SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal

The SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal allows users beyond a SYSPRO site to connect, interact and transact using the SYSPRO Avanti HTML5 user interface.

Adding Portal users to your SYSPRO configuration provides external user access to specific functionality (using a dedicated user interface and menu system) based on the portal features available.

Features currently available from the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal:

  • Request for Quote System:

    This lets you collaborate with your suppliers by automating the quote process and enabling suppliers to action an RFQ.

PDF version

Exploring

The programs related to this feature are accessed from the Program List pane of the SYSPRO menu:

  • Program List > Administration > Security

Portal users are users who have access to the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal.

They differ from regular SYSPRO operators and are configured and licensed separately based on a named-user license model.

When your system is licensed for a number of Portal Seats, an administrator can use the Portal User Management program to create and maintain portal users.

For example:

If you have a license for 1000 Portal Seats then you can create and maintain up to 1000 Portal Users, each of which can use the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal at the same time.

This has no effect on any other SYSPRO user licenses.

When creating a portal user, you assign an email address as the unique identifier against which the portal user will access the portal.

A unique operator code is generated against which all transaction journals are recorded. This generated operator code is not shown to portal users, but can be viewed from within the Portal User Management program and when viewing journals and other logs of using regular SYSPRO functions.

This is a system-wide number of named-users that can be included in your SYSPRO license.

You can create portal users up to the number of licensed Portal Seats.

Each portal user is a single person who has access to the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal.

Topics

Multi-Factor Authentication

Single Sign-on

Request for Quote System

Programs

Portal User Management

Add Portal User

Setup programs

System Setup

Operator Maintenance

Query programs

System Audit Query

PDF and Video Resources

Feature Guides

Starting

This feature is installed using the SYSPRO Installer.

In order to use the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal you must purchase and configure one or more Portal Seats according to the terms of your software license agreement.

In addition, each of the functions available from the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal will require an appropriate SYSPRO module to be licensed.

Currently, the following module license requirements apply:

Request for Quote System

  • Purchase Orders

The following technology prerequisites are applicable to using this feature:

  • Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6

  • SYSPRO 8 Service Upgrade Manager

  • SYSPRO 8 Avanti Initialization Service

  • Internet Information Services(IIS) 7.0 Core Web Engine Feature

  • Internet Information Services(IIS) 7.0 World Wide Web Publishing Feature

To use this feature, the following setup option(s) must be enabled:

SYSPRO Ribbon bar > Setup > General Setup

Email/SMTP settings

  • SMTP server IP address
  • Outgoing email address
  • Username
  • Password
  • Server port
  • Use SSL

SMTP settings are required for the Forgot Password functionality.

You can secure this feature by implementing a range of controls against the affected programs. Although not all these controls are applicable to each feature, they include the following:

  • You can restrict operator access to activities within a program (configured using the Operator Maintenance program).
  • You can restrict operator access to the fields within a program (configured using the Operator Maintenance program).
  • You can restrict operator access to functions within a program using passwords (configured using the Password Definition program). When defined, the password must be entered before you can access the function.
  • You can restrict access to the eSignature transactions within a program at operator, group, role or company level (configured using the eSignature Setup program). Electronic Signatures provide security access, transaction logging and event triggering that gives you greater control over your system changes.
  • You can restrict operator access to programs by assigning them to groups and applying access control against the group (configured using the Operator Groups program).
  • You can restrict operator access to programs by assigning them to roles and applying access control against the role (configured using the Role Management program).

  • Multi-Factor Authentication and Single Sign-on are not currently supported for the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal (i.e. an operator who is configured to use Multi-Factor Authentication or Single Sign-on won't be able to login to this platform).

  • Portal operators cannot belong to a SYSPRO Administrative operator group.

  • Currently, the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal can only be installed for a single company.

  • The ability to customize the logo and background image of the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal is not yet available, but will be included in a later release of SYSPRO 8.

  • Although technically possible, we don't recommend you duplicate an email address of a portal user amongst non-portal users.

    For this reason the Portal User Management program prevents you from entering a duplicate email address amongst all operators (of any type).

Solving

The following indicates the steps required to create a Portal user that can use the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal:

  1. Open the Portal User Management program.

  2. Select the Add Portal User option.

    The Add Portal User window is displayed.

  3. To create a Portal user you need to use an operator template. Therefore, select the required template from the list displayed in the Templates pane.

  4. Ensure that the following settings are configured for the operator:

    • Email

      This must be unique amongst all operators.

    • Name

    • Supplier

      When you save the operator record, this supplier code is used as the Portal supplier in the Operator Maintenance program.

    • Default company

      This must be specified to ensure that only a single company can be used to login to the portal.

    • Initial Password

      This is auto-populated and based on the email address entered in the Email field, but can be changed as required.

  5. Enter any remaining information that you require for the portal operator.

  6. Save the portal operator.

  7. Activate the new portal operator by highlighting the operator entry and selecting the Activate Users option from the toolbar.

The following describes how to create an operator Template. This is required so that you can create Portal users in the Portal User Management program.

  1. Open the Operator Maintenance program.

    Reset your toolbar to ensure that all the latest options are visible.

  2. From the Edit menu, select Maintain templates.

  3. Enter the template code in the Template field on the toolbar and press tab.

  4. Enter the following mandatory fields in the Operator Details pane:

    • Operator name
    • Operator group

  5. From the E.net pane:

    1. Specify the Functional role as 03-Supplier.

    2. Specify the Usage for e.net business objects as No access.

    3. Specify the Customer selection as Selection.

  6. Enter any other information you may require for the operator template, or accept the defaults provided.

  7. Save the operator template.

When first creating a portal operator, the password is generated using the email address.

You notify the portal user of the login credentials and advise them to change this password (using the Change Password option) when they first access the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal.

From within the Portal User Management program, select the Disable option against the operator and enter a reason at the Reason Code field.

From within the Portal User Management program, select the Delete option against the operator and enter a reason at the Reason Code field.

Only portal users created within the Portal User Management program can access the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal.

Portal users are designed to have limited access to portal-specific functions, whereas regular SYSPRO operators have access to a much wider range of functionality.

Once you have installed the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal you can view the URL link from the following location of the machine to which the software is installed:

\inetpub\wwwroot\SYSPROSupplyChainPortal_"companyID"\index.html

However, the URL used for the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal is:

http://localhost/SYSPROSupplyChainPortal_"CompanyID", as configured within the System Setup program..

This functionality is planned for a later release.

If the login screen of the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal hangs, however the operator name is displayed below the login prompt (i.e. the system has resolved the operator code entered), then press Ctrl+F5 to force a refresh.

Your login can then proceed as normal.

Using

The following depicts the process required to create a Portal operator that can use the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal:

Before proceeding, ensure that you update the System Setup program with your new license details that includes the applicable Portal Seats.

  1. Install the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal using the SYSPRO Installer application.

  2. Ensure that the Avanti external portal address is entered correctly in the System Setup program.

    For example:

    http://localhost/SYSPROSupplyChainPortal_"CompanyID"

  3. The following describes how to create an operator Template. This is required so that you can create Portal users in the Portal User Management program.

    1. Open the Operator Maintenance program.

      Reset your toolbar to ensure that all the latest options are visible.

    2. From the Edit menu, select Maintain templates.

    3. Enter the template code in the Template field on the toolbar and press tab.

    4. Enter the following mandatory fields in the Operator Details pane:

      • Operator name
      • Operator group

    5. From the E.net pane:

      1. Specify the Functional role as 03-Supplier.

      2. Specify the Usage for e.net business objects as No access.

      3. Specify the Customer selection as Selection.

    6. Enter any other information you may require for the operator template, or accept the defaults provided.

    7. Save the operator template.

  4. Create a Portal operator:

    1. Open the Portal User Management program.

    2. Select the Add Portal User option.

      The Add Portal User window is displayed.

    3. To create a Portal user you need to use an operator template. Therefore, select the required template from the list displayed in the Templates pane.

    4. Ensure that the following settings are configured for the operator:

      • Email

        This must be unique amongst all operators.

      • Name

      • Supplier

        When you save the operator record, this supplier code is used as the Portal supplier in the Operator Maintenance program.

      • Default company

        This must be specified to ensure that only a single company can be used to login to the portal.

      • Initial Password

        This is auto-populated and based on the email address entered in the Email field, but can be changed as required.

    5. Enter any remaining information that you require for the portal operator.

    6. Save the portal operator.

    7. Activate the new portal operator by highlighting the operator entry and selecting the Activate Users option from the toolbar.

  5. Email the following credentials and information to the required portal user:

    • SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal URL

    • Username (i.e. email address)

    • Password

    Ensure to advise portal users to change their password using the Change Password option when they first login to the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal.

    Specific to the Request for Quote System feature:

    All suppliers are given the same URL, however access is controlled in the background where users can only see quotes pertaining to their supplier.

Once you have created RFQs in the core SYSPRO product and sent the supplier the credentials required to access the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal, the supplier can then use the portal to receive and review the RFQs, as well as submit quotations.

The following indicates areas in the product that may be affected by implementing this feature:

Program List > Administration > Security

This is a new program that lets administrators create and manage Portal operators.

Things you can do in this program:

  • Create Portal operators

  • Disable Portal operators

  • Remove Portal operators

  • Activate disabled or removed Portal operators

  • Delete Portal operators

All Portal operators count towards the license check, even if their status is Disabled. However, if the operator status is Removed, then it is not counted in the number of seats used.

Portal operators flagged as Removed are retained for historical purposes to identify operator details when viewing audits and logs.

SYSPRO Ribbon bar > Setup > General Setup

The program includes a record of how many Portal seats are included with your configured license (under the System Settings section).

SYSPRO Ribbon bar > Setup > General Setup

The program includes a record of how many Portal seats are included with your configured license (under the License setup section).

SYSPRO Ribbon bar > Setup > Operators

The program includes the following operator fields that are related to this feature:

Reset your toolbar to ensure that all the latest options are visible.

  • Operator type

    Portal indicates that the operator is a named user (used only for the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal)

  • Operator status

    This indicates the current status of the operator (as recorded in the OperatorStatus column of the AdmOperator table):

    Active

    This indicates that the Portal user is active and can log into the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal.

    Disabled

    This indicates the Portal user was disabled using the Portal User Management and cannot log into the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal.

    Removed

    This indicates the Portal user was removed using the Portal User Management program and cannot log into the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal.

  • Portal supplier

    This indicates the supplier code that must be assigned to the portal user when logging into the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal.

  • Portal customer

    This indicates the customer code that must be assigned to the portal user when logging into the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal.

    This field is currently not in use and will only become relevant with a later release of SYSPRO.

Program List > Administration > Security

The program includes auditing and logging capabilities for all operators that are configured as Portal operators.

  • Template operator codes are prefixed with __Template_ and their operator type records as Template.

  • We recommend you use Google Chrome as your browser.

  • Depending on how your security is configured, you'll need to give either the Portal operator or its operator group access to the Supplier Quote Entry program, so that they can use it in the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal.

  • If a portal user selects the Change Password option on the landing page of the SYSPRO Supply Chain Portal, the operator password in SYSPRO is updated to the new password defined by the portal user.