Business Issue
Company XYZ is composed of several subsidiary companies and/or business units (BU), each one of which is a Supplier to one or several Exostar Buyer organizations. Each of the subsidiaries is being asked to complete forms from one or more Buyer organizations. This results in requesting many of the subsidiaries to complete the same form. The security policies and infrastructure of the subsidiaries of Supplier XYZ are managed and controlled by a single shared service, an organizational unit located within one of the registered XYZ companies/subsidiaries. That unit can answer the form on behalf of many of the XYZ subsidiaries. This unit would like to answer the form once for all subsidiaries covered by its security program.
Solution
Exostar has the capability to create a Form Group of companies/businesses where one of the businesses can represent the group when completing forms. The XYZ business needs to nominate one of the business units as the source to represent the group. That business completes the form on behalf of the group (Destinations), and the results are provided to Buyers XYZ subsidiaries chose to share the results. In this way, the form is under the control of a single subsidiary or business unit within the group, but shared by any of the others with whatever Buyers they wish.
Destination organizations can share the group form with individual Buyers just like any other normal assigned form with two major exceptions:
- The form is locked and only the Source Organization can edit it. All further edits are reflected in the destination form in real-time.
- When a form is submitted, the scoring of the shared form applies to the one associated with Destination Organization as well.
Group Setup
Company XYZ needs to do the following to setup the group within Exostar:
1. Create a support case via the Support page and describe the case as Create a Form Group in OBM.
2. Provide the Form Grouping Submission Form that identifies:
a. The source business unit by its Exostar ID, DUNS ID, full address, and email address of the responsible person who will handle the security form.
b. The destinations or business units within the group by Exostar ID, DUNS ID, and address for each.
c. Which form is to be shared with the Destinations.
3. Exostar contacts each destination business unit to confirm they will be added to the new group.
4. Exostar creates the group within the organization data and the form from the source will be available for the destinations.
NOTES:
- The source organization must submit the form for the responses to be duplicated onto their respective destination organization forms.
- If a new supplier is added to the existing Form group, the Source organization must resubmit (renew) the form for the responses to be duplicated onto their respective destination organization forms.
View Form Groups
Suppliers can determine if their form groups have been migrated to the Buyer’s OBM application by going to the specific form in the Buyer’s OBM and reviewing the Form Details page to determine if they are a destination of a form group. The message will read: This form is being shared by the following organization ORGNAME. You do not have permissions to edit this form.