Configuring Vendor Portal

Owned by Enterprise IT
May 10, 2024

Overview

In Asset Management, you can configure the asset categories and their attributes using the Form Builder custom forms feature. For example, the Desktop category form, Laptop category form, etc.

The data required for these attributes can be sourced from 2 methods:

  1. Manual entry of records (Add Asset record) / Excel Import
  2. Asset Discovery

For more information on Form Builder, refer to Configuring Asset Category using Form Builder.

Attributes like Warranty start and end dates, End of Life information, etc require a manual entry from IT Asset Manager. This may result in discrepancies due to manual entry errors or improper data. 

To overcome this issue and have updated data in the system, a new configuration called Vendor Portal Configuration is introduced, where the users can access the Warranty and End of Life information directly from the Vendor portal.

Vendor Portal Configuration 

Vendor Portal configuration enables the Asset Administrator to extract the required attributes information (Warranty and End-of-Life) directly (auto-populated) from the vendor portal. 

This configuration allows the capture of information published by the vendor which is available on their website or on their public information forum.


Note

The Vendor Portal Configuration is available for Fixed Assets only.
This feature is designed based on the R&D done for DELL and LENOVO.

Benefits 

  • Easy configuration setup with various vendors. 
  • Establish a connection with Vendor Portal through API and extract the information exposed to the public.  
  • Enables a stable connection with Vendor Portal for smooth operation. 

Prerequisites  

The user is expected to have the vendor API information and the API authentication mechanism that the vendor supports. 

Configure Vendor Portal 

To configure the Vendor Portal, perform the following steps: 

  1. Navigate to Admin > Basic > Infrastructure > Integration > Vendor Portal. 
    The Vendor Portal configuration page is displayed.

  2. Select the desired Tenant from the left pane, which is a mandatory field.

  3. Click Add New from the right ACTIONS panel to configure new warranty information for a particular Tenant.
    The Vendor Portal configuration page is displayed. 

    Figure: Vendor Portal configuration page 
     
  4. On the Vendor Portal configuration page, specify all the required information. To know more about the fields on the configuration page, head to Field Description.

  5. Click SUBMIT. 
    The Vendor Portal configuration will be saved. 
     

Field Description 

The following table describes the fields on the Vendor Portal Configuration page: 

FieldDescription

BASIC DETAILS- Basic information capture

Figure: Basic Details grid

Vendor

Select the desired Vendor from the drop-down, which is a mandatory field. 

Note

The values displayed in the Vendor drop-down are part of Vendor Master.

Conditions

Configure conditions for Warranty information.

Click the gear icon to view Configure Conditions popup. 
Configure the conditions to filter the inventory data. 

The columns displayed in this popup are as follows:

Column 

Description 

Row 

Displays the counter of records added. 

AND/OR 

Select AND/OR operator from the drop-down. 

Attribute Name 

Select the desired Attribute Name from the drop-down. 

Operator 

Select the desired Operator from the drop-down. 

Attribute Value 

Enter the Attribute value in the text field. 

Action 

Click “+” icon to add values to the row. 
Click “-“icon to delete the entered values in the row. 

NEXT- Saves the configuration and the query will reflect on the conditions text area. 

DELETE & CLOSE- Deletes the query entered and closes the pop-up screen. 

RESET- Clears the query on the popup to add fresh configurations. 


Figure: Configure Conditions pop-up

ActiveIndicates the configuration state as active. 
NOTE: This is an auto-checked field. 

API DETAILS- Capture of API-related information based on the selection made under Basic Details section. 


Figure: API Details grid

API Configuration Name Enter the desired API Configuration Name in the text box, which is a mandatory field. 
MethodSelect the desired Method (GET, POST, PUT) from the drop-down, which is a mandatory field. 
API Timeout (In Seconds) Mention the desired API timeout in numerical value. 
API URL Enter the desired API URL in the text box. 
VERIFY- Verifies the API URL and returns the response based on the appended parameters. 
Params

Params are the key attributes based on which the warranty information can be searched. These params will be appended to the query string that is sent to the vendor. 

The columns displayed in this field are as follows: 

Column 

Description 

Active 

A toggle switch that indicates the state of the configuration. 

Key 

Enter the desired key value in the text box. 

Value 

Select the desired Value (Serial Number, Asset Code, Asset Tag, Enter Static value) from the drop-down. 

Description 

Enter the description in the text box 

+/

Click “+” to add a new value to the row. 

Click   to delete the entered values. 

Authentication

Select the desired Authentication type from the drop-down. 

The drop-down values displayed in this field are as follows: 

Value Description
No Authentication If selected, no actions are taken. 
API Key

Enter the desired Key and Value in the text boxes, which are mandatory fields.

 
Figure: Authentication Tab- API Key

Bearer Token 

Enter the desired Bearer Token in the text box, which is a mandatory field. 


Figure: Authentication Tab- Bearer Token

Basic

Enter the Username and Password in the text boxes, which are mandatory fields.

 
Figure: Authentication Tab- Basic

OAuth 2.0 

Select the desired values from the drop-down. 


Figure: Authentication Tab- OAuth 2.0

Headers

Headers are the parameters that can be passed in the API header. 
Enter the desired values in the Key, Value, and Description fields.  

Click “+” to add a new value to the row. 
Click  to delete the entered values.


Figure: Headers Tab

Body

The body can be entered or configured here based on the selected request type format. 


Figure: Body Tab

Response The configured job will enable the API to run, and the response is recorded under the response tab. 

MAPPING- Map the API response to the standard fields.


Figure: Mapping Tab

Response Passing Type Free Form is the mandatory and default value defined for this field. 
Response Body Body is the default value defined for this field. 
Preceding Text Enter the preceding text before the required keyword. 
Succeeding Text Enter the succeeding text after the keyword. 
OccurrenceDisplays the number of times the keyword appears. 
User-defined key Enter any custom variable that can be defined to hold the keyword parsed from the response. 
AddTo add a new row.

Field Mapping- Map the keyword to inventory attribute once it is extracted and collected in the user-defined attribute. 


Figure: Field Mapping tab

User-defined key Select the desired user-defined key from the drop-down. 
NOTE: This drop-down contains the list of all user-defined keys created in the previous Response Parsing Type. 
Condition Select the desired condition among As-Is, Contains, Equals, Does not contain, and Not Equals options. 
Field Value Enter the desired field value. 
Inventory Fields Select the desired inventory field from the drop-down. 
AddClick add to include multiple mappings. 

SCHEDULE FREQUENCY- Set the frequency of the API jobs. 


Figure: Schedule Frequency tab

Schedule Type Select the desired schedule type among Recurring, and One Time options. 
DateChoose the desired date from the calendar option. 
Occurs Every Select the desired occurrence frequency from the drop-down.