1. User Guide
  2. Introduction

1 Introduction

Oracle Retail Supplier Evaluation Cloud Service is a collaborative cloud service for the on-boarding and evaluation of merchandising suppliers, enabling the assessment and governance of ethical, environmental, safety, and quality performance. It manages the selection of suppliers against Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), brand standards and governance policies, incorporating supplier self-certification survey and assessment, audit and action management, vendor performance, and incident alert notifications.

Oracle Retail Supplier Evaluation Cloud Service is composed of the following modules:

  • Library enables the issue, receipt, and acceptance of policies, guidelines, and key working documents.

  • Process supports the development of process briefs, plans, and workflow management.

  • Supplier enables the identification, selection, and approval of suppliers.

  • Reports provides a reporting tool for reporting across the system, using standard templates and custom reports.

For more information on any of these modules, see the module User Guide. For information on Library, see Library.

Note:

Technologist is the default name for that Retailer role across the entire application. Each portal may configure an alternative to suit their business if required.

IDCS or OCI IAM Integration for Authentication

The authentication of user and external system identity for access to Oracle Retail Supplier Evaluation Cloud Service is managed by Oracle Identity Cloud Service (IDCS) or Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Identity and Access Management (OCI IAM). This strategic initiative is a move towards most Oracle Retail Cloud Service applications using IDCS or OCI IAM for authentication, thus paving the way for single sign-on across the product range. In the meantime, Supplier Evaluation will implement IDCS or OCI IAM as a standalone means of identity authentication.

Note:

When IDCS or OCI IAM integration is implemented, it becomes the sole means of authentication for users and external systems. In the event of the IDCS or OCI IAM tenant not being available to perform authentication, access to Supplier Evaluation will not be permitted.

The key features of the IDCS or OCI IAM authentication for Supplier Evaluation are as follows:

  • All users and external systems log in to Supplier Evaluation using an individual IDCS or OCI IAM profile.

  • Each Supplier Evaluation portal instance has dedicated IDCS or OCI IAM tenants, for its production and staging/UAT environments.

  • New users are created in Supplier Evaluation, which automatically triggers creation of an IDCS or OCI IAM profile.

  • User roles map to groups in IDCS or OCI IAM to control users' level of access.

  • All maintenance of passwords and email addresses is carried out by the user in IDCS or OCI IAM.

  • The user maintains all other account details in Supplier Evaluation.

  • An hourly batch job automatically synchronizes changes between Supplier Evaluation and IDCS or OCI IAM.

  • External systems accounts, used to access the Supplier Evaluation APIs, are treated the same as users.

Note:

User documentation for IDCS can be found at the Oracle Identity Cloud Service page on Oracle Help Center:

https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/paas/identity-cloud/

User documentation for OCI IAM can be found at the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Identity and Access Management page on Oracle Help Center::

https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Identity/home.htm

Passwords

All Supplier Evaluation password management is handled by IDCS or OCI IAM. The system administrator configures the rules for password format strength and expiry within IDCS or OCI IAM. For example, you may need to enter a password that is at least five characters and includes at least one numeric character. Also, you may be prevented from reusing a previous password. For information on your password requirements, consult your system administrator.

Passwords can be set to expire within a specific number of days after being set. During login, if you are warned that your password is about to expire, you can choose to change your password at that time. If you do not change your password before it expires, you may be locked out from logging into the application. You may also be locked out after a specific number of invalid login attempts. If you are locked out, a system administrator must reset your password.

Language Support

Oracle Retail Supplier Evaluation Cloud Service supports multiple languages. The Login page is displayed in the language derived from the user's browser settings. Once logged in, the pages are displayed in the language selected for the user. For information on selecting the language, see Editing your Profile. The system supports the UTF-8 character set.

Note:

Users operating with their locale (language) set to Argentina (es_AR), Brazil (pt_BR), or Chile (es_CL) will see numbers formatted with a comma as the decimal point separator; all other locales use a period as the separator. All locales use a comma as the thousands separator.