Managing a vendor list in Workfront? | Community
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Leah28850075mvkt
Level 5
April 16, 2019
Question

Managing a vendor list in Workfront?

  • April 16, 2019
  • 5 replies
  • 1209 views
Does anyone use Workfront to manage their vendor contacts? I don't plan on the vendors using Workfront. I rather use it as a place to store their contact info so that it could be inputted into our Print Request (RFQ) report. However, I'm not sure how that could work, either. I don't think this functionality is possible, but I'd love to have a dropdown of all the vendors that are I have added to Workfront. When that vendor is selected, the appropriate contact name, email and phone number automatically appear in the form. Does anyone do something to that effect? Leah Janz Metro Transit
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    5 replies

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    TerryHy
    Level 8
    April 16, 2019
    There was a similar string on this topic which may find helpful. See "https://community.workfront.com/discussions/community-home/digestviewer/viewthread?MessageKey=d6df7484-045e-4153-8cc6-5d5e20b7914e&CommunityKey=aaafaff0-5e4e-4e38-8903-f1f990935567&tab=digestviewer#bmd6df7484-045e-4153-8cc6-5d5e20b7914e">Tracking Contact to a Project . Terry Hynd EBSCO Information Services
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    LoriMe
    Level 3
    April 17, 2019
    @Meniesa Brown I thought this string might be helpful to you guys! Lori Meek LifeChurch.tv
    khdlr
    khdlr
    Level 2
    July 2, 2019
    I too have this requirement and I am not in favor of adding vendors as a user in the system, no matter if they do or do not consume a license. Adding users requires admin privileges, is slow and is not effective. I need my project managers to be able to add a vendor or a contact to an individual project on the fly as they come and go from a project. This should be as easy as adding an expense to a project. If you see this as a requirement for this system please up vote this request here:
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      KevinQu1
      Level 10
      July 3, 2019
      Yeah our implementation team gave us the same "well just give them WF IDs" solution too...um, no. The absolute clutter to the instance would be unreal. Our team has settled on maintaining an Excel document in Box/Google so they can copy-n-paste information. Far cry from their old system where picking a company gives a list of contacts, and that pulls address, email, phone, etc. But then again, WF doesn't handle cascading/hierarchical fields of any sort, which is part of the problem. Kevin Quosig
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      EricMa
      Level 4
      July 3, 2019
      We use thousands of vendors, and they are all entered as users in Workfront. Creating users requires admin privileges, yes, but for us that's a good thing; our ISO certification requires that we vet and qualify of any of our vendors before they can be assigned any work. Our vendor manager has admin privileges and, once she has qualified a vendor, creates the user in Workfront (with all the corresponding contact information, as well as their various rates as custom data fields attached to their profiles). Once they are in Workfront, project managers are free to assign them to tasks in their projects (just like assigning a team member). We've built a couple of different reports that helps the PMs narrow down who to assign, based on some basic criteria (such as area of expertise, time zone, and cost). You can't (yet!) select them from a dropdown menu, but if you assign using the inline edit feature you at least get Autocomplete functionality. Once the vendor is assigned, the PM can see their contact information from within the project context by switching to one of our basic Views that includes the "Assigned To Email Address" and "Assigned To Phone Number." Vendors that have a history of poor performance get deactivated by the vendor manager and can no longer be assigned to jobs; that's also critical to our ISO certification. Someone mentioned "chaos and clutter" as an argument against this approach to managing vendors, but we certainly don't experience it as chaotic or cluttered. It's all about how you organize the Workfront database and empower your users with the built-in reporting functionality. I hope this helps! ~Eric Eric Manning Language Line Translation Solutions
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