External vendor catalogs overview
Important
This content is archived and is not being updated. For the latest documentation, see Microsoft Dynamics 365 product documentation. For the latest release plans, see Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform release plans.
Applies To: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Feature Pack, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012
If you rely on your vendors to host procurement catalog data for you, you can configure access to the vendor’s external catalog site in Microsoft Dynamics AX so that users can access the vendor’s external catalog directly. You receive the remote access settings from your vendor, and then set up the required configurations in Microsoft Dynamics AX using the Maintain details for an external catalog form.
Set up an externally hosted catalog
To set up an external vendor catalog, complete the following tasks:
Set up a procurement category hierarchy. For more information about how to set up a procurement category hierarchy, see Key tasks: Set up a category hierarchy.
Register the vendor in Microsoft Dynamics AX. Before you can set up configurations to access an external vendor’s catalog, you must first set up the vendor and the vendor contact in Microsoft Dynamics AX. The external catalog’s vendor must also be added to the selected procurement category. For more information about registering vendors in Microsoft Dynamics AX, see Manage vendor requests overview. For information about how to assign vendor’s to a procurement category, see Key tasks: Set up and maintain procurement category hierarchies
Configure the external vendor catalog using the requirements for your vendor’s external catalog site.
Test the vendor’s external catalog configurations in the staging and production environments to verify that the settings are valid and that you can access the vendor’s external catalog.
Note
If the vendor does not provide a staging environment, you can only verify the vendor’s external catalog configuration in the vendor’s production environment.
Activate the external catalog.
Add the external vendor catalog link to the procurement catalog. For more information about how to add the external vendor catalog to a procurement catalog, see Key tasks: Create procurement catalogs.