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Supplier portal: Set up companies

This article will show you how to create and set up companies for the supplier portal.

We will cover, how to create new companies and set their permissions for locations, assets, and work orders.

The supplier portal is used to easily communicate and send work orders to external companies.

Table of contents

  1. How to create a new company

How to create a new company

 User rights

Only FM administrators can create and maintain companies. The supplier portal requires operations and maintenance pro. 

To create companies, go to:

Settings General settings Base data: 'Companies'

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This will open the 'Companies' window.

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In this window, you can:

  • Add company - Create a new company directly in Dalux FM
  • Show company - Show (and edit) an existing company 
  • Export to Excel - Export the data to a spreadsheet
  • More - In this menu you can Delete company or import/export data

To create a new company, click on Add company.

The base data for a company is name, main data, and contact info. Fill out as much information as possible, to make it easier to contact the company.

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Discipline and company type

Discipline is used, to determine which type of company you are adding. This is a metadata field. You can add disciplines in Settings General settings Base data: 'Discipline'

You can select none, one, or multiple disciplines for the same company.

Company type will determine which settings you control for the company.

You can select none, one, or multiple company types for the same company.

You can choose between:

  • Installer - Used for metadata to mark the company as an installer
  • Service supplier - Used for metadata to mark the company as a service supplier
  • Producer - Can be selected as producer on products
  • Supplier - The supplier shows all the permission settings.

A company must be set as 'Supplier' before the company users can use the portal.

When setting a company as 'Supplier' the company window will change, and you get the following options:

  • Regions
  • Supplier portal settings
  • Work order distribution
  • Users

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Region

In the regions panel, you can control which regions, buildings, and/or lots the supplier has access to. Users will get a warning if they try to assign a work order to a supplier outside their assigned region/building/lot.

By default, a supplier has access to all buildings and lots. If you need to specify these, click on 'Specific buildings and lots'. If you do so, you must select at least a region, a building, or a lot. Click on the -icon next to one of these to continue.

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A new window will open. If you select regions, you can pick a region from the list view. If you select buildings or lots, you can pick these from either a map view or a list view.

In the map view, multiple entries can be selected, by holding CTRL and clicking.

In the list view, you can use CTRL or SHIFT click, to select multiple entries.

Use the /icons to move the entries from selectable to selected.

When done, click on 'Select' to save your selection.

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Supplier portal settings

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In the supplier portal settings panel, you can control:

  • Access to see and/or edit certain assets
  • Turn QR check-in on or off
  • Toggle whether the customer needs to approve tasks before they can be closed
  • Whether suppliers have access to drawings or not
  • Whether suppliers have access to locations or not

Asset permissions

If you want to give the supplier access to either see or edit assets, you can either give access to all assets, or specific ones.

By default, a supplier does not have access to any assets.

To set specific assets tick 'Custom' and then click on the -icon. 

A new window will open, and you select one or more assets.  You can use the classification column to filter the assets.

Note

If a supplier has edit permissions to assets, they can change information or add documents to assets. They will also be able to create new assets. You should consider if edit rights are the correct choice for the supplier, before giving them access.

When you have selected your assets, click on 'Confirm'.

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QR check-in

You can toggle QR check-in for the supplier on or off. QR check allows the supplier to scan a QR code in the physical building when starting and stopping their work. This is used with time registration to keep track of how much time was used for the task.

QR codes will have to be generated for assets or rooms. You can read more about QR codes in these articles: QR codes for rooms in Dalux FM or QR-codes for assets in FM.

Tasks need approval

When using this setting, the customer (the person creating an order to a supplier, often the instance users) will have to approve the work order, before it can be closed. By default, this setting is activated.

If you disable this setting, the supplier can close the work orders themselves.

Can see drawings

This gives the supplier access to drawings added to buildings. If using BIM models, the supplier will also have access to any model uploaded to the building.

Drawings can be added manually or imported to Dalux FM.

 Read more

In these articles, you can read more about adding models and drawings to buildings: Import IFC models to Dalux FM. If you are using DWG files you can read more in this article: Import new DWG drawings to Dalux FM.

Access to location

You can toggle whether the supplier should have access to the Locations module. The supplier will have access to the map and list views of buildings.

The supplier will only have access to the regions/buildings/lots set in the region settings.

Work order distribution

In work order distribution you can control if work orders should go to a dispatcher first.

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If enabling a dispatcher, you must assign which user is the dispatcher. The dispatcher must be a company admin.

You can also enable 'Work orders must be approved by dispatcher'. This means only the dispatcher can approve the work orders before they are returned to the customer.

Users

 User rights

A user can only be in either a company or a user role. You cannot add a user to a company if they are already in a user role, and vice versa. You cannot add the same user to different companies.

In the 'Users' area, you can add users to the company. When a user is added here, they can access the supplier portal.

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To add a user, click on Add and type in an email.

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When adding users, you can add their position and set whether the user should be an administrator for the company.

A company administrator can edit company controlled settings like routing of work orders and dispatcher, and see and edit all work orders for all employees.

If you add a user who does not already have a Dalux account, you must also enter a name.

You can add a telephone number, and a position and set their admin permissions.

When done, click 'Create' to add the user to the company.

 Read more

If you want to learn more about ordering work orders from a supplier, read this article: Supplier portal: How to order work orders from a supplier.

If you want to learn more about how a supplier uses the supplier portal, read this article: Supplier portal: How to use as a supplier.

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