Need some guidance on how to setup limited views/logins to have suppliers being able to access an ERPNext instance and do the following things:
Register and input detailed shipping data and upload associated Packing Lists, Delivery Notes, etc.
Add invoices with mandatory fields for PO-number, invoice-no, and such + attach the suppliers pdf-invoice.
Upload serial-number batches connected to a specific delivery-note.
This type of "external input" most likely needs a manual reconciliation process to inspect the new data before "accepting" and import to the ERPNext database.
To explain a bit what I'm after is to streamline the process of shipping & invoice tracking and require the suppliers to do majority of the job.
Normally this would be: receive email -> pull scanned pdf invoice to desktop -> go to erp and look-up associated PO-no -> manually input all data like invoice-no, product-list, qty, pricing, etc -> do http-file upload to tie and archive the vendors original invoice to the system. etc ...Â
best
David
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I am going to work on the portal to enable supplier related features. If you can give a checklist of features via a GitHub issue at github.com/frappe/erpnext I could do most of these
Need some guidance on how to setup limited views/logins to have suppliers being able to access an ERPNext instance and do the following things:
Register and input detailed shipping data and upload associated Packing Lists, Delivery Notes, etc.
Add invoices with mandatory fields for PO-number, invoice-no, and such + attach the suppliers pdf-invoice.
Upload serial-number batches connected to a specific delivery-note.
This type of "external input" most likely needs a manual reconciliation process to inspect the new data before "accepting" and import to the ERPNext database.
To explain a bit what I'm after is to streamline the process of shipping & invoice tracking and require the suppliers to do majority of the job.
Normally this would be: receive email -> pull scanned pdf invoice to desktop -> go to erp and look-up associated PO-no -> manually input all data like invoice-no, product-list, qty, pricing, etc -> do http-file upload to tie and archive the vendors original invoice to the system. etc ...
best
David
–
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “ERPNext User’s Forum” group.
@rmehta we’d def. be interested in sponsoring this. One infrastructure-related requirement that is important for these type of “vendor login” portals is that we can host them on separate servers to ensure isolation with the main erpnext instance. Let’s start discuss how this could be designed.
i.e. even though we could have an ip-locked / virtual server-to-server network, each individual supplier-portal should not have full read-access to the main instance, so even if the satellite machine would be compromised, there should be no way to access to other customer or supplier information.
I guess a notification system where data (xls, bulk, other) will be uploaded or synced via integrations to internal supplier-MES systems notifies the main instance which then pulls the data and queues it into a workflow for manual approval (or fully automatic where applicable).
If we want direct real-time integration we’d need ways to generate strict permission based auth-keys related to specific accounts / documents / etc.
@raveslave great. Do you have a design for the portal in mind.
Sync via REST API is a great option. Many of our assets like our billing system, cloud management system are separate entities tied up by sync scripts with REST API
@rmehta I’ve been trying to find some good references but like you already know there won’t be any, at least not from another erp/vendor-net style portal.
This ties back a bit to my old wish of having a way to easily create super-simplified views & workflows that can be used by staff internally for repetitive actions like receiving goods → stock entry, and so on.
In most organizations there are separate pdf-guides with screen-shots telling you to click here, then do this, enter x in field y… and so on.
Imagine if we could come up with a design template that could be used to tailor org/team-specific needs including supporting help docs. I see the entry-point like a landing page/dashboard that would be adapted to each “team/discipline” (i.e. shopfloor, logistics, external vendors, etc). On that page we have big buttons/shortcuts to each pre-defined action (i.e. “upload advance shipping notice”), then the coming pages/forms should use a minimum set of forms per step, provide the information needed to the user. That could internally be why this process exists and how and where to put in the information and files to be uploaded.
I guess a really good KB/FAQ is one reference for the “index” of something like this. Let me know if you have any good references for the interactive pages under. I think Shopify’s admin dashboard is quite ok the way it presents options incl. live data to the user. Also when you perform actions in the system, it sometimes tells you… “clicking next will perform the following actions, send x emails, withdraw this money, etc etc.”.
@raveslave this seems very vague. We need to define a workflow and then identify missing pieces. I would say there should be an Request for Quote (RFQ) and then inviting process for suppliers to quote (multiple) against the RFQ and the ability to select what to quote on (price, description?)
Hi Rushabh,
The most important thing for us in term of supplier portal is Access to Purchase Invoice (exactly like customer has access to Sale Invoice)
Cherry on the pie would be:
Access to our Payable related to that Supplier (ie. we are the supplier receivable)
The Supplier General Ledger.
Right now there is a role “supplier”. Unfortunately, if I create a contact from that supplier, he/she access purchase receipt / invoice from all other supplier. So that is a problem for us.
