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Supplier portal

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The supplier portal is a website, built with Microsoft Power Pages on the same Dataverse database as ProjectIQ, where your suppliers can work with you without emails and spreadsheets going back and forth. On the portal a supplier:

  • finds on a dashboard what you are waiting for: RFQs to quote, orders to confirm, documents to renew;
  • sees the requests for quotation (RFQs) you sent them, types unit prices, delivery days and notes, and sends the quote — or declines;
  • sees the purchase orders you sent them, with lines and amounts, and confirms them;
  • sees how much of each order has already been received and the status of its invoices;
  • sees the projects it works on, with the activities of the plan (WBS) assigned to it, and — if you allow it — updates their progress;
  • uploads its company documents (DURC, certifications, insurance), which your buyer approves, and is warned when they expire.

Everything the supplier does is immediately visible in ProjectIQ: quotes appear in the Quote Comparison of the RFQ, confirmations change the order status, uploaded documents wait for your review.

This manual has two parts: Part 1 for suppliers (you can send it to them) and Part 2 for your internal staff, who give suppliers access and follow their answers.

sequenceDiagram
    participant B as Buyer (ProjectIQ)
    participant DV as Dataverse
    participant S as Supplier (portal)
    B->>DV: Send RFQ (invitation + empty quote lines)
    S->>DV: Requests for quotation → Open → prices, delivery days → Send quote
    DV-->>B: Invitation Responded, Quote Comparison updated
    B->>DV: Award → purchase order → Send to Supplier
    S->>DV: Purchase orders → Open → Confirm order
    DV-->>B: Order Confirmed
    B->>DV: Register Receipt
    S->>DV: Sees Received quantities
    S->>DV: Documents → Upload document (DURC...)
    B->>DV: Approve or Reject
    DV-->>S: Expiry e-mail and alert on the Dashboard

Part 1 — Guide for suppliers

Signing in

Your customer gives you access to its supplier portal. You receive the portal address (for example https://<customer>-suppliers.powerappsportals.com) and the instructions to create or activate your account. Use the email address your customer registered for you.

  1. Open the portal address and click Sign in.
  2. Sign in with your account: under Sign in with a local account type your Email and Password (Forgot your password? sends you a reset link), or use Microsoft Entra ID if your customer gave you a company account. No account yet? Click Register, or Redeem invitation if you received an invitation code.
  3. After sign-in the portal opens the Dashboard (the home page sends you there; if your account is not yet linked to a supplier, it tells you to ask your customer). On the left, the sidebar shows the modules: Dashboard, Projects, Requests for quotation, Purchase orders, Invoices and Documents. A blue counter shows the RFQs to quote and the orders to confirm; an orange counter shows the documents to renew or correct. At the bottom you find your company, your name and Sign out.

If a page says "This area is reserved to suppliers. Sign in with the account your customer invited.", you are not signed in, or your account has not been enabled as supplier yet: contact your customer.

You see only the data of your company. Colleagues of your company with their own account see the same data.

The dashboard

The Dashboard is the start page:

Part What it shows
Counters Requests to quote, Orders to confirm, the amount Ordered in the current year (confirmed and received orders) and the Invoices under review
Document compliance A ring with the share of your approved documents that are valid (green), expiring within 30 days (orange) and expired (red), plus how many wait for review or were rejected
To do One line per thing your customer is waiting for: expired documents to renew, rejected documents to correct, RFQs to quote (with the deadline), orders to confirm, documents expiring soon. Click a line to open the page where you do it
Your projects The first project cards (see below), with All projects for the complete list

Projects

Projects shows one card for each project your customer has assigned to your company: code and name (with your role, when given), Project progress, Your deliveries (the share of your ordered amount already received, only when you have orders), Start date, End date and the number of Orders. A project appears when your customer invites you to a request for quotation (badge Invited), sends you a purchase order or adds you to the project. A project with an order to confirm has an orange border.

Open project shows the project header (code, start and end date, progress) and, under Your work, the activities of the plan assigned to your company: Code, Activity, Start, End and Progress. Budgets and costs are never shown.

Updating the progress of your activities

If your customer allows it, the Progress of each activity without sub-activities is a box with Save: type the percentage (0–100) and click Save. The progress of the summary activities (in bold) and of the project is calculated from them, so it cannot be typed. If your customer does not allow it, you only see the progress bars.

Answering a request for quotation

  1. Click Requests for quotation. Each RFQ is a card with the invitation date, the number, the subject, the Quoted amount once you have answered and a bar showing how much time is left before the Deadline (it turns orange and then red as the deadline gets close). The buttons at the top filter the cards: All, To quote, Quoted, Closed.
Card badge Meaning
To quote Waiting for your quote (orange border)
Quoted You sent a quote (you can still change it until the deadline)
Declined / Closed You declined, or the deadline has passed
  1. Click Quote now (or Change quote, Open) on the card. You see the RFQ number, the deadline, your customer's notes and the list of items with quantity and unit.
  2. For each line type the Unit price and, if needed, Notes (brand, alternative product, conditions...).
  3. Type the Delivery days (how many days after the order you can deliver) and any Notes for the buyer.
  4. Click Send quote. A green message confirms: "Your quote has been sent. You can change it until the deadline."

Good to know:

  • You can leave a line without price if you do not supply that item: "Lines without a price are not quoted." Quoting every line gives you a better chance, because the best total is calculated only among suppliers who quoted all the lines.
  • You can come back and change prices until the deadline. After the deadline (or after declining) the fields are read-only.
  • If you cannot quote, click Decline and confirm. The RFQ is marked Declined.
  • The Quoted amount in the list is quantity × unit price over all your lines.

Confirming a purchase order

  1. Click Purchase orders. Each order is a card with project, order date, number and total. Orders waiting for your confirmation are marked To confirm and show expected delivery, payment terms and delivery place; the others show a Received bar. The buttons at the top filter the cards: All, To confirm, Confirmed, Received.
  2. Click Review and confirm (or Open). You see order date, expected delivery, Delivery place, Payment terms, status, and the lines with quantity, unit price, amount and the quantity already Received.
  3. Check the order and click Confirm order, then confirm. The status becomes Confirmed with the confirmation date.
Status shown Meaning
To confirm The order has been sent to you and waits for your confirmation
Confirmed You (or the buyer on your behalf) confirmed it
Received All the goods have been received by your customer

If something in the order is wrong (price, quantity, date), do not confirm it: contact the buyer, who will correct the order and send it again.

Invoices

Invoices shows the invoices your customer received from you: totals Under review, Approved in the current year and Rejected, then one card per invoice with order and project, number, amount, document type and dates. The steps Received → Reviewed → Approved (or Rejected, in red) show where the invoice is; a rejected invoice shows the Reason. The buttons at the top filter the cards. The portal does not receive invoices: send them as usual.

Company documents

Documents lists the documents your customer needs from your company (DURC, company report, certifications, insurance, contracts) with Number, Issued, Expires, and two badges:

Column Badges
Expiry Valid, Expiring (within 30 days), Expired, Replaced (a newer document of the same type was approved), No expiry
Review Pending review (the buyer has not checked it yet), Approved, Rejected (with the reason)

To upload a document:

  1. Click New document (or scroll to the form at the bottom of the page).
  2. Choose the Type, type a Description and, if any, Number, Issue date, Expiry date and Notes.
  3. Choose the File (PDF or image, up to 32 MB) and click Upload document.

The document is Pending review until the buyer approves it. While it is pending or rejected you can click Edit (change the data or the file, then Save changes) or Delete. Correcting a rejected document sends it back to review. Once Approved a document can only be viewed: to renew it, upload a new document of the same type; when the buyer approves it, the old one becomes Replaced. When the buyer approves it, the file moves to your customer's archive: the list shows Filed by your customer instead of the file name.

You receive an e-mail when an approved document is about to expire (30 days before) and when it expires; the Dashboard shows the same alerts.

Errors

If an action fails, a red message explains why. Common cases: "Session expired: sign in again." (sign in and repeat), "The deadline of the request for quotation has passed." (contact the buyer to extend it), "The request for quotation is closed." (it was awarded or cancelled), "Approved documents cannot be changed." or "Approved documents cannot be deleted." (upload a new document instead), "Choose the file of the document." (a new document needs its file), "Progress must be between 0 and 100.", "Progress updates from the supplier portal are disabled." (your customer turned them off).

Part 2 — Guide for internal staff

What the portal exposes

The portal is deliberately narrow. Suppliers can read only their own records and can write only a few fields:

Data Supplier can read Supplier can change
RFQ invitations of their company Number, deadline, notes, status, quoted amount Delivery days, supplier notes, status (only to Responded or Declined)
Quote lines of those invitations Item, quantity, unit, price, notes Unit price, notes
Purchase orders of their company (Sent, Confirmed, Received) Header and amounts Supplier confirmed (which confirms the order)
Lines of those orders Item, quantity, price, amount, received quantity Nothing
Project suppliers of their company (Active and Invited) Project, role, status Nothing
Projects of those project suppliers and of their orders Code, name, start and end date, progress Nothing
WBS nodes of their scope Code, name, start and end date, progress Progress % of nodes without child nodes, only when Supplier Progress Updates is Yes
Supplier invoices of their company Number, dates, amount, status, decision note Nothing
Supplier documents of their company All fields, including the review note Type, description, number, dates, notes, file; can create and delete, only while the document is not approved

Draft and cancelled orders and RFQs not yet sent are never shown. Prices of other suppliers, budgets and costs are never visible.

Project suppliers and WBS scope

A Project Supplier says that a supplier works on a project and which activities of the WBS it sees on the portal (its WBS Scope). You find them in the Suppliers list of the project (Purchasing tab) and in the Projects list of the supplier account.

flowchart LR
    I[RFQ Send: invitation Invited] -->|creates| PS[Project Supplier<br/>status Invited]
    O[Send to Supplier] -->|creates or activates| PS2[Project Supplier<br/>status Active]
    O -->|adds| W[WBS nodes of the order lines<br/>with their branches]
    M[+ New Project Supplier<br/>by hand] --> PS2
    PS2 --> P[Portal: project card<br/>+ Your work]
    PS --> P
  • Send on an RFQ makes every invited supplier a project supplier Invited of the project (if not already there).
  • Send to Supplier on an order makes the supplier Active and adds to its WBS Scope the WBS nodes of the order lines. Cancelling the order later keeps the project supplier and its scope.
  • You can add a project supplier by hand from the Suppliers list of the project (Project, Supplier, Role), and add WBS nodes in its WBS Scope list (Add Existing WBS Node). A node always brings all its sub-activities, also those created later.
  • To hide activities, remove them from the WBS Scope (removing a node does not remove its sub-activities: remove them too), or deactivate the project supplier to hide the whole project.
  • Whether suppliers may update the progress is a company setting, Supplier Progress Updates (Administration); the default is No. Can Update Progress on the project supplier shows the current value.

Giving a supplier access

A supplier user is a contact whose Company Name is the supplier account. ProjectIQ gives such a contact the Supplier web role automatically, and removes it when the Company Name stops being a supplier: you never assign web roles by hand.

flowchart LR
    A[Contact with Company Name = supplier] -->|automatic| R[Web role Supplier]
    A --> I[Invite to Portal] --> M[E-mail with invitation code] --> S[Supplier signs up] --> P[Portal]
    X[Self-registered person] -->|you set Company Name| A
  1. In ProjectIQ make sure the supplier account is Is Supplier, Active and not Blocked.
  2. Create (or open) the contact of the person, with Company Name = the supplier and their Email.
  3. On the contact click Invite to Portal and confirm. The person receives an e-mail with an invitation (valid 30 days, usable once): following it they create their account (e-mail and password, or Microsoft) already linked to the supplier.
  4. Send the person Part 1 of this manual.

Invite to Portal refuses a contact without e-mail ("Add the e-mail address of the contact before inviting it to the supplier portal.") or whose Company Name is not a supplier ("Set a supplier as Company Name of the contact before inviting it to the supplier portal."). The e-mail is written in the Language of the supplier and is sent with the same setup as the expiry e-mails (Administration); without it you get "The invitation e-mail could not be sent: check the environment variables op365_SupplierEmailSender and op365_SupplierEmailTemplates (PortalInvitation)." and no invitation is created. The invitations are in Power Pages Management → Invitations.

To remove access, change the Company Name of the contact (the Supplier web role is removed) or deactivate the contact.

Sign-in methods. Besides Microsoft Entra ID, the portal offers local accounts (e-mail and password), so suppliers outside your tenant can sign in. People can also register by themselves: a self-registered person sees nothing until you set the Company Name of their contact to the supplier, which gives them the Supplier web role; check new contacts regularly. Your administrator can turn off local accounts or self-registration (then only invited people can register), see Development environment setup.

Reviewing the documents

A document uploaded on the portal is Pending Review and the owner of the supplier account receives the notification "Supplier document to review". Open it from the notification, or from the view Supplier Documents to Review, check the file and click Approve or Reject (with a note the supplier will read). See Master data. Expiry e-mails to suppliers need the setup described in Administration.

Following the answers

  • In the RFQ, the Invitations list shows each supplier's status, Responded On, Quoted Amount and Delivery Days; the Responses counter shows how many answered.
  • The Quote Comparison tab shows the portal quotes next to the ones you typed yourself. Award as described in Purchasing.
  • When a supplier confirms an order on the portal, the order becomes Confirmed and Supplier Confirmed / Confirmed On are filled in, exactly as if you had clicked Confirm.

Remember

  • An RFQ appears on the portal only after Send; an order only after Send to Supplier.
  • Neither action sends an email by itself: tell the supplier that a new RFQ or order is waiting (your usual email, or an automation your administrator may add).
  • If you move an order Back to Draft, it disappears from the portal until you send it again (the project stays, through the project supplier).
  • After the deadline the supplier can no longer change the quote: extend the Deadline and Send again if you want more answers.

For administrators

The portal is shipped as a separate solution, OpenProject365SupplierPortal, which depends on the main solution. The look of the portal (sidebar, cards, compliance ring) is plain Liquid and CSS in the web templates OP365 Supplier Style, OP365 Supplier Nav and OP365 Supplier Project Cards. Setup, the table permissions, the Web API settings and the deployment steps are documented in Development environment setup. After every deployment of the portal, clear the site cache (/_services/about → Clear cache, Administrators web role) and sign in again. In a new environment, an imported site must be reactivated (Power Pages → Inactive sites) before use.