Manage Vendor Users | Zoho Sprints help

Manage vendor users

Vendors refer to third party associates who provide niche services to you in your effort to cater to your customers. Simply put, you are a customer to your vendor. You seek certain services from the vendor to complete your customer requirements. Like clients, vendors are not part of your organization but need to have a certain level of interaction to keep the process on track.

Info
Availability: Premier and Enterprise plan
Notes
Note: Admin users and users with permission to manage client and vendor profile can create vendor company and add external users.
Example
Idea
Let's take the example of a firm that develops scheduling and ticketing software for private tourism companies. You develop the software and see to the maintenance of it. However, your clients request for support for other languages. For this, you need a dedicated team that works on translations and reviews. It might not be a great idea for you to hire resources for an in-house translation team. Outsourcing the work to a vendor will be cost-efficient and hassle-free. However, this third party service needs to collaborate with your development team to receive completed modules for translation and send the translated files back. Zoho Sprints enables your vendors a limited level of access to information, allowing them to collaborate with your team.

Add vendor company

To add vendor users, you need to create a vendor company to which the users of that company will belong. You can create a user group for that company, making communication easy and straightforward.

To add vendor company:
  1. Click the gear icon in the top-right corner to navigate to the Settings page.
  2. Go to Vendor Users section under Manage Users.
  3. Click dropdown in Vendor Company button.
  4. Select Vendor Company. The Add vendor Company window will appear.
  5. Enter company name.
  6. Select project to associate with the company.
  7. Add contact information and mailing address.
  8. Select the Create user group checkbox to create a user group for the company.

  9. Click Create. The company is created and added to the listing page.

Let's assume your firm develops scheduling and ticketing software for private tourism companies. Those companies are your clients and they need to keep track of progress of the software development and maintenance process. Zoho Sprints enables clients a limited level of access to information, allowing them to monitor the progress of work. This eliminates the burden of having to share status reports with your clients periodically and facilitates immediate feedback from them, reducing the risk of rework and delayed delivery.

Default vendor profiles

These vendors will have minimal access within the team. If you need to add more users, you will need to purchase a user license for each one of them.

Customized vendor profiles
  1. You can customize your client profiles by granting and restricting their access within the team. You will need to purchase a user license to customize a vendor's profile.

Add vendor company

In order to add vendor users to the project, the vendor's company must be added to the workspace. Once the vendor company is added, create the new user and associate the company to which the user belongs. You can also create a user group for that company, making communication easy and straightforward.

To add vendor company:
  1. Click the gear icon in the top-right corner to navigate to the Settings page.
  2. Go to Vendor users section under Manage Users.
  3. Select Vendor Company. The Add Vendor Company window will appear.
  4. Enter the company name.
  5. Add other details of the company, which is optional.
    1. Select the projects that need to be associated with the vendor company. Note: You can associate a project later as well. 
    2. Add contact information and mailing address.
    3. Select the Create user group checkbox to create a user group for the company.
  6. Click Create. The company is created and added to the listing page.
  1. The vendor portal link also be available when the company is created. This link will be shared with your vendor via email for signing up.
  2. You can also click the Associate Project icon that is inline with the required vendor company on the listing page.
  3. If a user group is created from a vendor company, any vendor users added in the future will be automatically added to the user groups. 

Add vendor user

Now that you have created the vendor company, you can start adding vendor users. 

To add a vendor user:
  1. Click the gear icon in the top-right corner to navigate to the Settings page.
  2. Go to Vendor Users section under Manage Users.
  3. Click dropdown in the Vendor Company button.
  4. Select Vendor User. The Add Vendor User window will appear.
  5. Enter user email ID.
    1. Note: You can use comma to add multiple users.
  6. Select the required vendor company.
  7. Assign user role and profile.
    Note: You can choose from the default roles and profiles or create custom roles and profiles for your vendor users.
  8. Click the Add User button. The user is added as a vendor. 


Once the vendor user is added, you can associate them to the relevant projects. 

Notes
Note: Although vendor users can be associated to projects from the Manage User section, the users can access the project only when you add the respective users to the projects.

Add Vendor Users to Projects (Mandatory)

Associate Users from Existing Company to Projects 

  1. Navigate to the respective project in the workspace. 
  2. Hover over the project name and click the View Details button. 
  3. Click the + icon (Add icon) in the right pane. 
  4. Select + Vendor Company.  
  5. Select an existing vendor company.
    Users associated with that company will be listed. 
  6. Select the required user. 
  7. Click Associate.  

  1. The vendor portal link will be available when the company is created. This link will be shared with your vendor via email for signing up.
  2. You can also click the Associate Project icon that is inline with the required vendor company on the listing page.

Associate New User to Projects 
  1. Navigate to the respective project in the workspace. 
  2. Hover over the project name and click the View Details button. 
  3. Navigate to the Vendor Users tab and switch to Grid View. 
  4. Click the associate user button. 
  5. In the New Vendor User tab,  enter the user details. 
  6. Click Create. 

Edit vendor company or user

You can edit the details of the vendor company of user.

To edit vendor company or user details:
  1. Click the gear icon in the top-right corner to navigate to the Settings page.
  2. Go to Vendor Users section under Manage Users.
  3. Hover on the Vendor company and click the Edit link to update details.
  4. Click the Vendor user card in the listing page to view and update user details.

Delete vendor company or user

To delete vendor user:
  1. Click the gear icon in the top-right corner to navigate to the Settings page.
  2. Go to Vendor Users section under Manage Users.
  3. Hover on the Vendor company and click the Delete link to delete company.
  4. Click delete icon on the vendor user card in the listing page. The user will be deleted.

List and Grid view

You can view your workspace users as a list or a grid.

List view: The user and company details are displayed in a simple tabular format for quick and easy access of data. The table shows the users, the respective vendor company, the associated projects, item completion percentage, and other details. It comes with column customization for you to pick the columns that you need to be included in your view and ability to reorder the sequence.
Grid view: The vendor company and users are displayed as cards. The company name, portal link, and important user details along with edit and delete actions are available in this view.

Advanced filter

The advanced filters help look for specific information using predefined criteria or customized criteria that you create. You can save and reuse these filters. Learn more.

Cliq chat

You can initiate a Cliq conversation with the vendor of a vendor company. This provides you with an in-built communication system for you and your team to work collaboratively. Click and the ellipsis icon and select the Start Cliq group chat option to start your conversation.

Login to vendor portal

On adding a vendor user, the user will receive an email with the portal link requesting for signup. The user must provide a password for their access and click Update.

Resetting Portal Passwords  

In case your vendors forget their passwords, you can share this with your vendor to reset their passwords. The vendor must:        
  1. Click the hyperlink below Forgot Password.
  2. Enter the email address.
  3. Enter the Captcha code and hit Next.
  4. Click Don't Remember?  
  5. Enter OTP received via email to resent the password.
To log out of the portal, the vendor must:     
  1. Click the profile icon on the top right corner.
  2. Click Sign Out.