A participant relationship (also called a link) defines how a Participant Organisation is connected to your organisation in your Ecosystem. It populates the Relationship column on the Participants List and controls which Participants appear in your look-up lists. You can set a relationship when you add a Participant, and change or remove it later from the Participants List.
For the concept and how it behaves, see What is a participant relationship?
Important: there is no invitation, accept or decline step. A relationship is created instantly and one-sidedly by whichever organisation adds the other. The other party does not need to confirm it, so do not wait for a two-way handshake. No non-public data is made available via a relationship, this needs to be permissioned and shared separately.
Set or edit a relationship
To set or edit a relationship, open the Participants List (Ecosystem Registries > Participants) and use the Edit link action (the link icon) on the Participant's row. In the Edit Link window, choose one or more Relationship type values, and set the Nature of relationship to Direct or indirect (toggle off Direct for an indirect relationship). The relationship types are:
Relationship type | When to use it |
Supplier | The Participant supplies goods or inputs to you. |
Buyer | The Participant buys goods from you. |
Logistics | The Participant provides transport or logistics services. |
Regulator | The Participant is a regulatory body overseeing your trade. |
Regulated | The Participant is a party that you, as a regulator, oversee. |
Financier | The Participant provides finance (for example, a bank or insurer). |
Financed | The Participant is a party that you finance. |
Other | Any other relationship not covered above. |
Save your changes to update the link. The same relationship fields are also available when you add a Participant.
To add a Participant, see How do I add a new organisation to my ecosystem?
Note: the system records the mirror image of the relationship from the other party's side. If you add a Participant as your Supplier, you are automatically recorded as their Buyer. You cannot create a relationship with yourself, and a duplicate relationship of the same type is ignored.
Relationships that are created automatically
You do not always create relationships by hand. The system also adds them automatically as a side effect of other actions. For example, linking one of another Participant's Locations creates a relationship with that Location's owner, and being onboarded into another organisation's Ecosystem creates a relationship too. These appear in your Participants List the same way as ones you add yourself.
Remove a relationship
To remove your link to a Participant, use the Remove relationship action (the crossed-out eye icon) on the Participant's row, then confirm with Remove Relationship.
Important: removing a relationship takes the Participant out of your look-up list, but it does not delete the Participant from the system. If you also hold relationships with Locations owned by that Participant, those are removed as well.