Supplier reviews: review cycles by department

A review cycle asks the people who work with a supplier to score it from a questionnaire. Each department answers only its own part (for example, Finance answers the questions about invoices), and you see a score for each department and one combined score. You can run a cycle for one supplier or for all your key suppliers at once.

A cycle can also go the other way: ask your suppliers "How is it working with us?". See How suppliers see us.

Where to find it

Open Supplier reviews under Lifecycle in the main menu, next to Reviews & governance. The page has three tabs: Review cycles, Questionnaires and How suppliers see us. It's included from the Professional plan, and shows when the Reviews & governance module is on. Each supplier's record also has a Supplier reviews section on its Performance and relationship tab.

Start a review cycle

Click New review cycle.
Questionnaire. Pick one. The three ready-made questionnaires are always offered, even before an admin has added them. Check the period (for example "Q4 2026") and, if you like, the name.
Suppliers. Tick suppliers, or use All T1 and T2 suppliers. You can filter by tier, area and owner. Only live suppliers (active or under review) are listed.
Who answers. SupplierVault suggests people for each supplier: its owner, business owner (SRO), contract manager, service lead, budget owner, the person who asked for it, and anyone asked in an earlier stakeholder survey. If a section is for a team nobody suggested is in, it adds the first person in that team. Untick anyone, or add someone. A line in red tells you when nobody will answer a section. For a supplier questionnaire, the supplier's contacts with an email address on its record are listed instead.
Dates. Set when it opens, when answers are due, which reminders to send (14, 7, 3 or 1 days before) and the line for low scores.
Check and launch. Click Launch, or Save as draft to launch later. A draft can be edited or deleted.

Each person only ever sees the sections for their own team. People whose team has no section aren't asked. A cycle whose suppliers are in more than one area can only be seen by people who see every area, so if you only see some areas, make one cycle per area.

How people answer

By email, without an account. Launching emails each person a personal link. If the cycle opens on a later date, the invitations go out that morning. The page shows only their questions and the supplier's name, saves their answers as they go, and sends nothing until they select Submit. Before submitting it asks them to confirm, because answers can't be changed afterwards.
Inside SupplierVault. Someone who signs in sees the reviews waiting for them at the top of the Tasks page, under "Supplier reviews for you to answer", and on the supplier's record. Answer now opens the same questions. They can save a draft and submit when ready.

Reminders go on the days you chose before the due date, only to people who haven't submitted. Every email has a link to stop review emails from your organisation. People who have asked not to be emailed stay on the list but get no email.

Follow progress

Open a cycle to see, for each supplier, who has been asked and whether their invitation was sent, whether they have started, and when they submitted. An email that couldn't be sent says so; it's never shown as sent.

Chase one person, or Chase everyone who hasn't answered. Each person can be chased once a day.
Close cycle when you're done. The links then stop working and nobody else can answer. Links also stop working 60 days after the due date.

Locked answers and reopening

Answers are locked once someone submits them. Only an admin can reopen a submission, and must give a reason. The reopening is kept in the audit trail and shows on the cycle as "Reopened", with who reopened it and why. The person can then change their answers and submit again.

Results

Pick a supplier under Results to see:

Combined score: one score from everyone's answers, on the questionnaire's scale and as a percentage.
Score by department: the same score worked out from each team's answers.
By scorecard measure: for questions linked to a measure in Settings › Supplier scorecard.
By question, and What people wrote.
Low scores: questions whose average is under the line you set.

Only admins see who wrote which comment. People who aren't admins see a supplier's results once at least 2 people have answered for it, and a department's score once at least 2 people in it have answered. See How figures are calculated for the maths.

Turn low scores into actions

Next to each low score, Create an action logs a service improvement on the supplier, linked to the question and its scorecard measure. Its owner is the supplier's owner and it's due in 30 days; change anything in the form that opens. Asking again for the same question opens the one already logged. Follow it through in Service improvement.

Copy into the scorecard

For a stakeholder cycle, Copy into … scorecard puts the cycle's score for each measure into the supplier's Performance scorecard for the cycle's quarter (so the period needs to be a quarter, such as "Q4 2026"). Scores are converted to the scorecard's 1 to 5 scale with one decimal place. A score someone typed for that quarter is kept and listed; select Replace the typed scores if you want the review's score instead.

On the supplier record and in the QBR pack

The Supplier reviews section on a supplier shows the latest stakeholder cycle's combined score and scores by department, its trend over the last cycles, any cycle still open with how many have answered, and how the supplier rated working with you. The QBR pack includes a short summary of the latest stakeholder cycle.

Limits

Up to 500 people in a cycle (50 during the free month).
Up to 500 review emails a day for your organisation (25 during the free month). Any more wait for the next day.
One email per address per cycle, listing every supplier that person is asked about (up to 25).

Who can do what

Anyone who can change suppliers (custom roles: Suppliers or Settings) can create, launch, chase and close cycles for suppliers they can see.
Only admins can add or change saved questionnaires, reopen answers, and delete a launched cycle.
People with view-only access can see cycles and results but not change them.

Still have a question?Email hello@suppliervault.co.uk or use the contact form. Try anything safely in the live demo.