Last updated 05/11/2023
The New Supplier Justification (NSJ) is the internal form that initiates the supplier invitation. Intended to be completed by the business owner, the information gathered in the NSJ helps define what survey questions are required of the supplier and any downstream workflows required by the buying entity's internal teams.
Once the invitation is sent, the information is locked and cannot be changed by the requester. Any modifications to the flags that drive the supplier experience must be managed in the Supplier Classifications Topic. While the NSJ is only used during initial onboarding, the logic stored in the Supplier Classification topic will be used for rescreens and/or future engagement requests.
Learn more about the NSJ here >
Standard Exception Processes
Expedite Request
- Option to Expedite Request is only available for Admins
- Expedite means NSJ and Reviews are not required for onboarding
- A default “rescreen” date is scheduled for 12 months from the connection date
Legacy Supplier
- Field can only be updated when a bulk upload sets this flag
- An NSJ is still required, but the depth of the NSJ can be scaled based on business logic
- A default “rescreen” date is scheduled for 12 months from the connection date
Will this supplier join Graphite Connect?
- This question only shows up for users who are in the Non-Network Requests custom user group.
- When selected, the supplier will not receive an invitation and the supplier details will be completed by the buyer.
Business Owner
Each supplier must have a business owner associated with it. The business owner receives communications about the supplier during the course of the relationship. When completing the NSJ on behalf of someone else, the requester will be required to add the name and email of the business owner.
Expected country of registration
The NSJ asks the Country where <supplier> is registered as indicated on contracts and invoices.
Based on this selection, two things happen:
- Graphite will send both an English and an in-language invitation. See details >
- The supplier's country of registration will be pre-populated when onboarding, helping to ensure the supplier is clear which entity you must onboard (helpful to large global organizations).
For in-network invitations, the country selector is pre-selected based on the supplier's country of registration.
Legal Entities and Spend Category
Most buying entities use the following two questions to accomplish these things:
- Set default ERP Connection data for integration with an ERP
- Customize the remaining NSJ questions and supplier survey based on specific business requirements
- Create appropriate approval workflows
By default, the legal entities question is a multi-select that must be updated to accurately reflect the buying entity's list of companies.
Spend Category can be modified as needed to meet the business needs.
Products and Services
The first of these questions is required for all implementations when Data Privacy or Information Security topics may be asked of the supplier. It is used to help align customer and supplier expectations and ensure that the supplier completes the Privacy and Security sections to support the relationship.
The second of these questions is commonly asked by most buying entities. It is used to provide context about the relationship to procurement and compliance team members.
Additional Supporting Details
In addition to everything above, the standard NSJ includes several other commonly asked questions in the Request Details section. These questions can be leveraged for various use cases:
- Provide additional context about the relationship for procurement and compliance team members
- Identify suppliers for reporting purposes
- Understand which onboarding requests are high priority
- Create approval workflows
Ethics and Integrity
By default, if the following question is set to Yes then the supplier will be prompted to complete an associated Conflict of Interest question.
Data Exchange
The Data Exchange section is designed to identify which suppliers should complete a survey about production integrations, Data Privacy, or Information Security.
When both answers are No, then the supplier will not be required to answer questions in those topics. However, when either of these questions are Yes, the requester will be asked to provide additional information. The answers to these questions help the system determine which survey questions are relevant during supplier onboarding.