Reviewing and Approving Supplier Catalogs

If you have discussed with your account manager and turned the Catalog Approval feature on, you will have access to more catalog vetting ability. 

An email notification is sent to the Supplier Comments email address and any user with the Catalog Reviewer role when a new catalog is created or when an update is made to an existing catalog alerting the users that a review is needed.

 

Accepting/Declining New Catalogs:

New catalogs will show a Review State of “New Catalog” and Availability of “Needs Review”. Clicking on Actions > View will bring up all the products in the catalog to review. Click on the More Actions button in the top right hand side of the catalog to go to Settings and assign buyer groups or to export all the draft products. 

 

Clicking Accept will cause a window to pop up prompting you to assign Buyer Groups to this catalog and confirm the acceptance of this catalogue.

Clicking Decline will cause a window to pop up requesting you add a note on why you are declining the catalog and requesting confirmation that it is being declined. 

 

Accepting New Drafts to Catalogs that are already open:

When a supplier sends updates to their catalog for you to review, the review state will read "Accepted (New Draft)." Click Actions > View to review the changes to the catalog. The tab Draft Products will list the changes proposed with an up or down arrow next to each product line indicating a price increase or decrease.

Clicking on the name of the product will take you to the View Product Details page. The changes made to the product will be highlighted in yellow.

 

If a new catalog is approved a notification will be sent to the supplier letting them know the catalog will be available once a buyer group is added. If a catalog or catalog update is declined, the supplier will also be alerted of the declined action and to check the comments for the catalog for more information. 

When a Supplier uploads a new Catalog to Unimarket, users with the Community Administrator or Catalog Reviewer role can review the catalog and assign Buyer groups.

An email notification is sent to the Supplier Comments email address and any user with the Catalog Reviewer role. If a catalog does not yet have any Buyer Groups assigned, it will not be available in your community's Marketplace.

Note: If your Community has Catalog Approval feature turned ON, you can refer to the Catalog Approval article on how to Accept/Decline new catalogs.

 

Accessing Catalogs

To find these catalogs, select the Administration Module from the top left hand side of the screen.

Once in the Administration Module, select Catalogs from the left side menu bar as shown below.

 

This will take you to a screen with all the catalogs that are available to your Community. You can search for a specific Catalog name, or use the filter by Supplier, Review State or Availability. You can also sort the displayed list by Name, when it was Updated On, the Review state or Availability. 

The Review State shows the current state of the catalog including if action needs to be taken. 

• New Catalog displays when the catalog requires review or Buyer Groups need to be applied.
• Accepted displays when the catalog is available for your buyers to purchase from.
• Accepted (New Draft) displays when the supplier has updated a previously accepted catalog and the changes require review.
• N/A displays when then catalog has expired or has been declined by an Administrator.

The Availability shows if the catalog is accessible to your Users. When sorting by Availability it will sort by action required.

• Needs Buyer Groups displays when Buyer Groups need to be assigned to the catalog.
• Open displays when the catalog is available to the Buyer Groups you have assigned.
• Declined displays when the catalog has been declined by the Administrators and the Supplier is advised of the reason provided.  
• Expired displays when the catalog is past the end date provided by the supplier.

Assign Buyer Groups

Community Administrators and Catalog Reviewers can also click on the Buyer Groups link (on the right hand side of each catalog listed) to assign or change the Buyer Groups who can access the catalog.

 

Note: Only Buyer Groups that are assigned to the supplier will be available for selection in the Buyer Group field for the supplier catalog.

 

Adding Comments

Both the community and the supplier can exchange messages through the Comments tab as part of the catalog review process. This provides Communities and Suppliers with the ability to ask questions or request changes and/or updates. A comment will be automatically created when a new catalog starts which notifies both parties via email. For the Community it will go to the Supplier Forums email, or the default contact email if none exists.

To add a comment, click on the name of the catalog you wish to open. When viewing the catalog, select the comments tab to view the comments section. Click on the +Add Comment link to open a pop up window where you can write and send your comments.

 

Export Catalogs For Review

The Community Administrator can now export hosted catalogs in CSV format from the Community Catalog administration screen. When viewing the catalog, click on the More Actions button on the top right hand side and select the action Export Active Products. This downloads a CSV file of the active products in the catalog. This is useful if the community wants to review new catalogs or compare changes between catalogs.