Finding suppliers in Vendor Connect

Your organisation can keep a directory of approved vendors: the suppliers it recommends to its tribes, with their products, training material, contacts and offers. A tribe is one location, branch or business unit inside your organisation. Inside a tribe the directory is called Vendor Connect; the organisation's own copy of the same list is called Vendor Directory. Use it when you need a supplier your organisation has already checked, and the right person to call there.

Opening the directory

• From a tribe, select Vendor Connect under Directories & Events in the tribe's left-hand menu.
• From the organisation, select Vendor Directory under Directories & Events in the organisation's menu.

Both pages list the same vendors. Vendor Connect appears only when your organisation has turned on Vendors for its tribes and your tribe has not turned it off. If the entry is missing from your tribe's menu, ask whoever looks after your organisation's applications to check that setting.

Searching for a vendor

The vendors are shown as cards, 24 to a page, sorted by name. Use the controls across the top of the page to narrow them down. Each change updates the cards straight away.

• Search Vendors matches a vendor's name and the keywords the vendor has listed for itself, so a search for a product often finds the supplier even when its name gives no clue.
• Category shows only vendors your organisation has filed under the category you choose. It lists only the categories your organisation uses for the vendors in its directory. To see every category again, select the cross at the end of the field; it then reads All Categories.

Each card shows the vendor's logo, its name, your organisation's categories for it, and the start of its description. Select Website to open the vendor's website, when it has one, or select the phone number to call it. Select View Details, the name or the logo to open the vendor's page.

If the directory cannot be loaded, the reason is shown in a red box at the top of the page. Select Retry to try again.

Downloading the directory as a PDF

Select Download Vendor Directory to save a PDF of the directory, with each vendor's logo, main phone number and key contacts. The PDF contains the vendors that match your current search and category, so clear both first if you want the whole list.

What a vendor's page shows

The top of a vendor's page shows the vendor's logo, its name and your organisation's categories for it. Beside them are a Visit Website button when the vendor has a website, and a button with the vendor's main phone number when it has one. These stay in place whichever tab you open. The page opens on its Profile tab, with four more tabs in the row underneath. Select Back to Vendors at the top of the page to return to the directory.

• Profile shows, one section under another, Our Story when your organisation has written a description of the vendor, the vendor's own About Us text when it has written one, Products & Services Offered when the vendor has described them, and then its Endorsements, Special Offers and Latest Announcements, described below. Beside them, Key Contact (or Key Contacts) shows the people to call first, each with an Email button and a phone button.
• Products & Services lists the vendor's products under its own Product Categories. Select a category to open it, then select a product to see its description and its Related Files & Media. Select View on a file to open it in a new tab.
• Training Material works the same way, with Training Categories holding the guides, videos and documents the vendor has published to help tribes use what it sells.
• Contacts lists everyone at the vendor you can talk to, with their role, location, phone number and email address. Select Email or Call on a contact's card to start an email or a call.
• Locations shows each of the vendor's locations on its own map, with the address, phone number and email address. Select Get Directions to open the location in Google Maps.

• Special Offers are deals the vendor is running for your organisation. Any general offers text the vendor has written on its profile is shown first. Below it, only offers that are running today are shown, and an offer with an end date shows it as Valid until. When there is more than one, use the arrows or the dots under them to move between offers.
• Latest Announcements are news the vendor has published to your organisation, such as a new product or a price change. An announcement appears only between the dates the vendor set for it, and may carry a button, usually Read More, that opens a page on the vendor's website in a new tab.

Writing an endorsement

An endorsement is a short, written recommendation of a vendor, for example a note that its delivery was on time or its training was useful. Anybody who can open the vendor's page can endorse it, except the vendor's own administrators.

1. Open the vendor's page and stay on the Profile tab.
2. Under Endorsements, select Share Your Experience. The Write an endorsement dialog opens. If the button is missing, you cannot endorse this vendor, usually because you are one of its administrators.
3. Your name and your location are filled in for you and cannot be changed. The location is your organisation's name, followed by your tribe's when you look after one.
4. Write your endorsement under Tell us about the vendor. It can be up to 500 characters long, and the counter under the box shows how many you have used.
5. Select Save. If the endorsement cannot be saved, the reason is shown in the dialog, and nothing you wrote is lost.

Changing or deleting an endorsement

You can change or delete endorsements you wrote yourself. You can change only the wording: your name and location stay as they were when you first wrote it.

1. Find your endorsement on the vendor's Profile tab and select Edit Endorsement. The button appears only on endorsements you wrote.
2. To change it, edit the text under Endorsement and select Save.
3. To delete it, select Delete at the bottom of the dialog. The confirmation names the author and says that this cannot be undone. Select Delete again to confirm, or Cancel to keep the endorsement.