# Using External Response Collaboration (QMS) QMS includes a feature set to streamline temporary, short-term access to your Vault for suppliers, partners, contractors, or other external parties to respond to your organization's audit findings on behalf of their company. You can give your organization's auditor users the ability to request responses from recognized external contacts, collaborate with those individuals in Vault, and close out findings with minimal or no need to manage user account provisioning for those external parties. When authorized internal Vault users request collaboration from external contacts, Vault automates the provisioning of _External User_ accounts for those contacts and invites them to collaborate with specialized email messages. Vault can also close out their user accounts when the collaboration is complete.
## Defining External Collaborators On applicable records, you can identify an assignee/collaborator from an external organization by selecting their _Person_ record from the **External Collaboration Object Control** field. If no _Person_ record exists for the external collaborator, you can create a new _Person_ record from the _Persons_ related object section on a record representing an organization. The external contacts available to select on a record may be constrained to only _Persons_ within the _Health Authority_, _Hospital_, _Hospital Location_, _Organization_, _Organization Location_, or _Third Party_ involved in the process. For example, following the Audit Finding response process flow, the organization in the _Supplier_ field on the _External Finding (Quality Event)_ record. ### Contact Lists If [configured by an Admin](/en/lr/65819/#organization-object), you can define _Persons_ related to an organization, creating a contact list for external audit responders. This is defined by populating the applicable [organization field](/en/lr/65819/#person-object) present on _Person_ records in your Vault. ## Automating User Account Provisioning When your organization identifies _Persons_ to assign external findings or requests to, Vault can invite or uninvite these persons from your Vault automatically at specific lifecycle states within the applicable lifecycle. Upon beginning collaboration, Vault can automatically detect if the _Person_ assigned as the _External Collaborator_ on a record has a user account in your Vault. If Vault detects that the _Person_ does not have a user account, Vault creates an _External User_ licensed user. If Vault detects that the _Person_ already has a user account, it activates their existing user regardless of security or licensing, and grants access for their user account to the assigned finding or record by adding membership to the _External Collaborators_ application role, as needed. When the third-party contact has finished collaboration in your Vault, Vault can automatically deactivate that user account, limiting the total count of active _External User_ licenses at any given time. Vault will leave a collaborating external user active until all work requested of them across all processes with external collaboration configured is completed. User accounts provisioned by Vault's QMS user automation have the _Managed By QMS Automation_ field on their _User_ record set to _True_. If this field is set to _False_, a user will never be activated or deactivated by QMS automation. ## Replacing External Collaborators If an external collaborator needs to be replaced with a different external collaborator, the _Reassign External Collaborator_ user action must be utilized on the appropriate lifecycle state where the external collaborator has a collaboration task. In the event that you must replace an external collaborator, Vault handles the reassignment in the following ways: * The prior external collaborator is replaced with the new external collaborator in the _External Collaborator Object Control_ on the record. * If the prior external collaborator still has an active user account and open workflow tasks on other processes, Vault removes them from the workflow tasks associated with the reassigned record only and keeps their user account active. If, after the cancellation of their current task, the prior external collaborator has an active user account and no active workflow tasks remaining in Vault, Vault inactivates their account and sends them a _Goodbye Collaborator_ email. * If a new collaborator is specified and the new external collaborator has an active user account, Vault assigns them a workflow task and notifies them via email. If their user account is inactive, Vault activates it, sends them a _Welcome Collaborator_ or _Welcome Back Collaborator_ email, assigns them a workflow task, and notifies them via email. The user who performed the reassignment receives a notification when Vault has successfully completed the reassignment. * If a new collaborator is specified and the new external collaborator does not have an active user account, Vault creates and activates a new user, sends them a _Welcome Collaborator_ email, assigns them a workflow task, and notifies them via email.
If configured by an Admin, running the _Reassign External Collaborator_ user action on a record also reassigns the external collaborator on any associated open checklists. Completed checklists cannot be reassigned. For additional considerations, see [Working with External Collaboration Checklists](/en/lr/758747/).