Supplier collaboration portal

Send orders to your suppliers for confirmation, follow their answers, and share your demand with them.

Supplier collaboration lets you work on orders with your suppliers in Flowlity instead of by email or spreadsheet. You send an order for confirmation, the supplier accepts it, proposes other quantities or dates, or rejects it, and you follow every answer in Supply orders.

Your suppliers log in to their own supplier portal. They see the demand and orders of the products they supply to you, and nothing about other suppliers.

Collaboration is set up per supplier. Ask your Customer Success Manager to activate it for the suppliers you want to work with.

How to send orders to a supplier for confirmation

1

Open your planned orders

In the sidebar, go to Inventory & supply > Supply orders and open the Planned view.

2

Select the orders

Tick the orders to send. Filter on Collaboration status > Not requested to see only the orders not sent yet.

3

Click Send request

Click Send request in the action bar. The confirmation reminds you that the supplier will be able to accept, change or reject the orders. Only orders in Not requested are sent.

4

Confirm

Click Send request again. The orders move to Requested and your supplier can now answer them.

If the supplier does not use collaboration, the order shows "Collaboration feature is not available for this supplier".

How to follow your suppliers' answers

1

Filter on the collaboration status

In Supply orders, open the Collaboration status filter.

2

Pick the status you want to review

• Not requested: not sent to the supplier yet.

• Requested: sent, waiting for the supplier.

• Changed by supplier: the supplier proposed other quantities or dates.

• Proposed changes: you proposed changes back to the supplier.

• Rejected by supplier: the supplier refused the order.

Your supplier sees the same statuses from its side: your proposals show as Changed by customer, and its own as Proposed changes.

3

Save it as a view (optional)

Click Save view to keep this filter as a tab, for example "Supplier answers to review". See Set up and manage views.

How to answer a supplier proposal

1

Open the order

Click an order in Changed by supplier to see the quantities and dates the supplier proposes.

2

Propose other values if needed

Edit the order lines. In collaboration, the save button becomes Propose changes: your proposal goes back to the supplier, with an optional comment.

3

Validate when you agree

When the order is right for you, validate it as usual. See Review and validate supply orders.

When you move the delivery date of order lines that are in collaboration, Flowlity does not change the date directly: the supplier receives the new date as a proposal.

How to leave a comment on an order for the supplier

1

Open the order details

In Supply orders, click the order.

2

Add your comment on the line

Write your comment on the order line and send it. It stays on the order, so the next person who opens it sees why a quantity or a date changed.

What your supplier sees and does

Your supplier logs in to a supplier portal with its own account. In its sidebar:

• Demand: the demand forecast of the products it supplies to you. If it works with several customers, it picks the customer at the top of the list.

• Sales orders: the orders you sent, which are its sales orders.

On an order you sent, the supplier can:

• Accept the order as it is.

• Edit quantities or dates and click Propose changes.

• Reject the order, or use Undo rejection to take a rejection back.

• Discard changes to withdraw its own proposal.

Good to know

• Over- and under-delivery alerts (Over-fulfilled, Under-fulfilled) appear in the order Alerts filter when collaboration is active. See Alerts.

• Suppliers never see your Dashboard, Planning or Supply orders, nor data about other suppliers.

• To add a supplier to the portal, ask your Customer Success Manager. Access is given per supplier and limited to the products it supplies.

Related

• Supply orders: where you send and validate orders.

• Review and validate supply orders: the full order review.

• Supplier constraints and order management: how supplier constraints shape your orders.

• Comments: how comments work across products and orders.