As a community owner, you are responsible for reviewing and approving products suppliers share into your community. When reviewing, you have the choice of moving the product into either an unlocked or locked approval flow step. To learn more about configuring locked and unlocked steps, see the article Configuring Product Flows
Steps to Review Products
1. Identifying the items needing attention can be done in a number of ways:
- Onboarding Workflow - Notifications will be sent to you via email if you’ve set up review steps following supplier steps. Visit our Workflow Templates article for further details.
- Add Pending Approval Dashboard widget to My Dashboard.
- Create a Saved View - Apply filters to display only the items with a certain Approval Status, Has Pending Changes, or Has Pending Delete. Configure the list view columns to display the Last Updated date, to quickly sort the list to show products recently updated. Visit the Saved Views article for more details.
2. Click on the product row to be reviewed. You can apply the Last Updated filter to locate recently modified products. You can also apply the Has Pending Changes or Has Pending Delete filters to view products with edited information. Additionally, the Missing Required Attributes column can be added to view products that are missing required information from your suppliers.
- Has Pending Changes - If a product record has been changed by the supplier, the list view page will show an amber asterisk.
- Has Pending Delete - If a product has been deleted by the supplier, the list view page will show a red asterisk. Suppliers can only delete products in an unlocked status. If you'd like to prevent a supplier from deleting, place the product in a locked status.
Here, we’re displaying the Missing Required Attributes column and are using two filters to view products with unreviewed information the supplier has changed in the last 60 days. Note the amber asterisks in the Status and/or Draft Status columns.
- Status column: If the product does not have a draft, there is only one version following one approval flow. You'll find the current status of the product in the Status column. This status, when there is no draft, can either be a locked or an unlocked status.
- Draft Status column: If the product has a draft, there are two versions of the product following two approval flows. You'll find the status of its current, locked version in the Status column. The status of the draft is in the Draft Status column.
3. Review the information that has been entered. After clicking into the product, if the supplier was the last person to enter information, you will see an amber supplier changes banner.
The product will remain in its current status after the supplier has made these changes. If you don't approve of the changes, leave a comment to the supplier by clicking Add Comment in the three-dot menu. In this comment, you can explain wha needs to be edited; make sure to check off the box Allow supplier to see this comment. The supplier will be notified of this comment by email.
4. To change the status of the product, click the blue Actions button next to the three-dot menu. The actions available here honor the configurations on your approval flow. For example, if you have two statuses configured as transitions from the step "Awaiting Approval," you will see these two options under Actions while the product is in this status. You can change your approval flow at any time. See the article Configuring Product Flows for more information.
5. If you have locked status available, you'll see a lock icon next to the name of that status. Placing the product in a locked status means that the supplier will not be able to edit this version; they can still make changes, but these changes will exist in a draft.
When transitioning the product to a different status, you still have the options of leaving an internal or supplier-facing comment.
6. If you've placed the product in a locked status, there will be a lock icon next to the status name. Both you and the supplier will see this view, ensuring all parties are aware that the product is locked and requires no further supplier edits at this time. As the community owner, you can click Edit Product Information to edit Private Attributes while the product remains locked.
7. While a product is in a locked status, create a draft at any time by clicking Create Draft from the Actions menu. The supplier can also create a draft at any time. If the supplier creates a draft, it will originate in the first step of the product's approval flow. If you create a draft, you can choose which status to place it in, taking note again that these options follow the available transitions you've configured on the approval flow. In the below example, we are seeing "Pending" here because that is the only status we've configured off of our "Approved" status.
8. When either the community owner or the supplier creates a draft, both of you will see a gray bar with a toggle between the Current (locked) version of the product and the unlocked draft. As you and the supplier are collaborating on the draft, you can progress it through its own approval flow while the current version remains locked, untouched, and visible to both parties.
9. If the supplier makes changes within the draft, you will see an amber supplier changes banner just as you did when changes were made in an unlocked status with no draft present.
10. To review a draft, repeat steps 3 - 6 to review supplier changes, move the draft through the approval flow, and leave comments to the supplier.