Most "I can't see this" or "this won't save" problems in Vendor Pulse come down to one of three things: a missing permission scope, a field that has not been filled in on the vendor, or a file that does not match its template.
This guide groups the issues we see most often, with the fix for each.
Vendor Pulse controls access with permission scopes. Each section of the product checks for its own scope, and a user without it sees an "Unauthorized" screen instead of the page.
Symptom: SSO sign-in fails → Confirm your identity provider session is still active. Sign out completely, sign back in, and if it persists contact your IT administrator.
Symptom: The Vendors section shows "Unauthorized" → You are missing vendor:view. It is required for the vendor list and every tab on a vendor.
Symptom: The dashboard shows "Unauthorized" → You are missing dashboard:view.
Symptom: The Documents section shows "Unauthorized" → The Documents section is gated by dashboard:view, not by a documents-specific scope. Ask for dashboard:view.
Symptom: The Master Data section shows "Unauthorized" → You are missing master:view.
Symptom: The ZIN Advisor section shows "Unauthorized" → That section opens with either zin:view or zin:add. One of the two is enough.
Symptom: Reports do not load → Report data requires report:view.
Symptom: I can open a vendor but the Manage Risk tab is Unauthorized → Add vendor:risk:view.
Symptom: I can open a vendor but the Assessment Process tab is Unauthorized → Add vendor:assessment:view.
Symptom: The Single Add button works but saving the vendor fails → The Single Add, Bulk Upload and Export buttons are shown to everyone who can see the vendor list, but creating a vendor is checked against vendor:add. Ask your administrator to add it.
Symptom: I cannot delete a vendor → The row's delete action only appears with vendor:delete.
Symptom: I cannot delete an assessment → Deleting an assessment requires vendor:assessment:delete.
Symptom: I cannot mark risks for evaluation → The ⋮ menu on risk rows only appears with vendor:risk:add.
Symptom: The ZIN Advisor entry has disappeared from the sidebar → The ZIN Advisor chat entry and the AI search bar in the header only appear when the ZIN AI service is reachable from your deployment. If it is not deployed or is unreachable, they are hidden and the chat page returns you to the dashboard. This is not a permission problem — contact support if you expect it to be available.
Symptom: Nothing is suggested when I type a company name → Suggestions start after 3 characters and are fetched from an external company profile database, so the platform needs internet access to reach it. On on-premise deployments the company name is a plain text field with no suggestions at all — this is expected, and you type the name and domain yourself.
Symptom: I created a duplicate vendor → Pick the auto-suggested match rather than typing a fresh entry, and search the vendor list before adding. Both Company Name and Company Domain are required to move past the first step, so search on the domain to spot duplicates.
Symptom: The Category dropdown on the vendor form is empty → No categories exist yet. Add them under Master Data → Product & Service Categories.
Symptom: The Subcategory dropdown says "Select Category first" → Choose the category first. Subcategories are filtered to their parent category.
Symptom: The Risk Score column shows "-" → There is no score for that vendor yet. It fills in as assessments and risks accumulate.
Symptom: Enrichment fields on the vendor profile read "Not provided" → Revenue, employee count, location and risk manager show Not provided when they are empty, rather than a blank or a zero. Fill them in on the vendor form if you need them.
Assessments sit in one of three states, shown by the status filter on the Assessment Process tab: Upcoming assessment, Ongoing assessment and Completed assessment.
Symptom: The vendor never received the questionnaire → Check the vendor's SPOC email on its profile. Then set the status filter to Ongoing assessment, open the row's ⋮ menu and choose Send Reminder. Ask the vendor to check their spam folder.
Symptom: Send Reminder is refused → You see *"The following assessment's due date is over."* A reminder cannot be sent once the due date has passed.
Symptom: Send Reminder and Edit are missing from the row menu → You are looking at the Upcoming assessment filter. Those two actions only appear under Ongoing assessment and Completed assessment — an upcoming assessment has not been sent, so there is nobody to remind. Delete is always available.
Symptom: I opened Edit and can only change the due date → That is by design. On an existing assessment only Assessment Due Date is editable. The template, scheduled date, scheduling interval and submission deadline are set when the assessment is created and cannot be changed afterwards.
Symptom: An assessment shows a red Overdue chip in the Days Left column → Its due date has passed. The chip shows how many days it is overdue.
Symptom: An assessment I sent immediately now shows today's date as its scheduled date → Expected. Assessments sent without a future date recorded record the send date as the scheduled date, and existing ones were backfilled from their creation date.
Symptom: A vendor's Last Assessment Date moved backwards or emptied → This date now only counts assessments that have actually started or finished. It no longer picks up a future re-assessment that has not been sent.
Symptom: An answer import is rejected → The file name must match the assessment name, and only .xlsx, .xls and .zip are accepted.
Symptom: The AI questionnaire assistance returns nothing useful → It draws on your ZIN Knowledge Base. Add question-and-answer entries there first, on the Knowledge Base tab.
Symptom: The vendor cannot submit in their portal → Check their role in the vendor portal. Viewer is read-only; they need Collaborator or Admin. Their portal Admin can change it.
Symptom: The Edit action on a comment has disappeared → Comments can be edited only by the person who wrote them, and only within 15 minutes of posting. After that the action is removed and the API refuses the edit, telling you to add a reply instead.
Symptom: I cannot edit someone else's comment → Nobody can. Org users and vendor-portal members can never edit each other's comments, in either direction. Reply instead.
Symptom: A comment shows an italic *(edited)* marker → Its author edited it. Hover the marker to see the edit date.
Symptom: I mentioned the same colleague twice in one comment → They receive one notification, not two.
Symptom: The Digital Risk tab shows "Unauthorized" → Three things must all be true: you hold vendor:digital:view; the vendor has a primary domain recorded; and you are not on an on-premise deployment. Digital Risk is not available on on-premise installations.
Symptom: The Vendor Analysis tab shows "Unauthorized" → Vendor Analysis is also unavailable on on-premise deployments.
Symptom: The dashboard shows no data → Data appears once vendors are added and assessments exist. A brand-new tenant will be empty.
Symptom: An export downloads an empty file → There is nothing to export. The vendor export always covers your whole vendor list and ignores the filters on the page, so an empty file means the list itself is empty.
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