This release brings powerful improvements to how you manage contracts, oversee evaluations, and align procurement plans with contract records in the VendorPanel platform. With structured custom contract roles, a new evaluation summary landing page, and the ability to use procurement plan numbers as contract numbers, this release is all about control, clarity, and consistency across your workflows.

Managing “who can do what” on contracts is now much clearer and more aligned to your organisation’s language. Instead of relying on free-text role names, you can configure structured custom roles that drive permissions, workflows, and reminders.

This solves a long-standing problem where contract access and notifications depended on inconsistent, free‑text labels. Now, roles are defined centrally, applied consistently, and enforced reliably across the system.

Note: All existing free text custom roles will be converted to the new structured custom roles and by default will have no permissions (to reflect current behaviour). Admins will be able to change these migrated custom roles to have read and write permissions where required.

Key capabilities include:

• Admin-defined custom roles in Settings

  • Configure custom contract roles via Contracts "Manage Module" > "Roles Configuration".
  • Define a name (e.g. “Contract Administrator”, “Business Owner”) and a permission level (Read Only or Edit) for each role.
  • Adjust roles over time with create, edit, and delete functionality supported, while still preserving roles on existing contracts.
  • Roles defined here automatically populate the role selectors on contract forms.

• Clean, guided role assignment on contracts

  • When creating or editing a contract, users now choose from the admin-defined structured roles instead of typing free-text.
  • Multiple users can be assigned to the same custom role (e.g. two “Contract Administrators” on a complex arrangement).
  • Key roles (Contract Manager, Owner, Sponsor) remain single-select and mandatory where applicable.
  • The permission level (Edit / Read) is clearly displayed alongside each role to guide assigners.

  • Legacy free-text custom role entry is removed/hidden to prevent inconsistent naming going forward.
    
    
    

    

    
    
    

• Custom roles in approval routes & reminders

  • Approval workflows can include these new structured custom roles. This article guides you through approval settings: Manage Your Approval Settings – VendorPanel
  • Contract reminders will also support structured custom roles as recipients. This article guides you through editing and creating reminders: Manage Email Reminder Settings – VendorPanel
    

In short, you can now define contract roles your way, assign them consistently, and rely on them for permissions, approvals, and reminders across your contract lifecycle.

Evaluation Chairs managing evaluations can now land on a dedicated Summary page that surfaces the most important information at a glance. Instead of dropping straight into a workflow step, Chairs first see a dashboard-style overview of status, participants, and key actions.

This addresses the pain of having to click around multiple screens just to answer simple questions like “Who has finished scoring?” or “What’s the current COI status?”.

Highlights include:

• New default landing page for evaluations

  • When a Chair opens an evaluation, they now arrive on the Summary view by default.
  • Exceptions are built in for scenarios such as ongoing setup or evaluator views, ensuring users still land where they need to be based on their role and the evaluation phase.

• Clear, phase-based status display

  • A consolidated status block shows progress across Setup, Scoring, and Review phases (Completed / In Progress / Not Started).

• Tasks & actions in one place

  • A dedicated Tasks and Actions area surfaces what needs attention for that specific evaluation.

• Key evaluation metrics at a glance

  • The summary shows:

    • Evaluation due date
    • Chair name
    • Number of evaluators and a list of their names
    • Number of responses received
  • A prominent “Go To Evaluation” button takes users directly to the detailed workflow when they are ready to dive in.

The new Evaluation Summary page lets Chairs instantly understand progress, spot bottlenecks, and jump straight to the actions that matter.

For organisations that want tight alignment between procurement plans and contract records, this release introduces an option to use the procurement plan number as the contract number when a contract is awarded from a plan.

Previously, procurement plans and contracts used entirely separate numbering sequences, making it hard to track which contract came from which plan without additional cross-referencing. The new configuration improves data integrity and reporting by aligning these sequences.

Key behaviours:

• Configurable linkage between procurement and contracts

  • A new setting can be found in Procurement Planning "Manage Module" > "Procurement Number Generation" > “Use Procurement Number on Contracts”
  • When enabled, the procurement module’s number generation also drives contract numbers.

• Consistent numbering on award

  • When a contract is created from a procurement plan, the contract number is the same as the plan’s procurement number, providing immediate traceability.

  • Special cases are handled intelligently:

    • Head agreements use the procurement number as their base contract number.
    • Subcontracts from head agreements use the head agreement number as a prefix and add a '-1', -2', '-3' ... , preserving existing behaviour while aligning with the primary number.
    • If a procurement number matches an existing contract number (e.g. a contract was entered into the system with this number prior to enabling this setting), when creating the contract that links to this plan, a suffix will be added to ensure all contract numbers are unique (e.g. Plan number is "PP123", contract number will be "PP123 (2)")

• Unified sequencing when enabled

  • When the setting is turned on:

    • Generating a procurement number (including manually specified numbers) advances the sequence for both procurement and contracts.
    • Contracts created without an associated plan do not pre-populate a number; generating a number uses the procurement sequence so numbering stays consistent across the two modules.
    • The "Contract Number Generation" area in Contracts "Manage Module" will have most options disabled as this configuration is managed within Procurement Planning. The option to allow manual contract number input can still be configured here.

• Preserved independence when disabled

  • With the setting off (default behaviour):

    • Procurement and contract numbering function independently, as they do today.
    • Contract number generation follows the existing contract settings, including standard prefixes for head agreements and subcontracts.
    • Generating or manually specifying a number in one module only affects that module’s sequence.

By linking procurement and contract numbering, this feature delivers clearer traceability from initial planning through to executed contracts, especially in complex head agreement and subcontract structures.