Add a Vendor and Share Access to Duoplane's Vendor Portal

Vendor accounts are automatically created in Duoplane when products from those vendors are imported into the system. Because information in Duoplane is constantly being updated by what's in your ecommerce store, the act of adding vendors and linking them to products is for the most part automated and something you will not need to go in and do yourself in Duoplane. There are cases, however, when you may want to create a vendor account manually. Examples include:

• If your ecommerce platform does not have the name of the vendor assigned to each product
• If your workflow is one in which you create a vendor account before creating the associated products
• If you fulfill certain items from multiple vendors, and only one is created when the product is imported

This article will explain what a vendor in Duoplane is, show you how to manually create a vendor, and add or modify vendor contacts.

What is a vendor in Duoplane?

One of the many ways Duoplane serves retailers is to help manage all parties doing fulfillment for customer orders. Whether you're working through fulfillment with a 3PL, your own warehouse, wholesale supplier, manufacturer—there are many different types of partners you may be working with, but anyone on the side of fulfillment for your company is referred to as a Vendor in Duoplane.

Manually create a vendor

1. In your Duoplane Retailer account, go to the Vendors directory from the main menu
2. Select the option to Add
   
3. Fill in as much of the vendor information as desired (a name is required)
4. Click Save

It is recommended to follow the next steps to make sure a vendor contact is set up correctly, so in the event of an order being placed the vendor can be reached.

Add or modify a vendor contact

Once a vendor is set up in Duoplane, you can then add the names information of various contacts. This step is important for your vendors to receive order communications such as purchase orders, notes and payment reports.

1. In your Duoplane Retailer account, go to the Vendors directory from the main menu
2. Select the vendor you wish to edit by using the search function or locating in the See all vendors list
3. On the vendor's Details page, under the section labeled Contacts you can press Add contact to create a new vendor contact, or Edit an existing contact
4. Use the Edit option to modify a vendor's communication preferences, including which emails they receive

On this page you may also deactivate a vendor contact, removing their access and all notifications, by pressing the red Make account inactive button on the bottom right.

Vendor contact email preferences can also be quickly managed by following the steps above to reach the vendor's Details page and selecting Edit in the Email preferences section.

Grant access to the vendor portal in Duoplane

In order for a vendor to login to manage their orders and inventory in Duoplane, they will need to be a registered Duoplane user. Creating a vendor contact does not automatically notify the user or grant them an account login for Duoplane; to do this you will first need to make sure you have Duoplane access for the vendor enabled. 

Enable vendor access to Duoplane:

1. In your Duoplane Retailer account, go to the Vendors directory from the main menu
2. Select the vendor you wish to edit by using the search function or locating in the See all vendors list
3. On the Vendor page, go to the General information section and click Edit
4. At the very bottom of the page make sure the Duoplane access option is set to Yes

Invite vendor contact to use Duoplane's vendor portal:

1. After completing the above steps, under the Contacts section of the vendor Detail page locate the specific vendor contact you wish to grant access and press Edit
2. On the bottom right of the page select Send welcome email
3. This will send a welcome email with instructions on how to log in and access the vendor portal