Most "I can't see this" or "this won't save" problems in Vendor Pulse come down to one of four things: a missing permission scope, a field that has not been filled in on the vendor, a file that does not match its template, or a vendor-side role that does not allow the action.
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. See Vendor Pulse: Roles & Permissions Reference for the full list.
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 Documents section opens but no documents load → Listing documents needs one of vendor:assessment:view, vendor:assessment:review or vendor:assessment:add.
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: ZIN Advisor opens but the Knowledge Base and Questionnaire tabs are empty → Those tabs load on questionnaire:view, questionnaire:add or zin:add. zin:view alone is not 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 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: Adding a vendor is refused with "Vendor already added" → A vendor with the same name and the same domain already exists.
Symptom: A bulk upload is refused with "N duplicate vendors found" → One or more rows match an existing vendor on both name and domain, or appear twice in the file. Nothing from the file is imported until those rows are removed. See How to Import and Export Data in Vendor Pulse.
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.
Symptom: A vendor's Last Assessment Date moved backwards or emptied → This date only counts assessments that have actually started or finished. It does not pick up a future re-assessment that has not been sent.
Assessments sit in one of three states, shown by the status dropdown on the Assessment Process tab: Upcoming assessment, Ongoing assessment and Completed assessment.
Symptom: There is no Create Assessment button → You are missing vendor:assessment:add.
Symptom: Creating an assessment fails with "Please add vendor's SPOC email to send the assessment to" → Add a SPOC to the vendor profile and try again.
Symptom: Creating an assessment fails with "Scheduled date cannot be in the past", "Due date cannot be in the past" or "Due date cannot be before scheduled date" → Correct the dates in the form.
Symptom: The vendor never received the questionnaire → Check the vendor's SPOC email on its profile. Then set the status dropdown to Ongoing assessment, open the row's ⋮ menu and choose Send Reminder. Ask the vendor to check their spam folder.
Symptom: An assessment I scheduled has not gone out yet → Scheduled assessments are released once a day, so it is sent during its scheduled day rather than at a precise time. It is listed under Upcoming assessment until then.
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. Use Edit to extend the due date, then send the reminder.
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. Delete is always shown.
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.
Symptom: A one-off assessment expired on the day it was sent → No due date was chosen when it was created, so it was due the same day. Use Edit to set a later date.
Symptom: An assessment shows a red Overdue label in the Days Left column → Its due date has passed. The vendor can no longer open the portal for it until you extend the date.
Symptom: A completed assessment went back to Ongoing assessment → Someone clicked Submit Reviews. Sending your review reopens the assessment so the vendor can respond.
Symptom: Deleting an assessment is refused → Deleting requires vendor:assessment:delete. The Delete option is shown to everyone, but only works with that scope.
Symptom: I deleted an assessment and a new one appeared later → It belonged to a repeating series, and deleting one occurrence does not stop the series. See How to Manage Re-Assessment Schedules and Remove an Assessment.
Symptom: The vendor says there is no Submit option → Only a vendor Admin sees Submit Answers. The vendor's SPOC is the Admin; colleagues they invite are Collaborators unless given the Admin role, and the button is hidden — not disabled — for them. Ask the SPOC to submit, have the vendor's Admin change that person's role in Team Members, or change the SPOC email on the vendor profile. This is not a browser or zoom problem.
Symptom: The vendor clicks Submit Answers and gets an error about incomplete questions → A mandatory question is incomplete. The usual cause is a question, or a chosen option, that requires evidence where no document has been uploaded. It looks answered but blocks submission.
Symptom: The vendor's one-time password never arrives → The code goes to the address the link belongs to. If they opened a link forwarded by a colleague, the code went to that colleague. Each person must use their own invitation link. Codes last 15 minutes; Resend OTP sends a new one.
Symptom: The vendor sees "You are not authorized!" → Their session has ended. They need to open the link from their invitation email again and sign in with a new code. There is no separate login page.
Symptom: The vendor is told "Assessment has expired" → The due date has passed. Extend it with Edit on the assessment row.
Symptom: A vendor collaborator has lost their invitation email → The vendor's Admin opens Team Members, clicks Remove on that person and then Send Invite on the same row. There is no re-send option for a member who is still Invited or Active, and you cannot do it for them from Vendor Pulse.
Symptom: The vendor cannot change an answer → Your reviewer marked it Compliant, which locks it; or the person holds the Viewer role.
Symptom: The vendor cannot get back in after submitting → Expected. Submitting ends their session and closes the assessment to them until you send your review back.
See Vendor Assessment Portal Guide (For Vendors) for the vendor's own guide.
Symptom: A question has no rating dropdown → Only questions set to Organisation Remark Required in the template take a rating.
Symptom: The rating dropdown is greyed out → The vendor has not answered that question yet.
Symptom: My rating did not save → The rating is saved when you click Submit Reason in the Review Reason dialog. Closing the dialog discards it. Saving needs vendor:assessment:review.
Symptom: Submit Reviews says there are no pending reviews → Nothing has been rated or changed since the last submission.
Symptom: Submit Reviews is refused because the assessment has expired → Extend the due date with Edit, then submit again.
Symptom: An evidence file shows "Preview not available" → Only PDFs and images preview in the browser. Use Download.
Symptom: I don't see Review with ZIN AI → It is switched on per organisation. Contact support@zeron.one.
Symptom: An answer import is rejected → Only .xlsx, .xls and .zip are accepted. Inside a ZIP the spreadsheet must keep the assessment's name.
Symptom: An answer import reports errors → Good rows are imported; the message gives the number of failed rows and the first error. Fix those rows in the downloaded template and import again.
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, post a follow-up comment.
Symptom: I cannot edit or delete someone else's comment → Nobody can. Only the author can edit or delete a comment.
Symptom: The @ mention list does not open → Mentions work on Internal comments only. Change the visibility dropdown to Internal.
Symptom: The vendor was not notified of my comment → It was posted as Internal. Use External for comments the vendor should see.
Symptom: A comment shows an italic (edited) marker → Its author edited it. Hover the marker to see the edit date.
Symptom: My comment is rejected → A comment cannot be empty or longer than 500 words.
Symptom: I cannot edit a template → It is a Standard template. Export it and upload the file as a new custom template.
Symptom: A template upload is rejected → The message names the sheet and the problem — missing required columns, duplicate columns, or an invalid row. See How to Create Assessment Templates (MasterVault).
Symptom: The Checklist tab will not accept my file → It accepts PDF only, and the PDF must contain readable text.
Symptom: The generated checklist misses most of my document → Only the opening part of a long document is read. Split the PDF into sections and upload each.
Symptom: The AI questionnaire answers are poor or marked No Match → They are drawn from your ZIN Knowledge Base. Add question-and-answer entries there first, then use Generate Answers again.
Symptom: I see Upload Questionnaire but the upload is refused → Uploading needs zin:add.
Symptom: Approve All left some answers unapproved → It approves the page you are on. Go to the next page and click it again.
Symptom: A Knowledge Base entry or questionnaire vanished when I clicked Delete → Those two Delete actions act immediately, with no confirmation.
Symptom: A document upload is rejected → Check the file type and the per-file and total size limits shown in the upload dialog.
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.
Need more help? Contact support@zeron.one