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OnboardingVendor onboarding best practices
How branching, templates, and the vendor portal shorten review with smart forms. · 5 min read
VendorHub onboarding is a questionnaire you design once, send by email, and review as structured answers—not a stack of attachments. The practices below map to Onboarding, Vendors, and the vendor portal.
3
Ways to start a form
4
Pipeline stages
10
Portal languages
Start from a template, a blank form, or copilot
Create a company form from a template (global or company, including cloning a global), from scratch, or with copilot. Empty companies go to setup first. After that you can rename, edit in the visual builder, edit with copilot, preview, and save.
- ✓Add, reorder, rename, and delete sections.
- ✓Insert a library section: Banking & Payment, Insurance & Liability, or Diversity Certifications.
- ✓Use branching rules and the live flow map so vendors only see what applies.
Do you hold ISO 27001 certification?
Yes / No · required
Use fields reviewers can actually check
Question types are text, textarea, file, single-select, multi-select, yes-no, date, number, readonly, and constant. Constants are validated identity fields. Prefer constants and selects over free text when you will screen or score the vendor later.
- ✓UEI (SAM.gov), CAGE/NCAGE, DUNS, and EIN/TIN constants.
- ✓Country, US state, email, and website with validation.
- ✓File fields wherever documentary evidence is required.
Publish branding, languages, and a reusable link
Publish sets company name, primary and accent colors, logo alignment, and supported languages. Invite from that flow or copy the public form link at /preview/onboarding?template={id}. English is the default.
- ✓Languages: English, Chinese, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, French, German.
- ✓Share one branded form across vendor categories.
Invite by email, then let the portal finish the packet
Invites need vendor name, email, industry/category, and a template. Categories are IT Services, Manufacturing, Logistics, and Construction. Email is required; phone invitations are not supported yet. At least one company template must exist before you can invite.
- ✓Optional details + OTP before the form.
- ✓Vendor assistant: speak answers, talk to fill with AI, upload PDF or image to auto-fill.
- ✓Drafts restore; reject and document-request notes show on resubmit.
Review in the pipeline, then approve or send it back
The dashboard pipeline is Invited → Onboarding → Review → Approved. Attention callouts cover vendors awaiting review, pending invitations, and low EP Score. Form responses keep version history by compliance year. EP Score appears after submit and sits beside approval—it is not a substitute for it.
- ✓Approve with an optional note, or reject with a required reason and resubmit link.
- ✓Review uploaded files one by one, with comments.
- ✓Request Documents to chase specific file fields.
- ✓Preference (Preferred / Not preferred / Unmarked) is separate from approval.
Related resources
EP Score
Understanding EP Score factors
SAM.gov, sanctions screening, and the live public-records suite explained.
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Publish form + UEI
Invite vendor
SAM + sanctions clear
Compliance
Federal compliance checklist for vendors
A practical FY26 guide for procurement teams, mapped to VendorHub screens.
6 min read