Often during a Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance & Operations (D365 F&O) implementation, your procurement team has compelling reasons to give limited access to vendors. The good news is that this function is built in the software and works well. But there is some setup and configuration that's needed. This blog covers the concepts behind enabling external vendors in D365 F&O.
What can a vendor do in D365 F&O?
Once a vendor is logged into D365, what can they do?
- Self-manage vendor information, like address and phone number
- Self-manage vendor contact information, i.e., add, remove, and request contacts to become users in D365 F&O
- Reply to requests for quotations. Vendors can manage the RFQ's and post replies. Their data will automatically be ready to be reviewed by the buyer without any data entry.
- View and confirm purchase orders and suggest changes
- Add and view vendor invoices
What's needed to make this work?
- Vendor contacts will need to be added for the vendors that will access D365 F&O. Each of these contacts will need to have a valid e-mail address added.
- External vendor roles will need to be created
- B2B invitation configuration needs to be enabled; you will need to work with your system administrator to get the rest of this setup.
- User workflow will need to be created to approve the vendor contacts. Once the contact is approved, D365 F&O will create the vendor user.
- Vendor contacts will need to be provisioned and external roles will need to be selected. This action will give vendors access to the options mentioned above.
How much can an external vendor in D365 see?
A vendor's access into D365 F&O is very limited and is defined by which roles are made external. Also, each vendor contact who is provisioned is linked to their vendor account. That means they can only see data that pertains to that vendor, so there's no need to worry about one vendor seeing another's data.
Discover more on enabling external vendors in D365 and maximize your implementation process with the right partner. Learn more D365 tips and tricks on the Armanino resources or connect with our team to learn more about Microsoft Dynamics implementations with our team.
