Graphite Connect Release Notes

API Changelog – to view changes to our API, refer to our API documentation site here. 

Network Question Updates – to view changes to our core question library, refer to our Network Question Updates here.

Change Management Hub - For communications you can send to your internal stakeholders regarding the new release, head here.

Sept. 5, 2024

For the September release, we held a live demo walkthrough of the planned changes to Graphite Connect. This is a customer-only webinar that can be viewed on-demand.

To view the on-demand webinar recording, sign in here.

Security Updates: Identify Unverified Suppliers & Adjust Your Settings

As part of our ongoing fraud- and risk-prevention initiatives, we are making two large updates to our security approach. 

First, customers will now be able to adjust their security settings to allow suppliers who are unable or unwilling to complete identity verification to bypass that protocol within Graphite Connect. Customers will be able to work with their Customer Success Manager to configure when to enable or disable this security feature. For example, a customer may want to disable the ID verification if:

• The supplier type is considered low risk;
• The supplier is a VIP/high-profile individual;
• The supplier operates in a country where ID verification is particularly arduous.

Customers with Main Admin privileges will be able to do individual overrides as well (outside of overall security preferences) for one-off instances where there's a desire to bypass ID verification for a specific supplier. This can be done my the main Admin inside of the supplier's Trust Center.

Second, suppliers who bypass this identity verification will still be able to join the Graphite Supplier Network and connect with other companies. These suppliers will be clearly identified to the customer who invited them, as well as other buyers, as “Unverified” with a red icon on their Graphite Connect profile.

Update to Suppliers Section

As promised in the August release, we are continuing with the next phase of updates to the Suppliers section of Graphite Connect. The Suppliers section will now be more customizable to how you want to view and sort your suppliers and you will be able to see a Connection Overview without leaving the page.

First, you will be able to click into individual suppliers on this page and see a Connection Overview without leaving the page. This overview will showcase information such as primary business owner name and email as well as other supplier details in one spot.

Second, the Supplier section will now, by default, show three columns: Company, Connection Stage, and Task. You will now be able to configure the columns of your Supplier section quickly and remove columns you find irrelevant, add new columns with relevant information and adjust column placement. Additionally, your column configuration will now be automatically remembered the next time you log in.

Third, we are adding a new column, Ready to Transact (RTT) that can be configured via a dropdown menu. Customers must work with their Customer Success Manager to turn on this feature. 

 

Suppliers Can Add Multiple DBAs

Suppliers can now easily add multiple DBAs to their Graphite profile. 

This feature will alter Graphite’s APIs to include the Other DBAs as an array instead of a single input in the Tax_DBA_Names_List API field. This will not impact the Primary DBA field. Customers who ingest Graphite data via our APIs should be aware of and proactively work with their Customer Success Manager to prepare for this change. 

Download Projects & Contracts Data

Customers using Contracts and Projects within Graphite Connect will now have the ability to download a CSV of the table for reporting purposes.  This download capability will be available to those with permissions, which can be adjusted with your Customer Success Manager. If you have concerns about who can download this data based on your current configuration, please email your CSM.

 

GIACT Updates

For customers who currently have an integration with GIACT, you will now be able to see Pass/Fail status and the date when the report was run within Graphite without having to visit the full GIACT report. 

New Connection Sub-Stages: API Change

To give customers better visibility into where your suppliers are in their onboarding process, customers will now be able to see the Connection Stages and a sub-stage. These sub-stage options will be “Started” or “Not Started”, and will reflect whether the supplier who received the connection request has taken action.

This will alter Graphite’s APIs to include a new field called “Connection Sub-Stage”. Customers who ingest Graphite data via our APIs should be aware of and work proactively with their Customer Success Manager to test and prepare for this change.

 

August 7,  2024

These release notes were updated Aug. 14 post-release to reflect changes made to the My Suppliers filter to improve performance and enhance the experience.

NEW! Find relevant Connections faster

As part of a larger enhancement to the user experience and reporting tied to Suppliers, we are launching the first of four updates to our Connection section in the August release. 

In this first phase, the default filter when entering the Connection section will display only Connections related to you. The "My Suppliers" will show you any connection or supplier who:

• You are the Primary Owner of;
• You made a request of;
• You have an open Task with.

This filter does not keep you from accessing the rest of your company's Connections in Graphite Connect, but streamlines your path to relevant suppliers and connections. To remove this filter, click "Clear filters". If you do remove this filter, Graphite Connect will remember your preference moving forward and you will see all suppliers by default. 

More homepage visibility into onboarding progress

We’ve made a handful of updates to the Graphite Connect homepage and visual workflow view to include more insights into pending tasks and assignments.

First, we are introducing a new icon to show when a Task in the onboarding process is On Hold, and whether that responsibility lies with the supplier, an internal stakeholder or for another reason (“Other”). When a task is On Hold, it will appear with a yellow caution sign icon and you will be able to click into the Task for further details.

Second, we've added an information box to explain each Connection Stage in detail.

Assigning Topic Owners is now easier for suppliers

Suppliers onboarding will see a new UX designed to make it easier and more intuitive to delegate topic ownership like Information Security to their internal stakeholders. The change will move when suppliers are asked to delegate tasks to before topics are introduced and will not ask them to re-enter stakeholder information multiple times. The assigned Topic Owner will remain visible to the supplier throughout the onboarding process for Admins and Topic Owners.

More visibility into Task ownership

Previously, pending Tasks only designated broad ownership over a task to the Supplier’s organization. Now, the individual responsible for completing a Task will be visible, making it easier for your team to follow up with the right team member responsible for completing the assigned Task.

Do more with your Slack integration

Additional Slack notifications will now be enabled in the August release, including:

• Messages. When messages are sent to a user through Graphite, you will be notified in real time.
• Reminders. When you set a reminder in Graphite, you will now receive a Slack notification of that reminder in addition to the email notification.
• Updates on Tasks & Approvals. Any updates to Tasks and Approvals will be pushed to Slack.

If you don’t currently have the Slack integration set up with Graphite, reach out to your Customer Success Manager to discuss functionality and pricing. Read more about the Slack integration here.

General Updates

Information within individual Projects and Contracts is now searchable and easily filterable by risk level in a new dropdown.

 

July 3, 2024

Important Update to Our Supplier Security & ID Verification

In our July release, we will move to a “Fenced Approach'' for verifying a supplier’s identity. This will allow non-verified supplier users to begin building the supplier profile but stops them from entering sensitive (e.g. tax and banking) data until successfully completing the identity verification process. This moves the ID verification process to later in the process when it is more contextually relevant. 

Additionally, our Telecom Verification will be expanded to include phones registered in Germany, France, and Australia.

Less than 3% of legacy users currently using email as their two-factor authentication method will be asked to complete the identity verification process as well upon their next login. 

Dive into our latest Knowledge Base article to discover everything you need to know about our Fenced Approach or watch our on-demand webinar to view a live demo and explainer from our Chief Product Officer Aaron Oyler. You can also access our change management hub in Zendesk to see how we will roll out these changes to new and existing suppliers and who will be impacted.

View Change Management Hub

NEW! Share Connection QuickFilters

In Graphite searches, you will now be able to save your most-used filters across your teams to create a QuickFilter. Admins will be able to create these preset filters and share them to your entire organization. Use this new feature to make your everyday tasks in Graphite faster to execute and to share real-time lists with other team members to collaborate on supplier outreach.

Connection Stage Update: Pinpoint In-Progress Invites

Thanks to some great customer feedback, we’ll be updating our Connection Stages to allow you to see more details on whether an invited supplier has started their onboarding process. You will be able to identify both individual suppliers who have not yet started their questionnaire and be able to sort and communicate en masse with all suppliers in this stage. 

Send Supplier Scorecards to More Than One User at a Time

You can now send a request to complete a Supplier Scorecard to multiple users at one time. This eliminates the need to send one scorecard request at a time and streamlines the supplier review process.

General Updates

As part of a 2024 project to ensure Graphite Connect is European Accessibility Act (EAA) compliant, we have made several accessibility updates to the design of the platform. We will continue these updates in coming releases.

In an effort to continually measure and deliver the best supplier experience, suppliers who complete their onboarding journey will now be prompted to complete a one-question NPS survey. Suppliers can decline to answer.

June 5, 2024

NEW! AI validation of the new Form W-9

Traditionally, Graphite has used OCR technology to read, populate and validate W-9 forms uploaded by suppliers and vendors. In our June release, we will begin leveraging AI to process these documents. This will streamline document validation and onboarding for all suppliers using the new Form W-9 version released by the IRS in March of 2024. 

Suppliers will still be asked to upload their form, our AI will read and detect the version and identify any inconsistencies between the W-9 and submitted fields. 

New SSO user data accessible to your organization

Customers will now be able to access additional data surfaced by SSO sign-ons, such as last login and the user’s title. These fields will only be accessible by your internal team; suppliers and vendors will not have access to this data.

These new data points can be managed by you in the SSO admin section of Graphite so you can customize what data is shown. No new data will be shown at release unless you adjust these settings in your admin tools. Read more on how to adjust your settings here.

General Updates

Several general usability enhancements are included in the June release:

• Tasks will now display when a user last viewed it, helping you keep approvers and suppliers accountable and moving assignments forward.
• Searches in Graphite will see a speed improvement, making it faster to find supplier profiles.
• Required items for Pending Tasks will be easier to identify on mobile with some UX changes that highlight the required action. See an example below of this UX change.

May 1, 2024

Continued Enhancements to Security

Following the recent launch of ID verification, we are enhancing our security workflow using data from new users failing identity checks. While our system directs failures to a thorough review by our security team, we are streamlining the workflow to expedite the process, answer supplier questions in-app, and promptly notify inviting companies of high-risk users attempting to accept invites. See a quick video runthrough of the improvements here.

General Updates

Several general improvements have been made in the application to address various usability issues and enhance functionality:

• We’ve improved our ability to identify duplicate bank accounts. Now, users cannot add a new account if it matches an existing account’s name, bank name, country, and account currency.
• See historical changes to User Groups. An audit history of changes is now available on the User Groups page in the Admin section.
• Task and approval modals are more responsive. A big thank you to the customer who reported this! Approval buttons are more visible and don’t extend below the page footer.

Updates to Projects User Interface

The Projects UI features an improved user experience on mobile and desktop:

• Project pages are now easily viewable on mobile phones or smaller screens.
• We’ve added more supplier information to the Projects interface, enabling you to access more data like current tasks or associated Projects without having to navigate to the Company Profile.

April 3, 2024

New Platform Release Notes and POC Release Email – In a continual effort to provide greater transparency into our product development process, we have revamped our release process. In the new Network Question Updates article, you can find comprehensive details on changes to the core Graphite question library. Additionally, we will send an email one week prior to our monthly scheduled releases, highlighting the features available for testing in our POC environment. Click the button below to view our new Network Question Updates. Review our new Network Question Updates here.

New Third-Party Data Integration – Bitsight – Stay ahead of cyber risks with our latest integration, Bitsight. Bitsight robust risk monitoring processes over 400 billion events daily and rates 40 million companies, empowering you to precisely pinpoint your risk areas. This integration enriches the Information Security topic in Graphite, enhancing your risk and compliance reviews. A Bitsight subscription is required. Learn more in our Bitsight Integration article.

Enhanced Security - ID Verification – Graphite Connect leads the market in security with our “Know Your Supplier” approach. We are pleased to announce newly strengthened security measures through an ID verification integration. This enhancement expands our ability to verify the identities of Graphite users with an AI-powered identity verification platform that identifies users quickly and securely. Moving forward, all new suppliers will undergo identity verification during onboarding. Learn more in our Security and Identity Verification on Graphite article.

New: Related Entities Pointers – In certain business relationships, it’s necessary for one entity to set up two companies to facilitate transactions; Graphite pointers offer a solution. These pointers enable data to be pulled from related entities based on custom business and security rules. This means that you can point to another connection and pull information from that record into the one in question. An example is pull banking information from related remits in parent / child relationships. This feature can be turned on for a variety of questions or data tables inside of Graphite. Please reach out to your customer success manager to find out more.

March 6, 2024

New Integration: Slack – Drive faster collaboration with our new Slack integration. Users are able to connect their Graphite Connect account with Slack to receive notifications for new tasks and approvals assigned to them. Users are also able to respond to approvals from Slack. Click here to find out more

Enhancements to Projects – We’ve given Projects new enhancements. Projects can now be sorted and shown based on permissions. Additionally, we’re enabling the same risk scoring and manual overrides found in connection profiles. This change enables teams to review and flag project risks. Finally, we’re updating our public APIs to better support projects and historical data.

Continued UI enhancements - Tasks and more – We’ve continued enhancements with our latest UI updates. We’re updating task drawers to provide a more usable and responsive interface.

Improvements to inherited and applied topic reviews – We’ve enhanced the capabilities and efficiencies around topic reviews inherited from parent entities and their children. Child entities will not require rescreens if their parent entities’ review has been applied.

February 7, 2024

Update to Two-Factor Authentication, New Integration with Prove – Due to email’s limited security we are no longer offering it as a method for two-factor authentication. All users will be required to verify their identity and authenticate through a mobile phone number during the initial company creation. In tandem with this update we launched our new Prove integration that securely verifies users by matching phone data with the user's full name. This instant identity verification means changes to sensitive information made by Prove-verified users is automatically approved and decrease onboarding times. Learn more in our Two-Factor Authentication article.

Enhanced Projects – Shared Project tasks now display in connection profiles, enabling users to find all tasks pertaining to a connection in one location.

Refreshed UI – As part of last month’s release, we’re completing work on Graphite’s UI. The new components provide a cleaner look and better accessibility.

Invitation Redirects – We made it easier for suppliers to redirect the onboarding invitation to the correct colleague at their organization.

New Admin Permissions – In addition to the “Admin” permission, two new permissions allow your company to have more granular control over your organization’s Administrative controls. The two new Admin permissions, User Admin and IT Admin, have been automatically granted to Admin users of your company with this release. Please adjust the permissions across your organization as appropriate. For more information, view our support article. Find out more in our User Permissions for Buyers article.

Updated Company Cards – We updated and improved the card component on Graphite Connect by including the project type, unified layout, and simplified project statuses.

Toggle Legacy Suppliers from Onboarding Statistics – You may now ask your Customer Success Manager to toggle the inclusion of legacy suppliers from onboarding time calculations to give you control over what data you want in your home page supplier onboarding reporting data.

January 5, 2024

Graphite System Update — We started a major update to Graphite Connect with system-wide enhancements, including an updated component library. Our upgraded components will bring a modern look to our pages, creating a more accessible and easy-to-use interface. These updates pave the way for improved application speed and responsiveness.

December 6, 2023

Updated Search and Connections pages —The December update merges all users into a simplified search experience. This new search directs users to a search results page which shows top results in relevant categories like companies or contracts. Learn more about searching and viewing your connections here.

New API Key Management — We’re adding a new self-service API management feature in the admin section of Graphite Connect. This feature will allow you to create new and delete API keys. Learn more in our support article here. 

November 1, 2023

More robust projects — The Projects feature, which can be used to manage contracts or any project your organization is running, received a major overhaul.  Projects received quality-of-life improvements like improved messaging/emails to users, task titles, and updated permissions. Additionally, the UI of Projects was enhanced with approvals receiving an update to make them easier to manage. Finally, if your organization has created a project which chains together multiple workflows, this update will merge all workflows into one, simplified view. Learn more in our Projects article.

Enable Batch Processing to create better supplier management — The Batch Processing feature can help enhance how you manage your suppliers. With this feature, you can set custom actions to be applied to suppliers based on custom parameters, allowing automation of supplier management. One such example: setting suppliers as inactive if there hasn’t been recent enough spend or POs. Contact your customer success manager to talk more about this feature.

Enhanced merging for duplicate connections — We’re continuously improving how our system and teams handle your data and catch connections that are duplicates. This update created an improved system to track and store merged duplicate’s information.

Graphite Hotlinks — This release included a feature which allows you to share a link with standardized URL parameters directly to a Graphite connection. This link will respect login and SSO requirements, maintaining security.

/connection/Graphite ID – Go directly to a supplier connection based on Graphite ID. If your company doesn't have a connection it will display the public profile

/connection/ERP_Record.ERP_ID/value1,value2,value3 – Go to a connection matching a specific whitelisted answer key. If you have a comma delimited list of supplier IDs, the system will look in order and as soon as a match is found it will take you to that connection.

/connection/ERP_ID/value1,value2,value3?Topic=Some Topic Name– Go to a connection using the logic above and open to whatever topic you have listed.

GIACT - New third-party data integration — GIACT is the industry-leading account verification solution across most industry verticals. This integration can help you verify bank account information and history or even verify the email of the user who updated the bank information. GIACT is only available for companies within the United States. More details can be found in our GIACT Integration article. 

Workflow enhancement - update to approvals — This enhancement updates how approvals are shown in the visual workflow. Now approvals that are denied will have a red “x”, rather than the standard completed green checkmark.

New notification for failed validations — A new notification will be sent to business owners when data cannot be validated on a connection they requested. This enhancement will also speed up the validation process on the backend.

October 4, 2023

Improving security with improved verification — We’ve enhanced the security of sensitive information by improving how information is verified. A new standard question is asked during the onboarding process to evaluate company size. Responses will help determine if the company is required to add a second approver/admin in the creation process. If a company only have a single user, they will go through offline verification methods for updates to banking information. Learn more in our Accepting an Invitation from your Customer article. 

Better, faster banking validations — This release launched automated banking validations using the same screen reading (OCR) technology used for our W9 validations. This means faster validation time and faster onboarding.

Click and Share with better control — We've enabled you to be more selective in what parts of your Graphite profile are shared with new connections. Our Click Share feature, located in your profile, now allows you to specify which data and documents you want to share. Learn more about the Click Share feature here.

Upcoming updates to Weekly Digest email —Graphite’s Weekly Digest sends you a list of your tasks on a weekly basis. We’ve started to create updates for this email to better summarize what tasks you have and what’s been happening in your organization. To learn how to manage your email subscriptions through the Communication Preferences page click here.

New notification task for bank record deletions — A new task will be created when a bank record is deleted by one of your suppliers. This task will be assigned to the appropriate users within your company and notify them to review and update the banking details inside your ERP record.

September 6, 2023

Updated customer onboarding experience — Graphite is capable of handling both supplier and customer onboarding. With this upcoming release we’re improving the customer onboarding experience with a new Customer Overview page. This new overview page will host a message if there’s anything left to complete, the attestation that the customer’s answers are correct, and a message to notify customers they’ve completed their tasks.

Improved clarity in connection stages — This next release will update a few connection stages with more detailed labels. The new additions will include “Invite not yet sent” when the invitation has not yet been sent, and “Invite not yet accepted” when a supplier has been invited but not yet finished and submitted their profile. Both of these new labels will appear as filters in the Connections page.

Contact Center Update & Roles — The Contact Center found within Connection Profiles will receive an update, allowing companies to manage key contacts for each connection. The Contact Center will receive new filters and the new contact component - which can hold more information, like customer specific data, for every user. From this page you can also manage connection roles that are directly tied to their respective question/answer from the profile.

Pro Experience Homepage - Onboarding and Topic Reviews — In our continued updates to the homepage, the next release will add new sections for users with admin or topic permissions. These new updates will show onboarding and topic-specific statistics based on your role.

August 2, 2023

Updated Homepage — We’re refreshing the homepage experience for professional users! This new look simplifies the experience and provides the backdrop for future updates. This update streamlines the existing content and provides a new, enhanced search experience. 

New “Contact” Component — We’re working on major changes to the Contact Center within profiles. This first update will add a new component and UI for contacts. This new change condenses all contact information into a single UI element - making a simpler user and viewing experience. These contacts will also be able to hold an expanded amount of data, from permissioned SCIM employee data to location-based contact roles.

New Notification Controls — You will be able to control which groups of users receive notifications for changes to profiles and data. Previously this was limited to topic ownership, but this update allows you to assign the notifications to custom groups.

New User Audit Report — We’re adding a new audit report for users. This report will generate a list of all users, their permissions, and their metadata, in a single report. This will allow you to easily see who is part of your organization and their permissions.

July 5, 2023

More Actions in Guided Intake — Users are now able to quickly initiate actions with suppliers, such as requesting a PO, without having to navigate to company profiles within Guided Intake.

Upgraded Contacts with Legacy Suppliers — We are enhancing how to manage and control contacts from legacy suppliers. Users are able to easily add or adjust legacy contacts to ensure they connect with the right people.

New Risk Calculation — In addition to high and low-risk flags, we now offer the ability to add a medium-risk flag to supplier answers.

Tagging User Groups in Messages — Users are able to tag user groups or topic owners, notifying all members of that group when a message is posted. Learn more about messaging in Graphite Connect.

Supplier & Customer Tab — We provided a new navigational tab for Graphite Casual, allowing users to quickly navigate to see a list of your organization’s current suppliers or customers (depending on the user’s permissions).

June 7, 2023

New Bureau van Dijk (BvD) Compliance Catalyst Integration — Bureau van Dijk (BvD) Compliance Catalyst is a compliance data provider. By integrating with BvD Compliance Catalyst, users can gain access to valuable data helping them manage compliance obligations more effectively.

New Ecovadis Sustainability Integration — EcoVadis Sustainability Ratings is the cornerstone of over 1000+ sustainable procurement programs, providing a rich ratings platform to give users supplier sustainability ratings.

Add Supplier Contacts — A much-desired feature; users are now able to request the addition of a new contact allowing the supplier’s admin to easily approve the additional user. This is especially helpful if a supplier contact has changed positions or left the company.

Contacts Page Update — The supplier contact page was updated to improve the overall layout and make finding supplier contacts much easier.

Updated GST requirements for Japanese suppliers — To reflect and handle new and upcoming tax regulations in Japan, Graphite now asks new suppliers located in Japan if they are JCT exempt and, if not, require their registration. We will have a process in place to help migrate existing Japanese suppliers to be in compliance when the new regulations come into effect.

May 4, 2023

Quick Actions in Graphite Casual — Users are able to select quick-access actions from search results and My Items rather than having to navigate to connection profiles. Examples of quick actions include requesting an information update or creating a new contract request.

Update to W9 Process for Suppliers — The sequence of inputting tax information will be changed to improve the information flow for Individuals in the United States.

Apply Custom Supplier Badges — Users will be able to quickly tag/label suppliers according to their own needs using badges. These badges will display next to the supplier’s information in search results and can be used to filter down suppliers more precisely. Learn more >

Continued UI Updates — Our improvement of Graphite’s visual interface continues with updated navigation within connection profiles. Additionally, we’re improving accessibility with common components.

Graphite Responder Enhancements — Using Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology to help companies respond rapidly to RFXs using their Graphite data, Responder will now inclusively search response data, add an ability to tag data, select multiple Q/A sets, and export them.

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April 5, 2023

Supplier Experience — Suppliers now see a new overview page that displays a simplified view of what’s next and who needs to complete work. The experience will be similar to the Connection Overview page of Graphite Pro but will be tailored for suppliers and responding entities. Review the new supplier experience > 

New Integrations — We welcome Dun&Bradstreet (third-party data) and D365 (ERP) to our growing list of integrations. Additionally, we’ve created an Admin page to help customers customize and control their integrations.

Improved Two-Factor Authentication — We've improved security and user verification by adding support for authenticator applications and prioritizing them as the preferred method. We also downgraded email authentication as a non-preferred method while also requiring the authentication email address to be different from the user’s login email address. Learn more >

Bank Approval — We have streamlined how brand-new secondary users login to authenticate and perform bank approval tasks.

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March 1, 2023

Supplier Updates — Continued updates to the supplier experience enhance the UI components making the interface more intuitive. Supplier questionnaires are enhanced with a specific focus on making required questions more obvious.

Ditch Carbon Blade — We have added a new third-party data integration, Ditch Carbon, into Graphite Connect. This new data will allow users to calculate the carbon emissions of their supply chain.

Supplier Selection in Projects — Creating connections has always been our goal, so we include the ability to search and select suppliers within projects.

Accessibility — As we continue to improve Graphite Connect we ensure our UI and experience meets, or exceeds, accessibility standards. This release begins the re-work of UI components to include new accessibility features.

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February 1, 2023

Simplifying the Supplier Experience — By removing unnecessary components and features, we are enabling suppliers to complete their onboarding process more quickly, especially if they are working from a mobile device. This simplification effort is paving the way for an updated user interface and workflow.

Contracts Module — Previously, contracts were only visible within a supplier connection. With this release, if you are housing contracts within Graphite, the contracts module will provide visibility to contracts across all suppliers.

Localization View — Our continual rollout and expansion of admin controls will now include the ability to view localization (supported language translations) for questions and topics.

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January 4, 2023

Mobile Friendly — We’re improving how our app works on mobile devices. This first phase focuses on improving the company profile page by streamlining the design for onboarding.  

Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) Integration — The RBA exists to help businesses across many industries increase socially responsible supply chains—our new RBA integration will help our network of businesses mitigate risk and improve the supply chain holistically.  

Expanded Integrations — We’re integrating with SAP and Workday. 

Intake Improvements — We’re improving how users can select or add suppliers during the intake process.

Ready to Transact (RTT) — You’ll be able to mark suppliers as not ready to transact if they don’t meet all the required criteria. This will be visible to suppliers, incentivizing them to meet all the requirements to continue doing business with your organization. 

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December 7, 2022

Graphite Casual Enhancements — The simplified version of Graphite Connect has received a few updates:  

• Workflow for onboarding company cards are easier to read. 
• Projects now appear in your homepage items and also as searchable items. 

Enhanced Admin  — New features focus on the administration of supplier questions. This will be the first of many improvements to give more insight and, eventually, control to you. You now have the ability to see which questions are currently visible with additional view-only metadata of your implemented questions.

November 2, 2022

Translated Invitation Emails — Invitation emails will be sent in English and in-language when the expected country of registration in the New Supplier Justification (NSJ) matches one of our support languages. Details are available here >

NEW RiskRecon Integration — Integration with RiskRecon will give buying entities more visibility into cybersecurity risk. This integration requires a subscription with RiskRecon. When enabled, this information displays under the Information Security topic. Learn more >

October 5, 2022

Guided Intake — Guided Intake is here! You now have the ability to provide step-by-step instructions to the business when they engage with procurement. Please contact your Customer Success Manager to get started.

Improvements to Document Center — The document center is getting refreshed to make it easier to find the document you are looking for. The update also adds a "download all" function.

Task Management within Projects — We've updated Projects so that ad-hoc tasks can be created and tracked within the Project itself, just as they are within a connection. Whether you are using Projects for RFP management or for other procurement-related functions, Task Management means you have even more flexibility at your fingertips.

Update to the bank approval process — Suppliers will no longer be able to submit their information for review until all bank approvals are complete. The interface is being updated to clearly indicate that this is outstanding, and business owners will be notified when the supplier is non-responsive.

Operational Reporting — Soon you will have access to operational reports within Graphite. Dashboards include onboarding statistics, the number of days in each stage, and more. Please contact your Customer Success Manager for more details.

September 6, 2022

Guided Intake is almost here — This release includes the foundation for Guided Intake, which provides step-by-step instructions to help guide your business through the procurement process. Guided Intake removes the complexity of engaging with procurement by providing a one-stop shop for quick searches, guidance for new processes, clear status updates, and procurement FAQs. This feature will be customized by you for your specific needs. Please contact your Customer Success Manager to see how this can be enabled for your business.

Miscellaneous enhancements — We continue to make minor updates and enhancements to improve the experience for both buyers and suppliers. This release includes several bug fixes and minor UI modifications made throughout the app.

August 3, 2022

Updates to Admin pages — Our admin capabilities are improving over the coming months, starting with the inclusion of Question management. A new admin navigation is part of this initial update.

Cobranded emails — All emails to your supplier will have the ability to be cobranded with your logo. This feature will roll out to all emails by October.

Transparent communications — When sending a bulk communication, you have the option to copy business owners on emails to suppliers. This option is selected as the default.

Visual workflow improvements — The visual workflow was previously hidden once the connection was complete, but now the workflow displays when there are outstanding workflow tasks created in the Connected step.

July 6, 2022

Profile Table of Contents — In an effort to improve the navigation and findability of various topics, we are introducing a table of contents in the left nav. This will make it easier to quickly jump to various topics within the profile. Expect to see this in the Connection Profile and Document Center.

Document Center updates — The Document Center brings all supplier documents into one location, and the upcoming enhancement will allow documents to be managed directly in the document center.

New look for Tasks page — The Tasks page has a new template designed to improve task completion and management.

New and updated integrations — Graphite will now support Zendesk and SecZetta integrations. Darkbeam has been updated to leverage its latest API, which gives their customer more functionality. Please contact your customer success manager for more information.

Address enhancements — For US-based addresses, the zip code is now automatically updated to append the correct +4 digit code.

Improvements to data validation — International address formats will soon be automatically validated via Smarty. Additionally, W9 reviews will soon be automated, making W9 validations more efficient.

Miscellaneous UI enhancements — We continue to make minor updates and enhancements to improve the experience for both buyers and suppliers.

June 2, 2022

Updates to the company create process — First-time users are now prompted to add additional admins and backup users when creating their initial company profile.

Home page updates — The home page has been updated to provide more transparency into the status of supplier onboarding. Requesters will now see what is outstanding and who is assigned a task without ever visiting the connection profile. See Using the Home Page for more information about this change.

API integration enhancement — The API has been enhanced so that only fields that are set to integrate with the ERP will cause a supplier to be added to the Changes list. Contact [e-mail] for more information.

May 4, 2022

New Feature: Projects — The Projects feature improves the intake flow and allows project management for sourcing visibility. It brings procurement into the process from the get-go, getting buyers in front of deals. Contact [e-mail] for more information.

Bulk task updates — The Connections page has been enhanced to include bulk Supplier Information Updates. Similar to how this feature works at the individual supplier level, this enhancement allows buyers to select a group of suppliers and apply the same task to all suppliers in that list.

Home page updates — Over the next several release cycles we will be making improvements to the home page. This release includes the ability to create custom quick links on the home page specific to your process and business needs.

New translations — We have added support for the following languages: German, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Hebrew, and Korean. See how to change your language settings >

Reassignment of the NSJ — Incomplete NSJs will automatically be assigned to the business owner, making it easier to start an NSJ on behalf of another user.

User History — Admins now have the ability to view user history on the admin screens. View history for a single user, or all user history for that company. History of the last 5 logins will be tracked after the May 4th release.

April 6, 2022

Messaging enhancements  — New in-app messaging features include the ability to @Tag users in your company and upload files directly in the chat window. The UI has also been updated to clearly show everyone who will be notified when the message is sent.

Email meta-data available for better visibility — The Profile API and the Connection Export includes basic information about all emails sent to your connections. This allows you to monitor "sent" and "bounced" emails in your external reporting.

SCIM support  — User provisioning and de-provisioning is now easier with Graphite SCIM support. Customers using SCIM will be able to manage user permissions using your IDM solution, which will then update automatically in graphiteConnect.

More efficient routing for signature — You now have the ability to route documents for signature in edit mode.

March 2, 2022

graphiteWarehouse — In addition to our Public API, all supplier information is available to you via graphiteWarehouse. Connect to your existing reporting tools, or work with our Customer Success team to set up a custom Graphite reporting dashboard.

Bank Row Approvals and Validations  — Secondary bank approvals and associated validations are clearly identified at the bank row, minimizing the need to click into each bank account to confirm they are completed.

Preferred Supplier Tracking and Badges  — Preferred supplier tracking and badges is now part of the standard Graphite product offering, making it easy to promote preferred suppliers in your guided buying experience. Contact our Customer Success team to enable this feature.

View history on completed tasks  — Notes and messages associated with completed tasks is now available in the history. On-click of the completed task will provide the same level of detail as displayed on all open tasks.

Miscellaneous — We are always looking at ways to continually improve the user experience for both suppliers and buyers. This release includes several bug fixes and minor modifications made throughout the app.

February 2, 2022

CyberPassport Integration — Integration with CyberPassport, an accreditation service specifically for higher education, that allows an organization to manage third-party risk and insurance requirements across their supply base.

Dow Jones Integration — Integration with Dow Jones RiskCenter will give buying entities more visibility into supplier risk. Learn more here >

Custom definition of connection types — In order to better support various connection types, Graphite allows our customers to define the labels that best represent how they do business with their connections. For example, graphiteConnect can be configured to refer to connections as Partners, rather than Suppliers or Customers.

Improved experience for log-in help  — The login page is updated to better support users with issues logging into graphiteConnect. 

Public API enhancements for User Management — The API now includes the list of users associated with each user group, making it easier to manage and maintain this information outside of graphiteConnect.

January 5, 2022

Communications Center Enhancement — Going forward, all future emails sent to the supplier will be available in the communications center. This includes invitations, reminders, and other system notifications, as well as any ad hoc emails sent via the bulk messaging feature. This will include delivered/bounced indicators, as well as the ability to resend a specific email.

Paypal Integration — Paypal has been added to our list of available integrations. We support a link from graphiteConnect directly into your Paypal account for payment processing.

Opportunities (Advanced Search) — The Advanced Filters feature on the Connections page includes a filter for "Opportunity," making it easier than before to narrow down the list of suppliers that have responded to a specific registration link.

Topic Review Enhancement — Topic Owners will not be able to complete a topic review if any document attached to the review is pending signature.

Click Share API — The Click Share API supports CC and BCC options, streamlining the experience for customers using our Salesforce integration.

Speed Improvements — We have made several updates to improve speed of task processing and page load times. 

December 1, 2021

OFAC/Debarred lists — Graphite will be extending OFAC/Debarred checks for all international companies and rerun these checks every 90 days. You will be notified if a company you do business with is newly identified as being on one of these lists.

Communications Center — The new Communications Center centralizes in-app messages in one location, making it easier to monitor all internal and external messages. It is easy to see who received each message on the supplier side and the buying side. When coupled with Bulk Messaging, a paid feature, all communications are easy to monitor and track directly in graphiteConnect.

November 5, 2021

Enhancements to Opportunities — The opportunities management screen allows the opportunity owner to manage which questions will be required of the supplier when registering for a new opportunity. Contact [e-mail] for more information.

Improvements to permissions and roles — Updates to rules regarding read/write access and default roles for all new users makes it easier for you to be sure each user has the right permissions when accessing graphiteConnect. These improvements include updates to Actions Plans, which now allow topic owners to manage APs that are related to their topic.

Business Approvals documentation — Documentation attached to business approvals keeps the sent and received attachments separate, making for improved version control.

Action Plans — Tasks can be conditionally created based on custom business logic and automatically attached to an Action Plan, so that you make sure nothing slips through the cracks. To enable this feature, please contact [e-mail]. 

October 6, 2021

Invite, Review, Connect — Based on customer feedback, we've renamed the Collaborate step to Review, as it makes it more clear what is happening during that step of the onboarding process.

Visual interpretation of the workflow — This new feature displays a visual representation of the onboarding workflow. This makes it easier to see the status of the connection, as well as all tasks that need to be completed before onboarding is complete. Expect to see this everywhere you see the "invite, review, collaborate" icons, as well as on the Connection Overview page.

Contact Center— Buyers are able to view the Admins, Invite Recipients, and Topic Owners for their suppliers. Only those with the appropriate permissions will be able to view supplier contacts. Contact [e-mail] for more details.

Opportunity Management — Buyers can send Opportunity links to one or multiple suppliers at a time, allowing them to register for a business opportunity.

Certification Badge enhancements — Badges for certification bodies support the ability to display add and display badges conditionally based on various business rules. Advanced search has been updated to make it easier to find suppliers that are certified by these governing bodies. Contact [e-mail] for more details.

Public API for Click Share — Click Share is available via the API so that it can be launched from your CRM or other internal tools. Contact [e-mail] for more details.

September 1, 2021

Export of table data — Supplier information contained in tables can be exported in an Excel file. Only fields available to the user will be included in the export.

Task priority — Tasks can be flagged with varying levels of priority. Options can be customized based on your business process, but will default to High, Medium, and Low. Once in use, you will be able to sort by priority on the task page. Contact us for a list of tasks that can have a default priority set by your business rules.

Shared questions — Buyers have the ability to create shared fields that can be updated by either the buyer or supplier, and the history of this field will show which entity and user made the update. These types of questions are limited to relationship-only questions and can only be shared and updated between one buying and one supplier entity.

Document repository — The left navigation now includes a link for Documents, which will dynamically pull all documents that have been uploaded in the supplier profile and make them available in one location.

Messaging on Internal Use questions — Users are now able to send an in-app message on all Internal Use fields, allowing teams to better collaborate with each other within graphiteConnect.

Banking approval updates — Improvements in how Graphite-owned banking approvals are triggered and displayed for smaller companies without a second approver in the system. These approvals will have more clarity and consistency than before.

Badges for certification bodies — Graphite now supports custom badges wherever you see company details, like on the search results page and on a company profile. These badges denote custom relationships with various certification bodies.

August 4, 2021

Risk flag overrides — Topic owners are able to change the calculated high-/low-risk flags for each answer, making it easier to evaluate and customize supplier risk. This feature can be enabled upon request.

Adobe Sign integration — Adobe Sign can be enabled for customers who have an active Adobe Sign account. Contact [e-mail] for more details.

Improved Communications — We continue to improve communications coming from graphiteConnect. The digest email will now be sent once a week and better highlight outstanding and aging tasks. And we've added additional emails for network and non-network invitations, with the goal of improving response time.

Better view into delivered invitations — Bounced/Delivered indicators and invitation sent dates will now display on the Connections page, making it easier to track when invitations have been sent.

Improved history — History modals now include a timestamp in addition to the date.

Miscellaneous — We are always looking at ways to continually improve the user experience for both suppliers and buyers. This release included several bug fixes and modifications made throughout the app.

July 7, 2021
Opportunity Management — Buying entities now have the ability to self-manage custom URLs that can be used to attract suppliers without the need for an invitation. Examples include Supplier Diversity Campaigns, RFPs, and other pre-qualification activities.

Daily Digest updates — Outstanding tasks are more easily identified by topic, and aging tasks are prioritized for high visibility.

Customization for supplier email notifications — In addition to a custom invitation, Graphite supports the ability to customize most of the email notifications sent to suppliers. This includes reminder emails, rescreen notifications, and business owner emails.

Improved RapidRatings — RapidRatings data is updated on a daily basis for all outstanding outreach requests. Notification improvements include notifications and tasks when a request is complete. All of this detail is easily accessible via History.

Visibility into tasks — Including the default view with tasks assigned to you and your team, users can now additionally group by Topics or Connection Status.

Miscellaneous UI enhancements — This release includes several minor UI enhancements that make it easier to complete tasks.

May 29, 2021
Rescreen Notifications — graphiteConnect now has the ability to send rescreen notifications to Business Owners when a rescreen is initiated, and send a follow-up reminder when a rescreen task remains unfinished. Please contact [e-mail] to enable this on your account.

Action Plans — Improvements make it easier to see who created the Action Plan, as well as provide better flexibility to create and assign approval tasks.

User Requests — Users requesting access to existing company profiles can resend the access request and see the email address of the admin who received the request.

RapidRatings — We now offer the ability to integrate with RapidRatings. You will be able to view your portfolio and launch Financial Health Reviews from within graphiteConnect. Please reach out to [e-mail] for more details.

Task management— Updates to backend processing of the task page means this page loads faster than before. These changes also support reassigning any task to another user in the assigned group.

graphiteResponder — Sales teams will see improvements to answer matching, including synonyms, and a plugin that integrates directly with Excel. Please reach out to [e-mail] to learn more about graphiteResponder.

May 5, 2021
DocuSign integration — Contracts can now be routed through DocuSign, and the status of signatures is tracked within graphiteConnect. Contact [e-mail] to enable this feature.

Automated IBAN validations — International banking validations will see an improvement with IBANs being automatically validated as soon as they are added.

Action Plan grouping — Action Plans will now display the topics that are associated with tasks in the Action Plan, and the Action Plans page supports the ability to filter by topics.

Improvements to UI — This release will include various UI enhancements to better the experience for buying entities and suppliers.

graphiteResponder — There is now an Excel add-in to make graphiteResponder even easier to respond to spreadsheet surveys. Additionally, we've continued improvements to our AI/NLP matching algorithms. Please reach out to [e-mail] to learn more about graphiteResponder.

April 7, 2021
Enhanced banking security — The Sales/Payment topic now requires all suppliers to add a second user with the "banking" permission. All new and updated bank accounts will route approvals to users in this role.

Action Plan enhancements — Improvements include UI updates for clarity and ease of use. New filters make it easier to find action plans by status, by connection stage, and by owner.

Click Share granularity — Click Share allows you to select which topics to share when sending the link to your supplier or customer.

Privacy and Security surveys — Suppliers now have the ability to select which assessments should be shared with each customer, allowing for better relevance when creating product-level assessments, and ensuring your customer only reviews what is relevant to the business engagement.

graphiteResponder — We are continually adding new features and improving the AI functionality of graphiteResponder. Please reach out to [e-mail] to participate in our beta release.

March 22, 2021
Enhanced banking security — All banking account updates now require two validations prior to the update being sent to your team for review. We've improved notifications to alert company users when their personal or bank details change.

Disconnected suppliers — The "connection stage" filter on the Connections page has been improved for more granular access to companies you no longer do business with.

Access to Darkbeam data — Darkbeam is now available for all enterprise contracts when reviewing Information Security. This includes an easy-to-read score and high-level statistics of your supplier's cyber risk. Full reports are available on-click.

Updates to 2FA — Two-factor authentication (2FA) no longer supports authentication via the user's primary email address. Authentication now requires a mobile number.

February 22, 2021
Improved history — You now can view all historical changes across a supplier profile in one location. Also, history view for tables is enhanced, making it easier to review line item and whole table changes.

Company location — The system now forces a company's primary address to match the Country of Registration. Because of this, you can expect better address and tax validation.

Related connections — View suppliers and customers that are shared across the related companies you manage. The new "family tree" icon displays supplier/customer overlap in the search results and connections page(s).

Ready to Transact — A new "Ready to Transact" flag is available for all ERP integrations. This can be configured to meet your business requirements. Contact [e-mail] for more details.

January 29, 2021
Action Plans — Building upon the ad hoc task enhancement included in the last major release, this new feature allows buying entities to group tasks to be managed simultaneously. Use action plans for general to-do's or even a corrective plan relating to a recent security breach. Action plans include all the collaboration tools used throughout graphiteConnect, including reminders, messages, and business approvals. To schedule a demo, please contact us at [e-mail].

Miscellaneous — We are always looking at ways to continually improve the user experience. There were several bug fixes and modifications made throughout the app.

December 14, 2020
Manual tasks — Ad hoc tasks can be created on any question, allowing you to create and assign a task to yourself, your team, or your supplier. This new enhancement also provides the ability to set a due date for these manual tasks.

Improved Contract workflow — The new "Contract Request" service ticket means you can create a contract task even after the initial onboarding is complete. Contract requests are easily identified as a manual request or as triggered by a topic review.

Miscellaneous — In an effort to continually improve the user experience, there were several bug fixes and modifications made throughout the app.

November 11, 2020
Profile Landing Pages — Supplier profiles now include a landing page that displays notes added by your company admin. With this update comes a new left navigation. Expect additional modules on this page in the coming months.

Improved multi-language support — Our new language component supports the ability for companies to answer questions in multiple languages. Buyers have the ability to identify which questions should be configured to require a particular language or languages.

October 26, 2020
Better view into history — Connection history has been expanded to display the history of both sides of the connection, and task history has been improved to indicate changes to an individual task.

Task assignment — The task page now supports multi-select of the "My Team/Topics" tasks, allowing you to assign a team member multiple tasks at once.

October 13, 2020
Enhanced Risk Scoring — graphiteConnect's risk model now includes scoring, as well as the ability to display both the individual answer scores and the total risk score.

Campaign URLs — Buying entities can create a supplier campaign with a unique campaign URL that allows prospective suppliers to pre-qualify for business. Once suppliers are in the network, they will display as prospects on the Connections page.

Enhanced Disconnect Process — Expanding upon the previous "cancel connection" workflow, the new "disconnect" workflow will support various reasons for the disconnect, as well as maintain historical data about the supplier connection.

September 18, 2020
Improved supplier notifications — Buying entities now have the ability to notify preferred supplier contacts during the rescreen process or when initiating an invitation with an in-network company.

Send messages on internal tasks — In addition to tracking status, team members can now send messages on open tasks, making it easier to communicate and keep business moving.

September 1, 2020
Task page enhancements — Task page now supports saved task searches. Click the "save" link above the dropdown filters on the task page to save your filter query. Saved filters will appear in "My filters."

Improved 'edit' privileges — Only users in the associated User Groups will see the “edit” icons throughout graphiteConnect. User Groups, including topic ownership and related permissions, can always be adjusted on the Admin page. Please contact [e-mail] for more details.

Track supplier invitations — The profile page now indicates whether or not the invitation was delivered, allowing you to easily see when a recipient email may need to be updated.

August 22, 2020
Refined company profiles — Enhancements to the company profile include pinned left navigation, new company switcher, easier task highlighting, and streamlined UI components. These changes will allow for better navigation and ease of use while working within company profiles.

Enhanced load speed — Company profiles and corresponding data have reduced load times.

Machine translation — Messages and Notes now include machine translation. Beneath any text that was added in a language other than your default will display a "see translation" link.

August 3, 2020
Product-level surveys — graphiteConnect now allows compliance topics to be answered for each individual product/service or grouped with similar products and services. Suppliers can group or split up their product offerings into as many answer sets as needed. During review, compliance teams will have the ability to complete one or multiple reviews as appropriate for the business relationship. This is currently supported for Data Privacy and Information Security. Please contact [e-mail] for more details.

June 25, 2020
Expanded Localization — This release adds five new languages for a total of six: Japanese, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, and it also includes updated machine translation of free-form user inputs to better handle the inclusion of these new language pairs. Machine translation will appear when the system detects that the free-form answer text differs from your selected preferred language with a “see translation” link.

International bank validation — Automatic bank validation now includes international banks to accelerate supplier onboarding.

Enhanced security —Admin users are now required to authenticate before accessing admin screens.

Risk review workflow — In an effort to improve communication between compliance teams and suppliers, suppliers will receive an email alerting them when a manual rescreen is initiated.

Advanced Search — Advanced search on the Connections page is updated to include custom topics and no longer looks at open assessments when searching across risk levels.

June 17, 2020
Updated product selection — This is the first step toward product-level reviews. The buying entity will add requested products and services in the same format used by suppliers, paving the way for a more streamlined experience in future releases.

Improved onboarding experience — Based on feedback, we’ve redesigned the first few screens to make it easier for suppliers to join graphiteConnect.

Streamlined workflow for rescreens — Rescreen tasks will display only after the supplier has completed their tasks. This enhancement should bring clarity to the work Risk & Compliance teams need to focus on.

Refined task and connection history — As part of the continual work towards a simple and easy user experience, we have reworked how the platform displays task and connection history. The drawer has been expanded to include customer and supplier tasks with the same visual representation as seen throughout the platform.

Enhanced reporting — We’ve increased the limit on the number of suppliers you can export at one time, while also making it clear of the progress of your export. After clicking "export" on the Connections page, the new progress modal will display the processing count and will allow the download of the spreadsheet upon completion.

May 28, 2020
Task Page updates — The task page had a second round of updates, including the ability to open a task in a new window, better search capabilities, and a better view into task status. Tasks overall provide more details on status, and recent updates are flagged so it is easier to track which tasks are ready for action.

Non-network suppliers — Buying entities now have the ability to add internal-use suppliers so data can easily integrate with your ERP system.

API Enhancements — The reporting API now includes connection information.

Topic Review updates — In-process topic reviews are no longer included in the overall risk calculation. Custom list values are displayed properly in the topic review and task review pages.

May 14, 2020
Task and status updates — Tasks have been updated to include status, both on the connection task tray and on the Task page. This makes it easier to keep everybody informed of any impact on SLA. Additionally, the task page has been enhanced to display your supplier's tasks, making it easier to track where they are in the onboarding process.

Improved workflow —Topic Reviews have always had the ability to assign to a specific team member, but now all tasks can be assigned to an individual. Data validations happen as soon as Collaboration begins, so that supplier onboarding moves more quickly than before.

Improved security — We are always monitoring the system for opportunities for improvement. This release included several security fixes to ensure your data is kept safe.

April 30, 2020
More robust notifications — These updates provide a more granular ability to trigger email notifications based on various system actions, making it even easier to track where your supplier is in the process of onboarding.

User select lists — User select lists now support the ability to add new users or select a specific user group.

Miscellaneous — As always, there were several bug fixes and modifications made throughout the app to continually improve the user experience.

March 25, 2020
Improved user segmentation — Improvements to User Group Segmentation now allows for conditional rules on topic reviews and stage advancement tasks. User Group Segmentation is a paid feature. To enable this on your account, please contact us at [e-mail].

Enhanced Task list — Users can now search by company name and prioritize tasks as "active" or "backlog".

Support for custom "service tickets" and other tasks — This enables companies to customize internal tasks that support their supplier onboarding and ongoing supplier management process. This is a paid feature. To enable this on your account, please contact us at [e-mail].

Miscellaneous — Minor bug fixes and modifications throughout the app to continually improve the user experience.

March 7, 2020
Japanese localization — Japanese suppliers are now able to read and respond in their local language, and English speakers will be able to review in English. Expect additional languages to be added in the coming months.

Homepage enhancements — The homepage no longer limits the display of in-process connections to your default role. It now displays all in-process Customer and Supplier connections for those indicated as being in both a buying and selling role.

Better clarity on the W9 upload — A visual prompt makes it less likely your suppliers will upload an outdated version of their W9.

Improved Products & Services tag input — The tag input component encourages companies to add Products & Services information as search terms instead of long descriptive sentences, improving the type of content for product-based risk surveys and better supporting product-level search.

January 15, 2020
Improved Task Tray — The new task tray makes it very easy to see what needs to be done no matter where you are in the survey. The new tray is pinned to the top of the page, allowing you to quickly jump from task to task. Clicking ‘view task’ puts you immediately into edit mode, making data entry faster than before.

Ability to segment user groups — User Group segmentation can be used to sub-divide user groups based on your custom data elements (e.g. region, risk, spend category, etc.) to ensure that work is assigned to the right teams. This is a paid feature. To enable this on your account, please contact us at [e-mail].

Logo and avatar upload — The company logo can now be uploaded directly from the homepage as well as your company profile page. Simply click on the ‘edit’ icon to launch the image uploader. As part of this release, the image uploader now allows for basic image editing on both the company logo and the user profile avatar.

Miscellaneous — Various improvements have been made throughout the application to better the user experience.

December 14, 2019
Enhanced user management — Administrators now have the ability to put users into groups, allowing for more flexible access control. The user admin screen is updated to include a search bar, making it easier to find users in your organization. Search by name, by role, or by group.

Business approvals — Business approvals can be added to any question or topic. Approval tasks are assigned to an individual or a group of individuals and approvals are required before advancing the connection status. This feature is available under the ellipses for questions and topics and is a primary call to action during a topic review.

International company locations — International addresses now allow for address auto-complete, making address verification much easier and accurate.

Rescreen workflow — During manual rescreens, the system will automatically notify the supplier if any required questions are incomplete and require a supplier verification when data is more than 90 days old.

“Next steps” modal — Each company can display custom copy when requesters send an invitation and when suppliers complete the survey. 

Automated banking details — For U.S.-based banks, bank name and SWIFT automate based on ABA routing number. This visual feedback reduces the risk of typos and other errors.

November 4, 2019
Company Locations — Company addresses are now validated by a third party, along with automatic mapping via Google Maps. The locations table has been updated to support various location “types” — such as office, warehouse, manufacturing facility, etc. — making it easier for buyers to track which of their supplier locations impact them.

Parent/Child cross-linking — The “parent/child” indicator now supports cross-linking when both companies have graphiteConnect profiles. As always, information in this section is pulled from the Company Organization and Ownership section of the survey.

Advanced Filtering — The Search Results and Connections pages allow for advanced filtering across various data points. The “save” feature makes it easy to run the same report again and again.

October 2, 2019
Better visibility into status — Improved homepage cards provide better insight into the status of the connection and lets you know exactly who is responsible for the next step. If you are waiting on the other company, the ‘more details’ link in the connection tray gives you a complete list of what they have and have not completed.

Visual improvements make completing the survey easier — Visual dividers help provide context, and improvements to font styling make it easier to emphasize what is important in each question.

Parent/Child indicators — Relationships between companies are indicated in the new “parent/child” indicator. This displays on the search and connections screens and on the company profile page. Information in this section is pulled from the Company Organization and Ownership section of the survey.

Improved Search Results and Connections pages — Information on the Connections page has been improved to provide you better supplier information. The Search Results page leverages the Supplier and Customer tables as seen on the Connections page, and breaks out search results based on this attribute.

Enhancements to profile filtering — Profile filtering has been improved to include the ability to quickly find high- and low-risk answers, and questions with messages, reminders, and notes. You can now click on the topic “flags” to quickly apply that filter to an individual topic.

August 27, 2019
Share your company profile — Externally share your company profile to businesses not yet on the graphiteConnect network. This allows you to grant limited access to your company profile for 1 week.

Easily find tasks on the task list — Filters have been added to the task list. Filter by date range, by task owner, or by topic to find exactly the task you are looking for.

Improvements to the new company invitation experience — The invitation screen will now do a quick search to ensure you don’t duplicate company invitations. The pending invitation screen makes it more clear who the invitation was sent to and allows you to edit the recipient's name and email address if needed.

Improved data in the Excel export — Information that is exported from the Connections page now includes everything you need to know about the connection, including start and end dates for each stage and each task. Now it is even easier to get the exact data you need for analysis.

Company card updates — Company cards on the homepage now display the current status of the connection.

August 20, 2019
Performance improvements — Expect quicker task processing and other speed enhancements.

Topic Reviews — All previous Topic Reviews are displayed in a table, most recent first.

Company profile filters — Filters on profile pages are easier to use and prioritize what is most needed.

System defaults — Default answers are now available as a paid feature.

Connections Export — Connections export now includes all profile data for the connection.

Miscellaneous — Minor modifications throughout the app to continually improve the user experience.

July 31, 2019
Home page updates — Requesters will now find it easier to invite a new supplier or customer with the addition of an “add new” button on the homepage.

Improvements to the company profile screens — Interactive icons are consolidated in an ellipsis, making it easier to view question and answer text. Tables are now formatted for better readability and have been updated for in-line editing.

Banking and Tax validations — Routing numbers and EINs are now validated for United States companies.

Miscellaneous — Continuing improvements to search. Improvements to overall UI to better support user needs.

July 23, 2019
Question-level notes — Now teams can tie internal notes to any question or topic, making collaboration more efficient. Rest assured that these notes are for internal use only, and your connection will not be privy to anything tied to the connection profile. Remember, notes are viewable only to your company, while messages can be seen by both sides of the connection.

Identity Score — Unsure if this company is who it says it is? Based on a list of identity attributes, graphiteConnect will give you an indication of whether or not this company can be positively identified. This is not an indication of risk.

Connections export — You can now export your connections to Excel. Simply narrow your connections list based on search terms or filters, then click the ‘export’ button at the top of the page.

Miscellaneous — Unsure what information to add to the survey? Tooltips are included to help you understand what information is required to build your profile. Also, we continue to make improvements to our search feature on the profile pages. Now it is possible to keyword tag specific questions, making it easier for you to build a custom search for anyone on your team. Other backend improvements continue to provide a better user workflow.

July 15, 2019
Search and Connections pages — Both the Search and Connections pages have been updated to better provide the information you need to find companies that match what you are looking for. In addition to a refined list of matching companies and relevant filters, the search bar has been updated to allow you to search across all company information, or do a targeted search on just the company name, products and services, or country.

Improved message notifications — We’ve updated who gets notified when messages are sent, improving the relevancy of message notifications and daily emails.

July 5, 2019
Homepage — The first page after logging in is our new homepage. Here you can start a search or add a new company, quickly access your company and user profiles, see the status of in-process connections, and have a clear view into new tasks, unread messages, and upcoming reminders.

Updated task list — Your task list now delineates tasks assigned specifically to you and your team members. It also includes all other tasks your company is working on. It more clearly identifies the company connection status and helps you track the number of days since the task was created.

Updated connection tray — The new connection tray highlights your outstanding tasks more efficiently, making it very clear what each team member must do to continue the connection. It does a better job of informing you if the connection is pending task completion by your company or if the outstanding task is with the other company. Starting the connection is easier than ever, and Manage tasks clearly communicate if the relationship is ready for business.

Improvement to search — Searching for companies is easier than ever with improved search logic, and now you can search for specific questions or answers on an individual company profile.

Answer change management — In addition to notifying you when your connections change company data, your company will now receive (optional) tasks for critical changes (e.g. Banking information, updated W-9). These tasks help you ensure that data changes are properly acknowledged prior to updating your other business systems.

Miscellaneous — When needed, topic reviews can now be triggered manually. Minor enhancements to tables.

June 10, 2019
Reminders — You now have the ability to set reminders for questions or for topics. These reminders will automatically create a task for all appropriate team members when it becomes due. Scheduled topic reviews make use of this new feature and will trigger a new topic review on the requested date. 

Question visibility — We have made enhancements to the rules that dictate when questions will display and have improved how question groups and tables render on-screen.

Miscellaneous — Continuing improvements to search and UI to increase clarity for common functionality. Implementation of a public-facing API. Fix default settings in the user profile. Improved overall system performance.

June 5, 2019
Inviting new companies — We updated the invitation modal on the Search Results screen for clarity and conciseness. This feature is used when a company is not currently in graphiteConnect and must be invited to join the platform before connecting with your company.

Miscellaneous — Improved search functionality. Minor enhancements to table view.