Capture vendor data
A well-established and functional vendor management system is an important part of technology portfolio management, leading to better planning of technology roadmaps for better governance of the enterprise technology portfolio. A vendor is a supplier of software purchased by the enterprise. The vendor can supply multiple technological components that are used in the company. For example, the vendor Oracle may provide the components Oracle Database 11g R2, Oracle WebLogic Server 12C, and Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) 7.
You can manually capture vendors or via the import of components from the IT-Pedia® repository. Components can be imported based on IT products from ITPedia®. When components are imported, their vendors will also be automatically imported to Alfabet FastLane. The vendor that supplies the component will be specified based on the Manufacturer of the imported product. If the vendor already exists in the repository, the vendor will be automatically associated with the component. If the vendor does not yet exist in the repository, it will be automatically added to the repository along with the new component based on the Manufacturer. Click to find out how to import components and their vendors from IT-Pedia.
In the navigation panel, click Business Architecture > Vendors to open the explorer and data workbench for vendors. Per default, the data workbench displays only a set of basic attributes. You can add more columns to capture other attributes directly in the data workbench or you can navigate to a vendor's content area and define it in more detail there. Click to learn about how to use data workbenches.
Add a new vendor. Click the root node of the explorer and click the New button. The edit panel opens on the right where you can define basic data.
Edit an existing vendor. Edit the vendor directly in the data table. Or select the checkbox 
for the vendor you want to edit and click the Edit 
button to open the edit panel.
Define the vendor's basic data. All mandatory fields must be defined to create the vendor and save it.
- Name: Enter the vendor’s name.
- Short Name: Enter an abbreviated name for the vendor.
- Website: Enter the URL targeting the vendor's website.
- Description: Enter a meaningful description that will clarify the purpose of the vendor.
- Contact Information: Enter the contact details for the vendor.