To make all this new functionality available to our customers, we built several new screens and added a menu item. The new menu item is called: Qualification management.

The Qualification management page then offers 4 tiles to choose from depending on your need. The 4 menu options will be explianed in the following paragraphs.

Qualification Processes

This was in previous releases a separate menu item in the menu tree and as of this release has been moved into the Qualification management page. The content is still exactly the same as before and shows you all existing Qualification processes which you have already setup with previously existing functionality. The functionality itself has also not changed to date and can still be used in case you prefer a more manual qualification process.

Qualification Requests

This menu option shows you a complete overview of all automatically started qualification requests that have been created using the new functionality including the status and other important information.

Rulebook

All Automation “rules” can be configured by the customer itself in the so-called rulebook to boost flexibility and self-maintenance by the customer. In this rulebook, the customer needs to configure his rules once which is then used fully automatically for sending, scoping and assessing qualification requests.

We will walk you step-by-step through the various configurations to guide you through the rulebook.

1. Select the Menu option by selecting the button “Go to rulebook”:

2.Define the Start rule

The moment you open the rulebook, you can start configuring the Start rule, Scope roles and Assessment rules. It is recommended that you follow this order during creation. Currently a Start Rule can only be created using the supplier status field at the organization level as a start-trigger. When a particular supplier gets the selected status assigned, a qualification request will automatically be created that uses all other rules and configurations.

Select the supplier status you wish to use as the Start Rule and click the button “Save start rule”. Supplier statuses can be created and maintained in the Supplier status menu item; this is just a selection.

3. Define the Scope rules

After you have defined the start rule, we can start putting together the various Scope rules. Select the next tab Scope rules and select the button “Create new scope rule”.

The following screen is shown:

Now you can start compiling various scope rules. With these rules you can map existing questionnaires available in your system to 1-n material groups. This means that if you want a specific supplier to be qualified for particular material groups, the mapping set up is looking up the material groups assigned to such supplier and auto-selects the corresponding questionnaires that are designed to allow for such a material group specific qualification.

When defining a rule, you need to select 1 questionnaire and then mark the material group(s) that will be mapped to this questionnaire. After configuring a rule, you should press the button “Save scope rule”. Should you have checked multiple material groups, the supplier will be sent the questionnaire as soon as he wishes to be qualified for at least one of the selected material groups.

If at least 1 scope rule exists, the rules are displayed in a list. This screen looks as follows. It is possible to create multiple scope rules. To do so, use the “Create new scope rule” button.

Note

Once a scope for a given questionnaire or material group has been saved, the same questionnaire or material group cannot be used again in another scope rule.

4. Define the Assessment rules

To use the auto assessment functionality, you must first turn this feature on. You can do this by using the toggle that appears after you press the Assessment rules tab.

After you turn on the functionality, you can define the auto assessment threshold ranges.

The different thresholds are:

Red: Automatically reject (default value: between 0 % and < 50%)

Amber: Manual assessment (default value: between ≥ 50% and < 90%)

Green: Automatically approve (default value: between ≥ 90% and 100%)

If you only wish to either reject or approve a questionnaire automatically but not do a manual assessment, you can disable the manual assessment by checking the box.

The threshold reflects the scores in percentages achieved by a supplier when completing a scored questionnaire. You can adjust all threshold ranges to your own preference. You do this by moving the orange dots on the percentage bar to the desired threshold per range.

After you finish configuring, press the “Save assessment rules” button.

Templates

This menu option allows you to configure a template that is used for each new qualification request that will be sent according to the rulebook automation rules. A fully configured template is necessary if you want to use the new automated way of qualifying suppliers. When you want to start configuring the template you can press the Template button.

A basic set of data is requested which is used by default for each automatically generated qualification request. All customers already familiar with the existing qualification processes will be familiar with these sets of data.

General information

General information currently contains 3 elements:

Base Information à Language selection, Title, Description and Welcome text for the supplier. You can create this information for multiple languages by using the button “Add further languages”.

Scope à For now it’s only possible to create a template for Organization level. We will extent the scope of using Organizational unit within future releases

Response Time and Reminders à Configure the response time in days and within how many days a reminder will be send. You can also add up to 5 reminders via the button “Add further reminders”.

When you are finished you can press the button “Next step: Master Data” to continue the template configuration.

Master Data

It is possible for each qualification request to allow the supplier to verify and update its master data. If this is desired, you can turn it on by using the toggle.

When enabled it looks like this. You can additionally set if certain identifying attributes (DUNS Number, VAT-ID) are mandatory for the supplier to provide in the response.

When you are finished you can press the button “Next step: Document acceptance” to continue the template configuration.

Document acceptance

It is possible for each qualification request to ask the supplier to accept important document(s). If this is desired, you can turn it on by using the toggle.

When enabled it looks like this. You can select, which document the supplier should accept or reject, from your already available documents sets in the Onventis software.

When you are finished you can press the button “Next step: Questionnaires” to continue the template configuration.

Questionnaire

In order for the auto-assessment to work, it is required to select one generic questionnaire that is not specified to serve the qualification of a specific material group. This questionnaire will be sent to all suppliers where the supplier status is assigned that is defined for the Auto-start rule.

Important note is that the selected questionnaire cannot be used in any scope rule in the rulebook.

When you are finished you can press the button “Save template”.

Now the template if fully configured and can be used. You can make changes in the template whenever you want and will be applied for all newly created and sent qualification requests after saving the new template configuration.

Activation functionality

In order to use this new functionality, you must have the appropriate license. If this is not the case or if you have any questions, please reach out to your Onventis contact person.

If you already have the appropriate license, the functionality will be activated automatically after you have fully configured and saved both the rulebook and template.

With the last release, we introduced an extension of the Email queue delivery statuses. Based on this information, we now provide the ability to automatically inform your users about email delivery issues.

With the new configuration setting under Configuration -> Organization settings -> General -> E-mail Settings you will find a new configuration checkbox with the label “Inform process initiator if email delivery or creation failed”:

When it is activated, the system will check once every 24 hours all items of the Email queue for items in the state “Delivery failed” or “Failed” and will sent an email to the user that triggered the email-related process, to inform them about the issue.

This will allow your users, to understand, that their triggered process was not able to reach a related participant via email. It will give them the ability to trace the related email and to take action to overcome the communication channel problems by getting in contact with the receiver of the email.

With the introduction of this feature, we retire an old configuration to inform a specific person about email delivery issues:

In case you have configured this feature in the past, we will automatically activate the new
“Inform process initiator if email delivery or creation failed” feature for you.