Assign existing products to a Supplier Organization so its users can enrich them in the Supplier Portal. Choose whether you expect an update, optionally send an email, and follow the supplier’s progress from the catalog product.
Prepare to assign products
Make sure the Supplier Organization has access to a Supplier Portal and the appropriate product-data access configuration. Your user role must allow supplier assignment; ask your PIM administrator to check your access if the action is unavailable.
Product Model enrichment
Supplier enrichment supports simple products and product variants, not Product Models. If you assign a Product Model to a supplier, they will see the variants associated with it.
Assign a product
- Open the product in the Primary Catalog.
- Open the External suppliers tab.
- Click Assign to supplier.
- Select the Supplier Organization.
- Choose whether you expect the supplier to enrich the product or only want to share it.
- Enable the notification option if you want to email the Supplier Organization’s users.
- Click Assign.
The assignment creates a staged version in the supplier’s catalog. When enrichment is expected, the product starts at To do. When no enrichment is expected, it starts at Completed.
Assignment does not automatically mean an email is sent. Enable the notification option when you want to alert supplier users.
Assign several products
- Select the products in the Primary Catalog’s product grid.
- Choose the Assign to supplier organization bulk action.
- Select the Supplier Organization.
- Choose the enrichment expectation.
- Choose whether to notify the organization’s users.
- Launch the assignment action.
Assigning products does not limit the supplier’s SDM uploads to those products. Direct enrichment and SDM workflows remain separate.
Check who is assigned
Open the catalog product's External suppliers tab to see the assigned Supplier Organizations, shared dates, staged product statuses, and links to the staged records. You can follow supplier work without leaving the catalog product.
Follow enrichment statuses
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| To do | You requested enrichment, or sent the product back for corrections. |
| In progress | The supplier has saved work on the assigned product. |
| In review | The supplier submitted the product for your review. |
| Completed | The product was merged, or was shared without an active enrichment request. |
The supplier saves their changes and sends the product for review when ready. Your team then compares the proposed data and either merges approved changes or sends the product back.
Check merge status separately. A Completed status is not proof that data was merged, because products shared without an enrichment request also start at Completed.
Sync changes from the catalog product
Attribute values that the supplier has not updated reflect subsequent changes made to the catalog product. The supplier’s assigned version is therefore not a fully isolated snapshot.
For example, a supplier edits a chair’s dimensions but leaves its description untouched. If your team updates the description in the Primary Catalog, the assigned version reflects that description update.
Compare the latest staged and catalog values before merging, especially when both your team and the supplier work on the same product.
Refreshing data on a staged version
Use the Assign to bulk action in Akeneo PIM to send new versions of existing products to a Supplier Organization. Suppliers work on staged products in their organization's catalog without changing the source products directly.
What notification does the supplier receive?
When you enable the notification option, each user in the selected Supplier Organization receives an email after the assignment job processes the products. For a bulk assignment, each user receives a summary email with the number of assigned products, rather than a separate email for each product. No assignment email is sent if the notification option is off or the job assigns no products.
The email includes:
- A subject with the product count. For example, the English subject is “1 product is ready for enrichment” or “5 products are ready for enrichment”.
- Your name and the number of shared products. The heading tells suppliers who shared the products with them.
- Instructions for the next steps. Suppliers are asked to connect to the portal, review the products in the catalog, fill in missing information, and send the products back to you.
- A Review products button. When a portal access URL is configured, this button opens the Supplier Portal’s product catalog, not an individual product.
The email uses the Supplier Portal’s configured interface language and displays its logo, with “Powered by Akeneo” branding.
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