Vendor Onboarding – The Redesign Group

This guide will help you onboard your Vendors onto both your Flow Production Tracking (FlowPT) Site and the Artist Anywhere Transfer App. This process will set up their Vendor Bucket and manage access for individual Vendor users, so that they can download your material.

Onboarding Vendors to Your FlowPT Site

Vendor Record Creation

To start, you’ll need to create FlowPT records for your Vendor and Vendor users. Vendors are represented by the Group entity in FlowPT, and Vendor users by the Person entity. Each of a Vendor’s users is linked to the Vendor by their Group field.

You can learn more about FlowPT's entities through Autodesk’s documentation. Read about the Group entity here, and the Person entity here.

To start, create the Vendor record. In your FlowPT site, go to the People page, then to the Groups tab. Click the Add Group button.

Fill out the Group Creation form.

Use the Vendor’s name for the Group Name field, set Type to Vendor, and create a short code (typically 3-4 characters) for the Vendor Code Field. You can leave Vendor Remote Folder blank. Click Create Group.

A person can be in multiple Groups, but only a single Vendor Group. The Delivery creation process looks to the Vendor Group field to pick up Vendor Bucket information.

Vendor User Record Creation

Next, create records for individual Vendor users. Staying on the People page, go to the Vendors tab and click the Add Person button.

Fill out the Person Creation form.

The Permission Group field will be pre-populated by FlowPT. Be sure to specify the Projects that the Vendor User should have access to in the Projects field. Specify the Vendor that you just created for both the Groups and Vendor Group fields.

You can leave the Watermarking fields blank.

When you create Person records for internal users (as opposed to Vendor Users), you’ll want to set both Watermarking Preset fields to Clean, to prevent watermarking. Learn more about watermarking presets here.

Click the Add Person button. Repeat this process for every Vendor User.

Transfer App Automation

Vendor Users need access to their Vendor Bucket via the Transfer App. The Transfer App Settings section of the Artist Anywhere Portal manages this access, but an automation in FlowPT obviates the need to add users directly in the Transfer App Settings

Setting the Vendor Group Field on a Person record triggers their onboarding in the Transfer App Settings. To learn what happens when a user is onboarded in the Transfer App Settings, see the Onboarding Vendor Users to the Transfer App section below.

Any changes to the Vendor Group Field will trigger this automation. So, if you change the Vendor Group on an existing Vendor User, it will change their Vendor Group assignment in the Transfer App Settings. If you clear the Vendor Group Field on a Vendor User, it will remove them from the Transfer App Settings and remove their access to any Vendor Bucket.

Set Vendor User Home Page

For each Vendor User, you'll want to set their Home Page to the standard Vendor Page that's provided as part of the [RE]DESIGN FlowPT site template. It’s a single page where Vendors can get all the information they would need from a show.

Staying on the Vendors tab of the People page, ensure that the Home Page field is visible.

Within that field, start typing “Vendor Page” and select the Vendor Page from the appropriate project for the current Vendor.

Repeat for every Vendor User.

Link Vendor to Assigned Entities

You will need to link the Vendor to the FlowPT entities they are assigned to, such as the particular Shots or Assets they’ll be working on. This will ensure that their access within your FlowPT site is limited only to what they need, related to these entities.

You can ensure that People in your Vendor Group have the expected permission restrictions by assuming the identity of another user in FlowPT. Assume the identity of a Vendor User and check which entities they can see. See Autodesk’s documentation on assuming another user’s identity to learn more.

Vendor Bucket Creation

You should have already added your Vendor to FlowPT. Next, you’ll use FlowPT to enter a geographical region for your Vendor and generate their Vendor Bucket.

The Vendor Bucket is an AWS bucket that’s dedicated to an individual Vendor and placed in the AWS region geographically closest to them for optimal transfer times.

Navigate to the FlowPT People Page, and then click on the Groups tab. Once there, expand the Vendor group from the Group Name field to select the Vendor that requires onboarding.
In the Fields dropdown, ensure that the AA Region, AA Onboarding, and AA Status Fields are visible.
In the AA Region Field, select the Region geographically closest to your vendor.
Check the box in the AA Onboarding Field. Wait a few seconds for the checkmark to automatically disappear.

Checking the AA Onboarding checkbox triggers an automation. When you check the box, our systems will generate the Vendor Bucket and add the Vendor to the Vendor list in the Transfer App. When the automation completes running, the AA Onboarding box will automatically be unchecked and the AA Status field will be set to Onboarded.
Once the checkmark disappears, the word Onboarded will appear in the AA Status Field. This indicates that onboarding is complete: the Vendor bucket has been created and your Vendor will be visible in the Transfer App Settings.

It may be useful to treat an internal user as a Vendor, for example if they are on set and located in a different geographical location and need to transfer files. When onboarding your internal team member as a Vendor, be sure to create a distinct Vendor Group for them, separate from the standard VFX Production Group.

Onboarding Vendor Users to the Transfer App

This process grants Vendor Users access to their Vendor Bucket via the Transfer App and sends them emails with instructions on downloading both the Transfer App and FlowPT Desktop. This all happens automatically when you create a record for a Vendor User in FlowPT and set the Vendor Group Field on the record.

Once they're set up to use the Transfer App, they can easily download the materials you share with them.

Vendor User Onboarding Emails

New users will receive two automated emails. One will enable them to download the Transfer App and set up their username and password for Okta authentication. The other email will give them instructions for downloading the FlowPT Desktop app, which they will need for submitting files to the Production. Users specified as Managers on the Project in the AA Portal will also receive a copy of this email.

Below is the automated email with FlowPT Desktop download instructions:

Transfer App Settings

In general usage, you shouldn’t need to access the Transfer App Settings directly, but for the rare case where you need to reset a user’s password or resend their activation email, you’ll find the settings within the Artist Anywhere Portal. Once you’ve logged in, select Transfer App Settings from the navigation menu on the left side of the screen.

Once there, expand your Vendor Group and find the user in question. Click on the three dots to the right of their email address, and from the resulting menu, you can choose to reset their password or resend them the activation email.