Supplier Collaboration Portal

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 4 minutes to read
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    Summary of Supplier Collaboration Portal

    The ServiceNow® Supplier Collaboration Portal offers a unified, self-service platform for supplier contacts to efficiently manage inquiries, update their data, and accelerate case resolution by completing tasks and submitting required documents. Suppliers must self-register to access the portal. It supports mobile device access through a URL suffix, enabling flexibility and accessibility.

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    Key Features

    • Supplier Collaboration Portal Header Options:
      • My Company: View and request updates to supplier profile details. From the Xanadu December 2024 release, multiple suppliers linked to a contact can be selected for company-specific views.
      • Tasks: Primary contacts see all task-related menus, including "My Tasks" (personal to-dos) and "All Tasks" (all supplier tasks). Secondary contacts have access to only "My Tasks."
      • My Requests: Lists all requests assigned to the supplier contact for easy tracking.
      • Raise a Request: Enables raising new requests via the General category in the Supplier catalog.
    • Widgets:
      • How can we help? Search tool for finding information quickly.
      • My active items: Displays supplier-specific tiles such as Tasks, Requests, Surveys, Issues, Risk Assessments, Contracts, Supplier Products, Purchase Orders, Shipments, and Invoices, depending on installed plugins.
      • My tasks: Lists assigned supplier tasks with direct links to work on them.
      • My requests: Shows cases submitted by the supplier contact for efficient case management.
      • Quick links: Provides access to internal and external organizational resources.
      • My company and My contacts: Displays company profile details (e.g., number of employees, industry, relationship manager) and team contacts with options to call, email, or invite new members (invitation rights limited to primary contacts and administrators).
      • Most viewed articles: Lists popular Knowledge articles for quick reference.

    Important Configuration Notes

    • Data displayed in "My active items" and "My tasks" widgets is sourced from specific configuration tables and requires explicit Access Control List (ACL) permissions for supplier contacts.
    • User criteria for data visibility can be managed by updating activity access lists.
    • Only primary supplier contacts and supplier administrators can invite new members to the portal.

    What Customers Can Expect

    By leveraging the Supplier Collaboration Portal, ServiceNow customers can provide their suppliers with a transparent, efficient platform for managing interactions and data. This reduces manual case handling, improves supplier data accuracy, and speeds up resolution processes. The portal’s mobile support and configurable widgets ensure suppliers can stay engaged and productive from any device.

    The ServiceNow® Supplier Collaboration Portal application provides a seamless unified employee portal experience for supplier contacts.

    Supplier Collaboration Portal enables you to do the following:
    • Resolve supplier inquiries using self-service and Knowledge articles
    • Improve supplier data quality by enabling suppliers to manage their own data
    • Accelerate case resolution by enabling suppliers to complete tasks and upload required prerequisite documents

    As a supplier contact, you must first self-register to access the Supplier Collaboration Portal. For more information, see Self-register to the Supplier Collaboration Portal.

    In the Supplier Collaboration Portal, you can view the requests assigned to you, open to-dos, and Knowledge articles.

    Note:
    The Supplier Collaboration Portal is supported on mobile devices. To access the Supplier Collaboration Portal on a mobile device, open a mobile browser, and then navigate to your instance URL and append the /supplier suffix to the end of the URL. For example, https://example.com/supplier.

    For more information about installing the Supplier Collaboration Portal, see Install Supplier Collaboration Portal.

    Supplier Collaboration Portal header

    The portal header contains the following options:

    Table 1. Options on the Supplier Collaboration Portal header
    Option Description
    My Company Opens the Supplier Profile page, which shows the supplier details. You can submit a request to update the details by selecting Request Change.

    For more information, see Update company profile using the supplier catalog.

    Important:
    From Xanadu December 2024 release onwards, after enabling M2M mapping between supplier contact and suppliers, the list of suppliers linked with the contact are displayed on selecting My Company. You can select a supplier from the list which opens the company-specific Supplier Profile page.
    Tasks Contains the following submenus.
    Note:
    Only the primary contact can see the Tasks menu and its submenus in the portal header.
    • My Tasks: Opens the My To-dos page, which lists all the tasks that are assigned to the logged-in user.
      Note:
      The secondary contact can view only the My Tasks option in the portal header.
    • All Tasks: Opens the Supplier Task List page, which lists all the tasks that are assigned to the supplier.

      For more information, see Viewing supplier contact tasks from the Supplier Collaboration Portal.
    My Requests Opens the My Requests page, which lists all the requests assigned to you.

    For more information, see View all your requests from the Supplier Collaboration Portal.
    Raise a request Option that enables you to raise a request by navigating to the General category in the Supplier catalog.

    For more information, see Raising requests from the Supplier Collaboration Portal.

    Supplier Collaboration Portal widgets

    The Supplier Collaboration Portal contains the following widgets.
    Table 2. Supplier Collaboration Portal widgets
    Widget Description
    How can we help? Lets you search for any information that you're looking for.
    My active items
    As a supplier contact, you can view and work on specific items. The information that is displayed in the tiles depends on the plugins that you have installed. Selecting a tile in the widget opens the page that provides more information about it.
    • Tasks
    • Requests
    • Surveys
    • Issues
    • Risk Assessments
    • Contracts
    • Supplier Products
    • Purchase Orders
    • Shipments
    • Invoices

    The Risk Assessments tile is displayed if you have installed the Third-party Risk Management plugin.

    The Contracts, Supplier Products, Purchase Orders, Shipments, and Invoices tiles are displayed if you have installed the Sourcing and Purchasing Automation (com.snc.sn_pr) and Source-to-Pay Common Architecture (com.snc.sn_shop) plugins.

    Important:

    The data for My active items is sourced from the Activity Configurations table. For all the new custom records added to Activity Configurations that need to be shown in My active items, the corresponding ACLs for sn_slm_contact must also be explicitly added.

    Also, for restricting the data appearing in My active items, you can configure the user criteria by updating the Activity Access list of the Activity Configurations table.

    My tasks Displays a list of supplier tasks assigned to you. Selecting a task directly opens it on the My To-dos page so that you can work on that task. Select View All to view a list of all the tasks assigned to you.
    Important:
    The data for My tasks is sourced from the To-dos Configurations table. For all the new custom records added to To-dos Configurations that need to be shown in My tasks, the corresponding ACLs for sn_slm_contact must also be explicitly added.
    My requests Displays a list of cases that you have submitted. Selecting a case directly opens the My Cases page so that you can work on that case. Select View All to view a list of all the cases that you have submitted.
    Quick links Enables the supplier to access internal and external resources related to specific departments within your organization.
    My company This section has the following fields:
    • Number of employees: The number of people employed by the company.
    • Founded: The year the company was founded.
    • Industry: The type of industry the company belongs to.
    • Relationship manager: The name of the relationship manager for your company.
    • Onboarded date: The date your company was onboarded.

    Select Details to view details, contact information, payment information, and locations of your company.
    My contacts Displays a list of members on your team. You can call a member directly or send an email to a member by selecting the phone icon (Phone icon.) or the email icon (Email icon.) respectively, next to that team member's name. You can also invite new members to register to by selecting Invite.
    Note:
    The Invite option is available only to the primary supplier contact and the supplier administrator. Only the primary supplier contact and the supplier administrator can invite new members to access the Supplier Collaboration Portal. For more information, see Invite a member to access the Supplier Collaboration Portal.
    Most viewed articles Displays a list of the most viewed articles.

    For more information about using the Supplier Collaboration Portal, see Using Supplier Collaboration Portal.