of selected clients, a new Trusted Vendors tab will be displayed, where you can select client-specific trusted vendors (see the Client-specific list section below).

To remove a client from the sensitive clients list, click the icon next to their name or open the dropdown and unselect the client in question. Alternatively, go to the client’s profile > Trusted Vendors tab and click the Remove this Client from the Sensitive Clients list link.

Create a list of Trusted Vendors

The Restricted vendor pool feature enables you to create two lists of trusted vendors - a general one that will be applied by default to all sensitive clients and client-specific lists that can be even more restrictive or include vendors that are not on the general list.

General list

To add vendors to the general list of trusted vendors, go to the Configuration menu > Clients and Vendors > Sensitive Clients & Trusted Vendors.

In the Select Trusted Vendors section, open the Select Vendor… dropdown and click on the vendors you want to add to the trusted vendors list. The selected vendors will be marked in bold and listed in the dropdown field.

Client-specific list

To create a list of trusted vendors tailored for a specific sensitive client, go to this client’s profile > Trusted Vendors tab.

  1. Click the Edit button to enter the edit mode.

  2. With the radio button, select the Use custom Trusted Vendors list option.

  3. In the section below, add the trusted vendors to the Selected Items list.

  4. Click the Save button.

Now only the vendors selected in the client’s profile can be assigned to this client’s project.

Remove a vendor from the Trusted Vendors lists

  • To remove a vendor from the general list of trusted vendors, go to the Configuration menu > Clients and Vendors > Sensitive Clients & Trusted Vendors. In the Select Trusted Vendors section, click the icon next to the vendor in question.

  • To remove a vendor from all lists of trusted vendors, open this vendor’s profile in edit mode, go to the Sensitive Clients tab, and click the Remove this vendor from all Trusted Vendors lists link.

Is the Vendor Restricted Pool feature compatible with Advanced Job Offers (AJO)?

We can confirm that the restricted pool has an impact on AJO. It is like the main filter. AJO will show only Vendors that are defined as trusted for a particular sensitive client. Of course, it works only for Smart projects.