The Supplier Classifications topic is the "brain" for the entire Supplier Connection. This topic includes all the drivers that impact the supplier survey, it includes the ability to override certain sections, and it stores the history of engagement requests. Depending on your company's configuration, the Suppplier Classification topic may include approvals and other flags that are relevant to your business process.
Note: Only topic owners (of any topic) and Admins can directly edit the Supplier Classification topic.
Supplier Classifications & Survey Requirements
The Supplier Classifications section sets the flags that drive the business logic for the supplier survey requirements. When initially sending an invitation, answers to questions in the NSJ will set the defaults in this section. As the relationship with the supplier changes, your team can update the classifications to change survey requirements for the supplier.
For example, if your company did not initially did not share data with the supplier, but now do share data, you would update that information in the Supplier Classifications to ask the appropriate Information Security questions.
The table illustrates the default Topic Requirements based on a standard Graphite implementation. It is common for some of the topics to have the ability to bypass the requirement.
‼️Information below is representative only and does not necessarily reflect your business logic. Your Graphite Implementation Manager will provide customer-specific documentation that describes how the Supplier Classifications topic works for you.
| Question | How it works |
|
Spend category (what are you buying?) |
This correlates to the same NSJ question. By default, this is informational only. |
| Systems Integrations |
This flag correlates to this NSJ question: Will VENDOR have any integrations to any current systems or products? (e.g. G Suite, Salesforce, Slack, Jira, GitLab, etc.)
If the Data Exchange questions in the NSJ are not asked, this will default to "no." |
| Data Exchange |
This flag correlates to the questions in the Data Exchange section of the NSJ.
If the Data Exchange questions in the NSJ are not asked, this will default to "no." |
| Is this a Service Provider? |
By default this will always be set to a "no," and next rescreen dates in the topic reviews will default based on the assessed risk (Critical/High - 1 year, Medium - 2 years, Low - 3 years). When this is set as a "yes" it will always default the next rescreen date for 1 year. Use this for the service providers that require annual rescreen based on your internal controls. |
Topic Requirements
These are the topics that are conditionally enabled:
| Summary |
Always On Cannot be skipped |
| Products and Services |
Always On Cannot be skipped |
| Product Integrations |
On when Systems Integrations = Y 🔄️Can be skipped |
| Locations |
Always On Cannot be skipped |
| Tax Information |
Always On for network suppliers 🔄️Can be skipped for non-network suppliers |
| Sales, Order, and Payment |
Always On 🔄️To skip banking details, see SAP Connection Data |
| The following are representative only and the topics that display is dependent on which topics are enabled in your configuration. | |
| Ethics and Integrity |
Always On |
| Data Privacy |
On when:
🔄️Can be skipped. |
| Information Security |
On when:
🔄️Can be skipped. |
Request History
The New Supplier Justification and subsequent New Engagement / Rescreen requests are stored in the Request History in the Supplier Classifications. Both forms have a direct impact on the Supplier Classifications at the top of this section, and represent a historical view of how the relationship with the supplier has changed.