Affiliate Accounts is an optional feature in vWork that creates relationships between two vWork account holders to pass jobs between them. One vWork account is the source account for the job, and the other vWork account subcontracts to complete the job. 

The article, Use Affiliate Accounts to manage subcontracted work through vWork, explains the Affiliate Account job workflow and the relationship between Affiliate Account holders.

Before you can start subcontracting out jobs, or completing jobs as a subcontractor, you must set up the Affiliate Account relationship in your vWork account.

Note: You must have Administrator user permissions to establish an Affiliate Account relationship with another vWork account.

In this article

This article explains how to set up an Affiliate Account relationship to connect your vWork account to another Affiliate Account.

The topics include:

• What is involved in setting up an Affiliate Accounts relationship
• Source account: Send an invite to a subcontractor
• Source account: Change the user permissions for a subcontractor
• Subcontractor: Accept an affiliate account invitation to become a subcontractor from a Sending Affiliate

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What is involved in setting up an Affiliate Accounts relationship

Affiliate Account roles

There are two roles in the vWork Affiliate Account relationship.

• Receiving Affiliate: This is the subcontractor who completes the job for the source account.
  
  The source account sees the Receiving Affiliate account in their vWork Affiliate settings under the heading Receiving Affiliates.
  
  
  
  
• Sending Affiliate: This is the source account that creates and subcontracts out jobs to another affiliated vWork account.
  
  The subcontractor sees the source account as the Sending Affiliate in their vWork Affiliate settings under the heading Sending Affiliates.
  
  
  

Note: Your vWork account can have relationships as Sending Affiliate or Receiving Affiliate with several vWork accounts. 

Overview of the steps to establish the Affiliate Accounts relationship

The source account is always responsible for initiating the Affiliate Account relationship with the subcontractor. 

1. The source account sends an invite to a subcontractor.
   
   
2. The subcontractor accepts the invite to establish the relationship.

Once the Affiliate Account relationship is established no further action is required to connect the accounts. Now jobs can be freely shared from the source vWork account to the subcontractor’s vWork account.

Source account: Send an invite to a subcontractor

Before you attempt to create an Affiliate relationship with another vWork account, make sure you and your chosen subcontractor have both added the vWork Affiliate Account feature to your respective vWork accounts. You can read more about this in the article, Use Affiliate Accounts to manage subcontracted work through vWork.

To send an invitation to a Receiving Affiliate subcontractor. You must:

1. Create a new Receiving Affiliate relationship. This includes:
• Setting the user permissions for the Receiving Affiliate.
  The user permissions determine what parts of the job the Receiving Affiliate can view and interact with.
• Adding the Receiving Affiliate account details to your vWork account.
  
2. Send your Receiving Affiliate an invitation to become an affiliate with your vWork account. They accept the invitation to establish the relationship.
   

We will demonstrate these two steps with an example. In the example, Orange Gecko Group (the source account) will invite Indigo Inc to become an affiliate.

Create a new Receiving Affiliate (subcontractor) in your vWork account 

To create a new Receiving Affiliate account:

1. Go to Settings > Integrations > Affiliates.
   This is where you see a list of existing affiliate account relationships and create new Receiving Affiliate (subcontractor) relationships.
   
   
2. Click to open the screen where you add the details for the new Receiving Affiliate.
   
   
   

To set the Receiving Affiliate’s user permissions:

1. Click a checkbox to add a checkmark and set the user permissions for the Receiving Affiliate.
   You should only select the user permissions that you want to enable.
   
   You can choose from the following user permissions for the Receiving Affiliate:
   
   
   
   
2. Optionally, you can also set an Auto reject period from the drop-down list.
   
   The Auto reject period defines the period to time the Receiving Affiliate account administrator has to accept an invite to establish the affiliate account relationship. The default is set as Never. You can choose to select an auto reject period from minutes to weeks.
   
   
   
   In this example, we have chosen to enable all user permissions to provide the Receiving Affiliate with full access to the jobs that we subcontract to them. We have also chosen to not enable the Auto reject period.
   
   
   

To add the Affiliate Details:

1. Under the Affiliate Details heading add the name of the vWork account of the Receiving Affiliate and enter the contact details for a user with Admin permissions from the Affiliate Account. The email address you enter here is where the Affiliate Invite is sent to.
   
   ❗Caution: Once you save the Receiving Affiliate you won’t be able to edit the information you enter in the Affiliate Details fields without deleting the Receiving Affiliate and recreating the relationship. Make sure you take care to enter the Affiliate Details correctly.
   
   In this example, the Receiving Affiliate is called Indigo Inc. Herb Gardener is our contact and an Administrator for Indigo Inc. We have added the subcontractor’s business name, Indigo Inc. to the Name field, Herb’s email address to the Email field, and also included Herb’s name in the Notes field.
   
   
2. Click to send the Receiving Affiliate an invite to link their vWork account to yours.
   
   

Monitor and manage the Receiving Affiliate Invite

When you click after setting the user permissions and adding the Affiliate Details in the previous topic, you are returned to the main Affiliates page. Confirmation that the invite was sent shows in a green banner immediately after it is sent. You can also view other pending invites and the details of other Affiliated Accounts on this page. 

Pending invites: 

1. Pending invites are shown under the Pending Invites heading. 

• • Click the resend icon found in the Actions column to resend an invite.
    
    
  • Click the cancel icon   found in the Actions column to cancel the invite. This disables the Activate Affiliate link in the invite email sent to the Receiving Affiliate account’s email contact.

Accepted invites:

1. Once an invite is accepted by the Receiving Affiliate the relationship shows under the Receiving Affiliates heading. This is a list of all affiliate accounts that are able to receive subcontracted jobs from your vWork account.
   
   In this example, Indigo Inc is the subcontractor we have set up as the Receiving Affiliate. You can see that Herb Gardener accepted the invite and the date and time that it was accepted.
   
   
   
   
2. Once an invite is accepted you will also receive an email confirmation.
   
   

Source account: Change the user permissions for a subcontractor

Once a Receiving Affiliate (subcontractor) is set up in your account you can change their user permissions if needed.

Note: You aren’t able to change any other Receiving Affiliate account information.

To change the user permissions:

1. Go to Settings > Integrations > Affiliates.
   
   
2. Under the Receiving Affiliates heading find the subcontractor and click the icon under the Actions column to open the user permissions.
   
   
   
   
3. Make the changes to the user permissions and click .

Subcontractor: Accept an affiliate account invitation to become a subcontractor from a Sending Affiliate

Before you can complete jobs in vWork as an affiliated subcontractor make sure that you have added the vWork Affiliate Account feature to your vWork account. You can read more about this in the article, Use Affiliate Accounts to manage subcontracted work through vWork.

Accept an invitation to link your vWork account with another vWork Affiliate Account

To receive jobs from a source affiliate account (Sending Affiliate) you must accept the emailed invite to link your vWork accounts. This establishes the affiliate account relationship between your two vWork accounts.

Note: This is an invitation to form a relationship with another vWork Affiliate Account. It is not an invitation to subcontract for a specific job. That is explained in the article, Manage an Affiliates Account job as a subcontractor.

To accept an invite from a Sending Affiliate:

1. 1. Check your email for an invitation to link your vWork account with your Sending Affiliate.
      
      
   2. Open the email and click the Activate Affiliation link.
      
      
      
      🔔 Important: This email is the only way you can access the option to accept or decline the affiliate account link. If you don’t receive it please check your spam folder and, if needed, contact the Sending Affiliate to check if the account details they have used to email you are correct.
      
      
   3. When you click the link, the Affiliates settings page opens in your vWork Account with the option to either Accept or Decline the affiliation invite.
      
      Click to accept the invite and enable the Affiliate Account to send jobs to your vWork account.
      
      
      
      
   4. Once you accept the invite from the Sending Affiliate the relationship will show under the Sending Affiliates heading. This is a list of all affiliate accounts that can send jobs from their vWork account to your vWork account for you to complete.
      
      

Remove an affiliate account relationship link

Either party to an affiliate account relationship can remove the relationship link.

To remove an affiliate account relationship link:

Go to Settings > Integrations > Affiliates.

1. Under the Receiving Affiliates or Sending Affiliates heading, find the subcontractor with whom you want to break the relationship.
   
   
2. Go to the Actions column and click to remove the affiliate relationship link.
   
   
3. You’ll see confirmation that the link has been broken in a banner at the top of the Affiliates setting page and the affiliated account will no longer show under the Receiving Affiliates or Sending Affiliates headings. You are also sent an email advising the link has been removed.