Supplier Onboarding

Persona

Role: Procurement Lead at a large retail group.

You manage the process of evaluating, onboarding, and monitoring suppliers across multiple product categories. Each year, your team processes over 200 vendor applications. Approved vendors sign contracts with specific terms, and their performance is reviewed quarterly. The current process involves PDF application forms, manual contract filing, and ad-hoc performance conversations.

Business Problem

Vendor applications arrive as email attachments with no standardized format. Contract terms are stored in a shared drive with no link to the original application. Performance reviews happen informally, and there is no structured score that feeds back into contract renewal decisions. You need:

• A standardized vendor application pipeline with status tracking.
• Contract management linked to approved vendors with term visibility.
• Quarterly performance reviews that produce a score tied to contract renewals.

Four-Step Application

This scenario works best as a four-step, human-in-the-loop application. The existing object model already gives this scenario a strong delivery backbone through VendorApplication, Contract, and PerformanceReview.

• Mission metric focus: better conversion, lower service friction, and stronger margin protection.
• Human + AI pattern: Each step combines structured workflow data with chat assistance, background generation, document understanding, and accessible interaction patterns when they improve the experience.

Step 1. Capture demand and context

• Goal: Make it easy for the user to start the Supplier Onboarding journey with complete, trusted context.
• Required data: VendorApplication context such as the core workflow data.
• AI support: Use chat to guide intake, generate clearer prompts, create accessible summaries, and assist with voice or vision-led capture when a form alone is not the best experience. EAI can support structured intake, chat workflows, and document-centred capture today; richer native multimodal capture may still need workflow extensions or connected services.
• Business impact: Improve completion rate, reduce first-touch effort, and raise customer or staff confidence in the UX from the very first interaction.
• EAI delivery: Model the intake as tenant-isolated object types and resources, then use actions, chat workflows, and document indexing or classification to keep the initial record complete and usable.

Step 2. Prepare the decision

• Goal: Turn the captured context into the next best action for Supplier Onboarding without forcing the human reviewer to assemble the case manually.
• Required data: VendorApplication state and history.
• AI support: Run background summarisation, extraction, classification, recommendation drafting, and answer generation so a reviewer sees a prepared case instead of raw fragments. EAI delivers the structured records and AI workflow hooks for this today; specialised scoring engines, external rules, or advanced reasoning controls may still need integration work.
• Business impact: Reduce cycle time, improve quality and consistency, and protect the mission-critical metric before the case moves into execution.
• EAI delivery: Link records across the scenario, persist decision state as resources, and use workflow actions plus chat assistance to keep humans in control while AI prepares the work.

Step 3. Execute and collaborate

• Goal: Coordinate the actual work, handoffs, approvals, and user updates needed to deliver the service or outcome.
• Required data: Contract execution state.
• AI support: Draft replies, produce work packets, monitor exceptions in the background, and surface the next action for each operator. EAI can orchestrate tenant-isolated records, actions, chats, and document workflows today; deeper system-to-system automation may require additional connectors or workflow capability.
• Business impact: Increase operator productivity, reduce rework across handoffs, and improve service consistency across the application journey.
• EAI delivery: Use linked object types, actions, resource updates, and workflow-triggered AI assistance so the team can execute in one model instead of splitting work across disconnected tools.

Step 4. Resolve, explain, and improve

• Goal: Close the loop with a clear outcome, an understandable explanation, and feedback that improves the next case.
• Required data: final status, outcome, audit history, and follow-up signals across VendorApplication, Contract, and PerformanceReview.
• AI support: Generate outcome summaries, customer-friendly answers, compliance-ready notes, management insights, and accessible follow-up content. EAI can store outcome records and support answer generation today, while richer proactive agents, advanced analytics, or channel-specific accessibility features may need additional product capability.
• Business impact: Increase trust, quality, and measurable business value through better conversion, lower service friction, and stronger margin protection.
• EAI delivery: Keep the full audit trail in structured resources, use AI workflows to explain outcomes, and feed the resulting signals into future product, service, and operational improvement work.

EAI Platform Support By Step

EAI provides the safe service boundary for Supplier Onboarding through Object Types, tenant-scoped resources, document processing, chat workflows, and CLI verification. For this scenario, the main records are VendorApplication, Contract, and PerformanceReview.

Process step	What EAI provides	Calling pattern
Step 1. Capture demand and context	Tenant-scoped intake resources for VendorApplication context such as the core workflow data. Object Type validation, starter forms, optional document intake, and chat-guided capture keep the first record complete.	Define fields in src/eai.config/object-types.ts, run eai types validate and eai types seed, create initial VendorApplication records with useResources('VendorApplication') or eai resources create VendorApplication, and keep browser calls behind /api/eai/....
Step 2. Prepare the decision	Linked resource queries over VendorApplication state and history. Search, schema checks, document classification or RAG indexing, and chat summaries turn raw context into a prepared decision.	Use useResources('VendorApplication') list/query/search patterns, verify shape with eai resources schema, use useDocuments().upload/classify/ragIndex, eai docs upload, eai docs classify, and eai docs index where supporting material exists, and send decision-support prompts through useChat(workflowId, 'chat') or eai chat send.
Step 3. Execute and collaborate	Resource updates and actions for Contract execution state. Status changes, assignments, notes, generated work packets, and chat support keep humans in control during execution.	Model actions in the Object Type code, call client.resources.executeAction(type, id, action) or the app hook equivalent, update records through the app service layer, and verify with eai resources get/list/query.
Step 4. Resolve, explain, and improve	Outcome resources for final status, outcome, audit history, and follow-up signals across VendorApplication, Contract, and PerformanceReview. Audit-friendly links, indexed final documents, reporting snapshots, and answer generation make the result explainable and reusable.	Persist outcomes as resources, index final material with eai docs index or useDocuments().ragIndex, send explanation prompts with useChat or eai chat stream, and use eai resources aggregate/search for reporting checks.

Prompt, Code, And Service Pattern Mapping

The Object Type code example on this page is the implementation contract for the EAI platform services. eai-gofer should read that code as the source of truth for which resource, document, and chat calls belong in the app.

Use this prompt shape when asking eai-gofer or another coding agent to implement the scenario:

Use the EAI App Template. Model Supplier Onboarding with Object Types for VendorApplication, Contract, PerformanceReview. Use useResources for records and actions, useDocuments for uploads/classification/RAG where documents appear, useChat for workflow assistance, and verify with eai types/resources/docs/chat commands. Use eai publicapi only when no named command covers the required platform call.

Scenario artifact	How it maps to EAI service calls
Four-step process	Step 1 becomes resource creation, Step 2 becomes resource query/search plus optional document or chat preparation, Step 3 becomes resource update/action calls, and Step 4 becomes outcome persistence plus explanation/reporting calls.
Object Type definitions	eai types validate, eai types seed, and eai resources schema make the model available and checkable before UI work starts.
Properties and indexes	Fields become useResources payloads, filters, list views, and eai resources create/list/query/search checks. Indexed fields should support lookup and triage, not duplicate canonical records.
Links between Object Types	Relationships become linked-resource UI, timeline context, and audit trails that app code loads through resource queries rather than separate bespoke stores.
Actions and status fields	Workflow buttons and operator transitions call resource action/update helpers, then verify state with eai resources get/list/query.
Document and chat prompts	Prompts should call the platform documents and chat patterns: useDocuments().upload/classify/ragIndex, eai docs upload, eai docs classify, and eai docs index for documents, and useChat, eai chat send, or eai chat stream for conversational assistance.

Object Types

Name	Key Properties	Links	Actions
VendorApplication	company, category, status, submittedDate	has one Contract	submit, review, approve, reject
Contract	vendor, terms, startDate, endDate	belongs to VendorApplication, has many PerformanceReviews	execute, amend, terminate
PerformanceReview	vendor, period, metrics, score	belongs to Contract	schedule, complete, flag-issue

CLI Workflow

1. Scaffold the app

   eai init supplier-onboarding

2. Authenticate and pull environment

   eai login
   eai env pull --include-secrets

   If you are an external developer, see [Configuration](/docs/configuration) for login and local environment setup.

3. Define Object Types

   Add VendorApplication, Contract, and PerformanceReview to src/eai.config/object-types.ts.

4. Validate and seed

   eai types validate
   eai types seed

   Tenant: supplier-onboarding
   ✔ VendorApplication — 4 props, 1 link, 4 actions
   ✔ Contract — 4 props, 2 links, 3 actions
   ✔ PerformanceReview — 4 props, 1 link, 3 actions
   
   ✔ All Object Types are valid

5. Submit a vendor application

   eai resources create VendorApplication \
     --data '{"company": "Artisan Foods Co.", "category": "food-beverage", "status": "submitted", "submittedDate": "2026-03-01"}'

6. Create a contract

   eai resources create Contract \
     --data '{"vendor": "artisan-foods", "terms": "Net 30, minimum order 500 units", "startDate": "2026-04-01", "endDate": "2027-03-31"}'

7. List applications under review

   eai resources list VendorApplication --filter 'status=under-review'

8. Start local development

   eai dev

Code Example

// src/eai.config/object-types.ts
export const objectTypes = {
  'supplier-onboarding': [
    {
      name: 'VendorApplication',
      displayName: 'Vendor Application',
      description: 'An application submitted by a company seeking to become an approved supplier',
      properties: [
        { name: 'company', type: 'text' as const, required: true, indexed: true },
        { name: 'category', type: 'select' as const, required: true,
          options: [
            { label: 'Food & Beverage', value: 'food-beverage' },
            { label: 'Apparel', value: 'apparel' },
            { label: 'Electronics', value: 'electronics' },
            { label: 'Home Goods', value: 'home-goods' },
            { label: 'Health & Beauty', value: 'health-beauty' },
          ],
        },
        { name: 'status', type: 'select' as const, required: true, defaultValue: 'submitted',
          options: [
            { label: 'Submitted', value: 'submitted' },
            { label: 'Under Review', value: 'under-review' },
            { label: 'Approved', value: 'approved' },
            { label: 'Rejected', value: 'rejected' },
            { label: 'On Hold', value: 'on-hold' },
          ],
        },
        { name: 'submittedDate', type: 'date' as const, required: true },
      ],
      linkTypes: [
        { name: 'contract', target: 'Contract', cardinality: 'one' as const },
      ],
      actions: [
        { name: 'submit', displayName: 'Submit Application' },
        { name: 'review', displayName: 'Begin Review' },
        { name: 'approve', displayName: 'Approve Vendor' },
        { name: 'reject', displayName: 'Reject Application' },
      ],
      status: 'published' as const,
    },
    {
      name: 'Contract',
      displayName: 'Contract',
      description: 'A supply agreement between the retail group and an approved vendor',
      properties: [
        { name: 'vendor', type: 'text' as const, required: true, indexed: true },
        { name: 'terms', type: 'text' as const, required: true },
        { name: 'startDate', type: 'date' as const, required: true },
        { name: 'endDate', type: 'date' as const, required: true },
      ],
      linkTypes: [
        { name: 'vendorApplication', target: 'VendorApplication', cardinality: 'one' as const },
        { name: 'performanceReviews', target: 'PerformanceReview', cardinality: 'many' as const },
      ],
      actions: [
        { name: 'execute', displayName: 'Execute Contract' },
        { name: 'amend', displayName: 'Amend Contract' },
        { name: 'terminate', displayName: 'Terminate Contract' },
      ],
      status: 'published' as const,
    },
    {
      name: 'PerformanceReview',
      displayName: 'Performance Review',
      description: 'A periodic evaluation of a vendor against quality, delivery, and service metrics',
      properties: [
        { name: 'vendor', type: 'text' as const, required: true },
        { name: 'period', type: 'text' as const, required: true },
        { name: 'metrics', type: 'text' as const, required: true },
        { name: 'score', type: 'number' as const, required: false },
      ],
      linkTypes: [
        { name: 'contract', target: 'Contract', cardinality: 'one' as const },
      ],
      actions: [
        { name: 'schedule', displayName: 'Schedule Review' },
        { name: 'complete', displayName: 'Complete Review' },
        { name: 'flag-issue', displayName: 'Flag Issue' },
      ],
      status: 'published' as const,
    },
  ],
};

Key Takeaways

• Standardized application pipeline reduces procurement friction. Every vendor goes through the same structured intake, eliminating inconsistency from ad-hoc email submissions.
• Contract-linked applications create an audit trail. The link between VendorApplication and Contract ensures that every supply agreement traces back to a vetted and approved application.
• Performance scores drive data-driven renewals. Quarterly PerformanceReviews produce numeric scores that inform contract renewal, amendment, or termination decisions.
• Category-based vendor segmentation. Categorizing vendors by product type enables procurement leads to assess supplier diversity and identify gaps in the vendor portfolio.