QualityOne Vaults allow you to streamline temporary, short-term access to your Vault for external parties, such as suppliers, to review and approve documents on behalf of their company. With External Collaboration for Document Review & Approval, you can send document review and approval tasks to recognized external contacts who can then complete those tasks in Vault with minimal or no need to manage user account provisioning for those external parties.
Depending on your Admin’s configuration, object, field, and section labels may appear differently than the labels mentioned in this article.
Note: This feature set is not intended to replace long-term or regular day-to-day interaction with external parties within your Vault and is intended for those external parties who require infrequent access to Vault.
About the External Collaboration Process
The External Collaboration process begins when an authorized Vault user sends a review or approval workflow task to an external contact, triggering Vault to use an external license and automate the provisioning of the External User account. A specialized email message invites the external contact to login to Vault to complete the assigned task. Vault then automatically inactivates the user account when the task has been completed and when the document reaches its Steady State.
Note: This feature only supports Document Review and Document Approval tasks. If you require External Collaboration for QMS functionality, see Working with External Collaborators for more information.
User Account Provisioning Automation
Vault sends document review and approval tasks to an External Collaborator you select at specific lifecycle states within a lifecycle. If the Person selected as an External Collaborator does not have a user account, Vault creates an External User licensed user. If the Person selected has an inactive user account, Vault activates the existing account. Next, Vault grants the user account access to the assigned document by adding membership to the External Collaborator application role, as needed.
If configured by your Admin, Vault automatically deactivates the External Collaborator’s user account when all assigned tasks are complete and when the document has reached its Steady State.
Working with External Collaborators
If configured by your Admin, when you add an External Collaborator to a document, Vault automatically brings the External Collaborator into the workflow when there are relevant tasks for them to complete and removes the External Collaborator from the workflow when they do not have any more open tasks.
How to Add an External Collaborator
Depending on your Admin’s configuration, you can initiate collaboration with an External Collaborator in the following ways:
- On a document of a document type configured for External Collaboration, add a Person to the External Collaborator field in the External Collaboration section of the Document Information panel. If configured by your Admin, only Persons who work with the relevant processes at the Organization specified in the document’s Organization field are available to select.
- Through a document workflow prompt.
- Through a document action.
- Through a document state change.
How to Remove an External Collaborator
Depending on your Admin’s configuration, you can deactivate an External Collaborator in the following ways:
- Deleting the document assigned to the External Collaborator.
- Removing the External Collaborator from the External Collaborator field.
- Making the Organization or Person on an External Collaboration document inactive after selection.
- Through a workflow prompt.
- Through a document state change.
Contact Lists
If configured by your Admin, you can define Persons related to an Organization record by creating a list of recognized external contacts at that organization who may be sent document review or approval tasks. To do this, add Person records to the Persons section of an Organization record.