What is the Supplier Portal?

The Supplier Portal lets your suppliers confirm, accept, or propose changes to a purchase order (or work order for co-manufacturers) through a one-click emailed link — no supplier account or password required. Everything they submit lands directly in the purchase order's activity log and files section.

Step 1 — Turn the Supplier Portal on

  1. Click your profile icon in the top-right corner (next to the notification bell) and choose Settings.
  2. Navigate to Purchase Orders.
  3. Find the Supplier Portal toggle and switch it on.
  4. Click Save Settings.

Who can do this? Only Admin and Super Admin users can see and change this toggle.

Step 2 — Check your Portal Address (usually nothing to do)

Once the toggle is on, a Supplier Portal Address field appears below it.

  • Leave it blank in almost all cases. Luminous automatically directs suppliers to your account's standard portal address — you don't need to configure anything here.
  • Only fill it in if your portal is served from your own custom domain (e.g., https://acme.portal.luminousolutions.com). If you do enter a custom address, it must be a full https:// address with no path and no trailing slash. A path here would produce a broken link that nobody can diagnose from a supplier's inbox.

Step 3 — Make sure your supplier has a contact with an email address

Before you can send a link, the supplier on the purchase order must have at least one contact record with an email address. If no emailable contact exists, the send will fail.

To add a contact:

  1. Open the supplier's record (via the Suppliers section).
  2. Add a contact with a valid email address.

When you send a link, each contact gets their own individual link — links are never shared. This ensures the activity log can record exactly who responded.

Step 4 — Send your first link from a Purchase Order

  1. Open the purchase order.
  2. In the Email to supplier section near the top of the order, click Send to contacts (or Send again / Resend), and make sure Also send a portal link is ticked in the dialog.
  3. In the Search Contact field, search for and add each contact you want to notify — there is no default selection, so add every contact you want to reach.
  4. Click send — each contact receives their own email with a one-click link.

The link is valid for 72 hours. Once a supplier clicks it and opens the portal, their link converts to a session that stays active as long as they're using it (idle timeout applies) up to a 30-day maximum.

Before sending to a real supplier, you can verify that your email delivery, queue worker, and portal address are all working correctly:

  • On any purchase order, click Email me a test link.
  • Luminous will send your own user account the same email a supplier would receive.
  • The link is real and fully functional, so you can walk through the portal experience exactly as your supplier would.

Important: what happens if you turn the portal off

Disabling the Supplier Portal toggle is immediate and irreversible for any links already sent:

  • Every portal link you have already emailed stops working instantly.
  • Anyone currently using the portal is signed out immediately.
  • Turning the portal back on later does not restore the old links or sessions — you would need to resend links to every supplier.

Luminous shows a confirmation dialog when you save with the toggle turned off, so you can review this consequence before it takes effect.

RequirementWhere to set it
Supplier Portal toggle is onSettings → Purchase Orders
Supplier Portal Address is blank (or a valid custom https:// origin)Settings → Purchase Orders
Purchase order has a supplier assignedOn the purchase order itself
Supplier has at least one contact with an email addressSupplier record → Contacts