The ability to integrate external suppliers into the 3YD platform offers platform owners the opportunity to expand their additive manufacturing capabilities beyond internal resources. With the integration of external AM service providers, platform owners can access a wider range of printing capabilities and streamline their procurement process. However, it is important to ensure that external suppliers are granted limited access only to the necessary information for order processing and do not have access to sensitive data such as pricing, materials, and user information of other integrated services.
Process of onboarding an external service
Following these steps sets you up for onboarding external services into your platform:
(One-time) Prepare the platform to verify new users
Create and register a new (external) Service
Invite external service users and
Prevent access to User Panel
Revoke AMPI access
Provide Service Panel access to the new external service users
Preparing the platform to verify new users
The platform owner must invite external service users explicitly and therefore prevent uncontrolled registration and access to the platform. This can be achieved by enabling Force verify user in the admin panel.
For more information see
If platform access was unrestricted, then external Service users could simply register as new users and would be granted access to the User Panel, where they could see all offers of all Services.
Creating and registering a new (external) service
To create a new Service (Fulfillment Partner) follow the steps as described in https://3yourmind.atlassian.net/l/cp/yC1AvGQ8.
Do not add external users to the new Fulfillment partner, yet. This will be done in a later step.
Inviting external service users
There are two possible cases. As an admin you can invite external users, or external users can sign up themselves. In both cases, the Force Verify User setting should be enabled.
Case 1 - Org admin invites an external user
To perform the following steps access to both the Org panel and Admin panel is required.
In the Org panel - Invite user
As an organization admin, go to Org panel - Users
Select Invite User
Fill in the name and e-mail accordingly
Keep Activate User enabled
Disable User Panel Access
Save
At this moment the external user will receive an automatic e-mail to reset their password.
Revoke AMPI access
In most organizations new users will automatically be granted access to AMPI. Therefore, the newly invited external user will also have access to AMPI unless you revoke it immediately following the steps below.
You can look up what AMPI default access group is configured for your organization at
Home › B3_Organization › Organizations › <YOUR ORGANIZATION>
Section: User Roles
Field: Ampi default access group
In case the checkbox Activate User is deselected when inviting the user, the automatic email to set the password is not sent. Thus the new user is not informed automatically about the new account.
To set a password the external service user would have to manually reset the password via “Forgot password”. Most likely, this would have to be communicated separately to the external user.
In the Admin panel - Revoke AMPI access
As an admin panel user, go to Home › Authentication and Authorization › Users
Find and open the user details of the external user you just invited
In the section USER ACCESS GROUPS, remove the access group(s) AMPI User (and AMPI Expert if assigned) by selecting the checkbox DELETE?
And clicking SAVE at the bottom of the screen
As a result of this action, the external user does not have access to AMPI. In fact, the new user now does not have access to any panel, so Service Panel access needs to be granted in the next step.
Case 2 - External user signs up
Actions performed by external user
An external user signs up on the platform
The external user receives an automatic email to set a password
The external user sets a password and needs to wait for activation of the account through an admin
Only after step 3, the user appears in the user list in the org panel and the admin panel.
As an Admin panel user revoke AMPI access in the admin panel (see steps described in Case 1)
As an Org admin verify the new user to grant platform access
The new external user can now log into the platform and does not have access to AMPI or the User Panel. In fact, the new user now does not have access to any panel, so Service Panel access needs to be granted in the next step.
Providing Service Panel access to new external users
To grant external service users access to their respective Service Panel the corresponding roles need to be assigned in the admin panel.
Go to Home › Partner › Fulfillment partners › <EXTERNAL SERVICE>
Expand the section USER ACCESS GROUPS
Assign the necessary access group(s)
For more details see https://3yourmind.atlassian.net/l/cp/0ZF9ThPW
Permissions of internal service users vs external service users
Permission | Internal Service User | External Service User |
|---|---|---|
AMPI access | ✅ | ❌ |
User Panel access | ✅ | ❌ |
Service Panel access | ✅ | ✅ |
User list in Create Quote/Order | Unrestricted list | Restricted list |
For internal service users, the user list is in Create Quote/Order unrestricted, i.e. it shows every user registered on the platform.
For external service users, the list is restricted, i.e. it does not contain users from other external services.
