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Requests

Requests are purchases your team is running through Vendr's approval workflows.

Patrick Payne avatar
Written by Patrick Payne
Updated over 8 months ago

What are Requests?

Requests are purchases your team is running through Vendr's approval workflows. The Requests page is the place to start, view, and manage all in-progress and completed requests.

Where do I find Requests?

You can find Requests in the Procurement section of the left-hand menu.

How do Requests work?

Requests let anyone at your company request to purchase something. Starting a request means that the requester will likely be asking to purchase a new product or renew a product that your company already owns.

Starting a Request

Requesters can begin a purchase request by clicking the Start a request button in the top-right corner of the table on the Requests page or on the Home page.

The URL is the same no matter where the request is started and can be bookmarked and shared with your team for ease: https://app.vendr.com/requests/launch.

Once a requester clicks that button, they'll be taken to an intake form and asked questions that your team has determined should be answered before that type of purchase request starts the approval workflow. You can learn more about building intake questions here.

Once the requester completes all of the intake questions, they will see a success message and be taken to the approval workflow, which is where team collaboration and purchase approvals take place.

Viewing & Approving Requests

When you click into a specific Request, you'll be able to see all the details of that request, complete steps in the approval workflow, and access Vendr's supplier-facing Negotiation Support service.

Viewing Request Details

There are 7 sections of note:

  1. Workflow Canvas - This shows everyone the steps required to complete the purchase. You can drag and drop the canvas to move it around, zoom in and out, and click on any step to see that step's details.

  2. Step Details - This card shows the details of the selected step and any required actions the assigned approver must take before approving the step.

  3. Comments - This shows all comments your team have made while collaborating on the workflow. Teammates can @mention one another to send email and Slack notifications to each other to move the purchase forward.

  4. Summary - This shows data about the Request as a whole, such as what is being purchase, when it was requested, who requested it, and what type of purchase it is.

  5. Documents - This shows any documents that have been uploaded when submitting the intake or in the approval process. All document properties can be edited. Document properties include:

    1. Document Name

    2. Document Type

    3. Document Signature Status

    4. Date Signed

    5. Signatory

  6. Questionnaire - This shows answers to all questions answered when submitting an intake or when giving approvals.

  7. Guides - This links to Vendr's Buyer Guides for the supplier.

Requesting Negotiation Support

Vendr offers free supplier-facing Negotiation Support services for all new SaaS purchases. With this service, Vendr will assign a SaaS Consultant to your purchase and assist you in completion of the purchase, including meeting with the Supplier and negotiating on your behalf.

If you'd like to use Supplier-Facing Negotiation for a renewal, you can do so by purchasing the Premium Negotiation Support add-on.

To engage Vendr's free supplier-facing Negotiation Support for new purchases, click the Connect with SaaS Consultant button on the request page.

Once you click the button, you'll see a popup that reminds you that the service cannot be used for negotiations where:

  • the Annual Contract Value is less than 5,000 USD

  • the purchase needs to be completed in fewer than 15 business days

After you click Yes, add Vendr, you'll be notified that a SaaS Consultant will be assigned and then the conversation with that consultant will happen inside the Comments section on the request details page for that Request.

Communicate with your Vendr SaaS Consultant in the comments by tagging @Vendr in the comment box to send them a message. The SaaS Consultant will be available from the time you add them to the conversation until the purchase is complete.

To access Vendr's SaaS Advisory service that offers real-time chat with live agents who can provide easily accessible data, insights, and playbooks, as well as connect you with SaaS Consultants for strategic advice and complex deals, click SaaS Advisory on the main navigation menu. See this help article for more detail.

Completing Requests

The Request is complete when all steps in the request are complete.

Requests typically end with a Vendr-required step called Save Agreement Details, which asks for the final order form agreement to be saved in Vendr.

Completing this step ensures that all contract information is saved in Vendr for the following year's renewal and sends renewal reminder notifications to the contract owner ahead of the next renewal to ensure it is not missed.

Viewing All Requests

Creating and Managing Views

The default table view for Requests is All active requests, meant to show you all the active purchase requests at your company at a glance.

There are 4 Vendr-managed views:

  • All active requests

  • My active requests

  • All completed requests

  • My completed requests

You can edit the filters on these views and save any new views you wish using the filters. When you refresh the page, the view will reset to the default managed by Vendr (denoted by the padlock symbol next to the tab title).

Click that button and it will open a window where you can:

  • Check/uncheck which columns you want on/off

  • Reorder the columns - top to bottom in this window displays left to right on the view

Click Apply to save changes for that view.

You must edit columns for each view separately.

You can also create new views using the "+" button in the top right of the table, either by duplicating an existing view and modifying the duplicate, or by starting from scratch.

Created views can either be Public or Private.

  • Public views are stored in Vendr and are accessible by everyone at your organization with the appropriate permissions.

  • Private views are stored in the browser data on your computer.

Private Views are Stored Locally

Clearing your cache, resetting your browser, or using a different browser will erase your private views.

Public views are unaffected by any of the above circumstances.

Configuring Column Headers on Views

You can edit which columns appear in a view by using the (Adjust columns) button in the top right of the table.

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