An assessment involves two groups of people: your own reviewers inside Vendor Pulse, and the vendor's own staff working in the vendor portal. This guide explains how each side collaborates, where comments live, and how to see who on the vendor side has access.
The collaboration surfaces are different, so it is worth being clear about them up front:
| Where | Who uses it | What they can do |
|---|---|---|
| Team tab on a vendor | Your organisation | View the vendor's own portal members (read-only list) |
| Assessment Process tab → assessment review | Your organisation | Comment on individual answers, mention colleagues, attach private documents |
| Manage Risk tab → a risk | Your organisation | Comment on a risk |
| Vendor portal | The vendor's staff | Answer questions, upload evidence, comment, invite their own colleagues |
vendor:view) — this also covers reading and posting commentsvendor:assessment:view) to open the review screen, and vendor:assessment:review to rate answers thereNavigation: Sidebar → Vendors → [select a vendor] → Team
The Team tab, headed Team Members, is a read-only view of the people the vendor has added to their own portal. You cannot add, remove or change members from here — that is done by the vendor's own Admin inside the vendor portal.
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Name | The member's name, or their email if no name was given |
| The address their one-time password is sent to | |
| Role | Admin, Collaborator or Viewer |
| Status | Invited (has not signed in yet), Active or Deactivated (removed by the vendor's Admin) |
| Joined | When they first signed in. Shows "--" until then |
| Last Active | When they last signed in. Shows "--" until then |
Use the search box above the table to find a member by name or email.
| Role | What they can do |
|---|---|
| Admin | Answer questions, upload evidence, import answers, invite and remove members, change roles, and submit the assessment |
| Collaborator | Answer questions, upload evidence, import answers and comment. Cannot manage the team and cannot submit |
| Viewer | Read-only |
The vendor's main contact (SPOC) is the first Admin. The SPOC's role cannot be changed and the SPOC cannot be removed, and the vendor cannot demote or remove their last remaining Admin.
Submitting is Admin-only, and the button is hidden from everyone else. A Collaborator or Viewer does not see a disabled Submit Answers button or an explanatory message — the control simply is not there. Because every invited colleague is a Collaborator unless the Admin says otherwise, a vendor can answer an entire questionnaire and still have no way to submit it. Expect this to come up as "our vendor has no submit option".
Navigation: Sidebar → Vendors → [select a vendor] → Assessment Process → click an assessment row → select a question
Comments in Vendor Pulse are attached to specific things — an individual assessment answer, or a risk — rather than to the vendor as a whole. There is no separate "Comments" tab on the vendor page.
When you open a question in the assessment review screen, you will see:
| Visibility | Who it is for | Notification |
|---|---|---|
| External | The vendor and your team | The vendor is notified by email |
| Internal | Your own team only | No vendor notification is sent |
Each posted comment carries an Internal or External label, the author's name and how long ago it was posted.
A comment can be up to 500 words. The running word count is shown under the box, and the Add Comment button is disabled when the box is empty or over the limit.
Mentions are available on Internal comments only.
@ in the comment box. The tagging list opens on the User tab.The person you mention is notified. If you name the same person more than once in a single comment, they receive only one notification.
Editing is restricted:
An edited comment carries an italic (edited) marker. Hovering that marker shows Edited on with the date and time.
Hover a comment you wrote and click the Delete (bin) icon. A confirmation appears before the comment is removed. The Delete icon only appears on your own comments, and there is no time limit on deleting.
The Comments panel has a search box at the top. It searches the text of the comments on that item. If nothing matches, the panel tells you the search term was not found.
Navigation: Sidebar → Vendors → [select a vendor] → Manage Risk → click a risk → View Comments
Risks have their own comment thread, opened with View Comments. It behaves exactly the same as comments on assessment answers — same Internal/External choice, same 500-word limit, same mention behaviour, same author-only edit and delete rules.
When you send an assessment, the vendor's SPOC receives an emailed link to the vendor portal. The portal has no username or password: each person's link identifies them, and a one-time password is emailed to them each time they sign in.
Inside the portal they see a Team Access card at the top of the questionnaire, which tells them what their own role allows.
A vendor Admin can:
The invited person receives their own emailed link and signs in with their own one-time password. The portal warns the Admin that anyone they add will be able to answer questions, upload evidence and add comments on the assessment.
A vendor Admin can also click the avatars in the Team Access card to open the Team Members dialog, where they can change a member's role, Remove a member, or Send Invite again to someone previously removed.
Things the vendor's Admin cannot do:
Collaborators have no access to anything else in your Vendor Pulse tenant.
See Vendor Assessment Portal Guide (For Vendors) for the vendor's own walkthrough.
Navigation: Sidebar → Vendors → [select a vendor] → Documents
Evidence uploaded by the vendor against assessment questions, and private documents your own reviewers attach, are collected on the vendor's Documents tab.
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Documents | The file name |
| Document Type | Vendor Document or Private Document |
| Assessment Name | The assessment, with its template, category and question |
| Approval Status | Whether your reviewer has approved or rejected the evidence |
| Risk Title | The risk it is attached to, where applicable |
| Uploaded Date | When it arrived |
Click a row, or use the row menu → View, to open a file in the built-in viewer. Use the Export button to download evidence as a ZIP, chosen by questionnaire category.
Documents are not uploaded from this tab — vendor evidence arrives through the vendor portal, and your own reviewers attach private documents from within the assessment review screen or a risk.
Private Documents are internal only. As the upload dialog states, they are stored against the question or risk for your reference and are never shared with or visible to the vendor.
The Documents entry in the sidebar gives you a library across every vendor. See How to Use Document Central.
A colleague cannot see the vendor at all → Vendor Pulse access is controlled by your organisation's roles and permissions, not by the vendor's Team tab. Ask your administrator to grant them the vendor view permission (vendor:view).
I want to add someone to the Team tab but there is no button → The Team tab is a read-only view of the vendor's own portal members. Only a vendor Admin can invite people, and they do it from Add Collaborator inside the vendor portal.
The @ list does not open when I type → Mentions work on Internal comments only. Change the visibility dropdown to Internal first.
The Edit icon has disappeared from my comment → You can only edit your own comment within 15 minutes of posting. Once that has passed, post a follow-up comment instead of editing.
I cannot edit or delete a colleague's comment → This is intentional. Only the author may edit or delete a comment.
The vendor says they never received the assessment link → Check the SPOC email on the vendor's profile is correct and ask them to check spam. You can resend from the assessment row's Send Reminder action.
A vendor collaborator has lost their invitation email → Only the vendor's Admin can fix this: they Remove that member in Team Members and then click Send Invite on the same row, which issues a fresh invitation.
The vendor says they cannot see a Submit option → They are signed in as a Collaborator or Viewer, not as an Admin. Ask the SPOC to sign in and submit, ask the vendor's Admin to change that person's role in the Team Members dialog, or change the SPOC email on the vendor profile to their address. The assessment stays Ongoing until someone with the Admin role submits it.
My comment was rejected as too long → Comments are limited to 500 words. The word counter under the box shows where you are.
The vendor did not get notified about my comment → Check the visibility dropdown. Internal comments deliberately produce no vendor notification; use External if you want the vendor to know.
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