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The vendor portal

When you assign a questionnaire, the vendor answers it in a separate, secure portal, not in your SolveGRC workspace. This page walks through what your vendor experiences, so you know what to expect and can help if they get stuck.

Accepting the invitation​

The vendor clicks the secure link in their email and lands on an account-setup page showing who invited them and what they've been asked to complete. They enter their name, set a password, accept the terms, and their account is created. From then on they sign in at the portal login.

The vendor account-setup page showing the invitation summary, locked email, and password strength requirements
The vendor's account-setup page: the invitation summary (organization, vendor, questionnaire), the locked invitation email, and a password field with live strength requirements — terms acceptance follows below.

The vendor dashboard​

After signing in, the vendor sees a dashboard of the questionnaires assigned to them, with counts for Needs attention, In your hands, Replies needed, and Submitted / accepted.

The vendor dashboard with assignment counts and questionnaire cards, one flagged overdue
The vendor dashboard: counts for Needs attention, In your hands, Replies needed, and Submitted / accepted above a card for each assigned questionnaire — overdue assignments are flagged on their card.

Answering the questionnaire​

The vendor opens an assignment and answers one question at a time, or switches to Section view to see a whole section at once. Save & next saves the answer and moves on. Answers also auto-save after 2 seconds, so nothing is lost if they step away. Where your team has approved one of their earlier answers for reuse, the portal offers it as Use previous answer. It never fills it in automatically.

The vendor questionnaire viewer with a sections sidebar, question cards, and the saving indicator
The questionnaire viewer: the section navigation, question cards with their answer fields, and the auto-save indicator ('Saving…') the moment an answer is written.

Attaching evidence​

The vendor can attach supporting files to an answer (a policy, a certificate, a report). They need to save the answer first before the uploader turns on. Each file can be up to 50 MB, with up to 10 files per answer. Uploads are closed once the questionnaire is submitted.

Each uploaded file becomes an evidence item on your side automatically. A malware scan runs after the upload. Only files marked Clean or Uploaded (not yet scanned) can be downloaded or sealed. A quarantined file goes to Evidence Review, where your team works it from the Review Queue tab with Approve Override, Delete Permanently, Rescan File, or Mark as False Positive.

Review and submit​

When the vendor is ready, a Review and Submit page summarizes their progress, lists any required questions still unanswered with links to jump to them, and asks them to type their name as an attestation.

The Review and Submit page with completion summary, incomplete required questions, and the attestation section
The vendor's Review & Submit page: the completion summary, every incomplete required question with a jump link, and the certification & signature attestation below.
An incomplete questionnaire can't be submitted

Completeness is enforced on the server, not just in the browser. If any required question is still blank, the submission is refused, so a questionnaire can't come back to you looking complete when it isn't.

Once submitted, the vendor sees "Submission Successful!" with a Confirmation Number, and the assignment flips to submitted on your side, ready for review.

A reminder for your vendors

For security, the portal keeps the vendor's session in memory only. If they do a full browser reload partway through, they'll be asked to sign in again (their saved answers are safe). Tell vendors to use the in-page navigation rather than reloading.

With a submission in hand, the work moves back to your team. Continue to Review and findings.