COBBLESTONE SOFTWARE

Contract Insight — User Guide

Scheduled Jobs: Vendors & Customers

Configuration Group: Vendors / Customers

Note: Each procedure in this guide begins at the Contract Insight homepage, so any section can be followed on its own. The scheduled vendor and customer alert settings are held in the Vendors / Customers configuration group; the jobs that send the alerts are managed on the Scheduled Jobs screen, as described in Section 7.

1. Overview

The Vendors / Customers configuration group holds the settings that control the vendor and customer task alert email the system sends on a schedule, together with a small number of settings for the vendor and customer record screens. It defines what the alert messages say, which links and information they include, what the recipient can act on from the message, who replies are directed to, and how often the alert and escalation jobs run.

Vendors / Customers contains 15 settings, organized under four subsection headings in the settings panel: GENERAL, ONE-OFF EMAILS, TASKS, and TIMERS.

As with every configuration group, each setting is presented as a single row containing:

• The name of the application setting, with a MANAGED BY COBBLESTONE badge where applicable
• A description of what the setting does
• An editing control holding the current value — a toggle, a text box, or an Edit content button for the rich-text message settings
• A “Last changed” line recording when the setting was last modified and by whom

Because this group is maintained from the Administration area, only Application Administrators — or other users specifically granted the appropriate permission — can view and change these values.

2. Accessing the Vendors / Customers Group

1. From the Contract Insight homepage, click Administration at the bottom of the left navigation menu.
2. On the Administration page, under Configuration & Fields, select Application Settings.
3. In the CATEGORIES rail on the left, click Vendors / Customers. The category is highlighted, and the count beside it shows the number of settings it contains.
4. The settings panel on the right is headed Vendors / Customers with its setting count, and lists the settings under the GENERAL, ONE-OFF EMAILS, TASKS, and TIMERS subsection headings.

A specific setting can also be reached without browsing the category, by typing part of its name or description into the Search box at the top of the Application Settings screen.

3. TASKS Settings

The TASKS subsection controls the content of vendor and customer task email alerts, what the recipient can act on from the message, and how tasks are presented on the task grid.

The TASKS settings are:

• Email Body Beginning Text — The beginning text for the body of vendor/customer task email alerts. Edited through the rich-text editor using Edit content.
• Email Body Ending Text — The ending text for the body of vendor/customer task email alerts. Edited through the rich-text editor using Edit content.
• Email Subject Line — The text appended to the subject line of vendor/customer task email alerts. Entered in a text box.
• Include Vendor/Customer Info — Displays vendor and customer information on all vendor/customer task email alerts. Toggle.
• Include task complete buttons in email — Adds buttons to the email that complete a task upon login authentication. Toggle.
• Hide Auto Complete Tasks — Hides auto-complete tasks on the task grid. Toggle.

The Email Body Beginning Text, Email Body Ending Text, and Email Subject Line settings together compose the alert message — the subject line text is appended to the subject the system generates, and the beginning and ending text surround the task details the system inserts, so none of them replaces the alert content itself.

4. GENERAL Settings

The GENERAL subsection holds the alert link and reply address settings, alongside two settings for the Google Places lookup on the Add Vendor/Customer screen.

4.1 Alert Settings

• Display Link for Vendor/Customer — Displays a link to the vendor/customer record in the email alert. Toggle.
• Display Link for Vendor/Customer Tasks — Displays a link to the vendor/customer task record in the email alert. Toggle.
• Display Social Media Links for Solicitation Task — Displays social media links for the task in the email alert. Toggle.
• Reply To Address for Vendor/Customer Tasks — The email address used as the Reply To on all scheduled vendor/customer related task email alerts. Entered in a text box.

4.2 Add Screen Settings

• Display Google Search — Shows Google Search on the Add Vendor/Customer screen, so an organization can be looked up rather than keyed in full. Toggle.
• Google API Key — The Google Places API key used by that lookup. Managed by CobbleStone.

Note: The two Add screen settings work as a pair and are unrelated to the scheduled alerts. Display Google Search has no effect without a valid Google API Key, and that key is maintained by CobbleStone — contact Support to have it set or changed.

5. ONE-OFF EMAILS Settings

The ONE-OFF EMAILS subsection contains a single setting:

• Save a copy of the email as record note — Saves a copy of the email as a note on the vendor/customer record. Toggle.

This setting applies to one-off emails a user sends from a vendor or customer record, not to the scheduled task alerts described in Section 3.

6. TIMERS Settings

The TIMERS subsection sets how often the vendor and customer alert jobs run. Both values are expressed in minutes and entered in text boxes, and specifying 0 disables the job.

The TIMERS settings are:

• Vendor/Customer Tasks Email Timer — How often vendor/customer related task email alerts are sent, in minutes. Specify 0 to disable.
• Vendor/Customer Tasks Escalation Timer — How often escalations to vendor/customer tasks are checked, in minutes. Specify 0 to disable.

Caution: Setting either timer to 0 stops that alert entirely, and it stops silently — no error is raised and nothing is queued for later. Where vendor or customer task alerts or escalations are reported as missing, check these two values before investigating anything else.

7. Modifying a Vendors / Customers Setting

Function: Changes the content or timing of vendor and customer alerts for the entire system.

Steps:

1. From the Contract Insight homepage, click Administration at the bottom of the left navigation menu. On the Administration page, under Configuration & Fields, select Application Settings, then click Vendors / Customers in the CATEGORIES rail.
2. Locate the setting by name under its subsection heading, and read its description to confirm what the value controls.
3. Change the value using the control on the right of the setting row — a toggle, a text box for the subject line, reply address, and two timers, or Edit content for the two body-text settings.
4. For a rich-text setting, a drawer slides out from the right headed VENDORS / CUSTOMERS and the setting name. Edit the content using the editor toolbar — Bold, Italic, and Underline, a Paragraph format dropdown, Blockquote and list controls, Insert Hyperlink and Insert Image, Code View for the underlying HTML, and Undo and Redo — then click Close.
5. The setting is marked with a CHANGED badge, an Undo link appears beneath it, a dot appears beside Vendors / Customers in the CATEGORIES rail, and a banner at the top of the screen reports how many changes are ready to save.
6. Click Save changes in the upper right to commit the change, or Discard to put every changed setting back to its saved value. Undo on the setting row reverts that one setting only.

8. Related Vendor and Customer Alert Administration

These settings define what the vendor and customer alerts contain and how often they are sent. The jobs that actually send them are managed on the Scheduled Jobs screen, reached from the Administration page under Automation & Data.

The corresponding jobs under the E-Mail Alerts Scheduler are:

• Vendor/Customer Task E-Mails — driven by the Vendor/Customer Tasks Email Timer
• Vendor/Customer Task Escalations — driven by the Vendor/Customer Tasks Escalation Timer

On that screen each job can be run immediately with Run now and its outcome reviewed in its History, which is the quickest way to confirm that a change to these settings has taken effect.

Related settings and screens elsewhere are:

• Vendor/Client Gateway — the configuration group for the portal vendors and clients sign in to, and the Vendor/Client Gateway (VCG) administration page under Gateways & Portals
• Security — Customer List Screen Visible to All Employees, which controls who can see the customer list regardless of permissions
• Data Aggregator Service — screening companies against OFAC sanctions, SAM.gov debarment and Dun & Bradstreet, under Automation & Data
• Schedule Manager — the system-wide sweep frequencies that these jobs run alongside
• Scheduled Jobs - Contracts, Scheduled Jobs - Reports, and Scheduled Jobs - Solicitations — the equivalent alert settings for those areas

9. Quick Reference Summary