This content applies solely to Vendor Management, which must be purchased separately from the Appian base platform. |
Vendor Management (VM) is as flexible as any application developed on the Appian Platform. In order to make sure your application remains scalable and aligns with best practices, we have provided instructions to guide you through some of the most common changes.
After you have installed VM, there are several configurations you will likely perform to customize the application for your organization’s processes.
This page outlines the order we recommend for configuring the default application to work for your organization after installing VM. However, all of these instructions can be used to modify the application at any time.
Updates in Appian Designer should be done with caution by someone familiar with Appian development.
Configuring user groups and security is a good place to start.
You will need to know:
For more information on groups and security, see Groups Reference Page.
You can modify the solution to fit your organization's processes and data requirements by configuring fields, labels, and document templates.
It is likely certain fields and UI text throughout the set up process will not exactly match your organization's terms. You can configure a number of them.
The following fields and UI text are configurable:
The solution provides an example document template that will not exactly match your organization's templates. You can add your own templates into VM.
You will need to know:
Each document template will need to be added to a knowledge center. Add each template to the document template reference table as described on the Reference Data Tables page.
After you have configured your application, you can create the opportunity approach to be used during the opportunity management process. The opportunity approach determine which tasks will be assigned by default for each new opportunity that is set up.
You will need to understand your organization's current opportunity processes including:
When users create new tasks, they can choose from: Create Document from Template, Attach Document, Review, or Confirmation.
Vendor Management comes with an integration to SAM.gov, which allows you to retrieve vendor data from the SAM.gov website. In order to set up this integration, you will need to register for a key from SAM.gov and configure the application to use the key provided. This section provides instructions for registering for your key and configuring your application.
Caution: If you do not plan to use this integration, you must toggle the AS_VM_BOL_IMPORT_FROM_SAMGOV_TOGGLE
constant value to False
in Designer.
To set up this integration, you will need to register for an API key:
Select the Profile link above your user name and icon.
After receiving your email from SAM.gov, you will need to configure your application to use the saved API key.
AS VM Full Application
.AS VM Get Opportunities from SAM GOV Public API
.Click SAVE.
Note: The VM solution will be either Federal specific or State and Local Government (SLG) specific depending upon this customization. Appian recommends performing this customization as a one-time activity after the VM solution is installed.
You can customize the type of registration for your vendors depending on whether you are a federal or state agency. When vendors register themselves, they will be defaulted to the type of registration you configured.
Go to Enable or disable State and Local Government Toggle to learn more about enabling or disabling the SLG toggle.
Note: When you enable the questionnaire toggle, the Additional Information section will be visible in the vendor registration portal. Vendors must answer the questions to complete the registration. Based on the vendors responses, the contracting personnel can take informed decisions about vendors registration. By default, the questionnaire toggle is disabled. When questionnaire is disabled, vendors registering on Vendor Portal get immediate access to VM solution without requiring approval from contracting personnel. Appian recommends performing this customization as a one-time activity after the VM solution is installed.
You can customize the type of registration for your vendors depending on whether you want to have an approval flow or provide them immediate access upon registration.
Go to Enable or disable questionnaire to learn more about enabling or disabling the questionnaire.
Setting up VM