Preferred vendor / carrier / TPA admin (legacy block)

What this block is

Below the row stack on the Programs page sits a separate, older piece of UI labeled Admin. It is a tiered directory of preferred vendors, preferred carriers, and preferred TPAs: a simple table you add names to, tier them, and optionally leave a note on. It predates the Programs primitive described in Programs: how HQ codifies what the network adopts and the Programs catalog above it, and it is kept in place, not because it is the recommended way to set up a new preferred-partner relationship, but because a handful of other surfaces still read from it: the badge an operator sees on a vendor card in IQ, and the quarterly network review report HQ generates.

Per the platform's visual rule against stacking frames on frames, this block does not render as its own card. It flows flat below a hairline separator under the row stack, with a plain section header, a row of tab pills, and a plain table, the same "no containers in containers" treatment every other flat section on the platform uses.

Where to find it

Open Programs from the HQ sidebar at hq.verinode.ai/programs, then scroll past the hero panel and the Active, Drafts, and Sunset rows. The Admin section is the last thing on the page. Everyone with access to the Programs page can see it; only group admins can add to it.

The section header and the three tabs

The header reads Admin in small caps, then a headline that changes with whichever tab is selected: "Preferred Vendors," "Preferred Carriers," or "Preferred TPAs." Underneath, a one-line subhead: "Tiered partner directory. Picks here flow into operator badges and adoption metrics across the network."

Three pill tabs sit just below the header: Vendors, Carriers, TPAs. Clicking one swaps the table underneath to that type; it does not touch the Active/Drafts/Sunset rows or the hero panel above.

If you are an admin, an add button sits top right of the header, its label matching the active tab: Add Vendor, Add Carrier, or Add TPA. Non-admins don't see this button at all.

The table: Name, Tier, Adoption, Notes

Each tab renders the same four columns:

• Name. The vendor, carrier, or TPA's display name, taken from the network's canonical entity catalog at the moment it was added.
• Tier. A small pill reading Approved, Preferred, or Required. This is the strength of the designation, not a status: all three tiers are active picks, they differ only in how binding HQ intends the relationship to be for franchisees.
• Adoption. A percentage, or a dash when it hasn't been measured yet. This is not something you set when you add a row; it is filled in later by a background snapshot job that measures how much of the network is actually using that vendor, carrier, or TPA. A dash here means the snapshot hasn't run for that party yet, not that adoption is zero.
• Notes. Whatever internal note was left when the row was added, or a dash if none was.

While the table is loading, it shows a single centered row reading "Loading…"

Empty state. Each tab has its own empty-state row when nothing has been added yet:

• Vendors: "Preferred vendors will appear here as you add them."
• Carriers: "Preferred carriers will appear here as you add them."
• TPAs: "Preferred tpas will appear here as you add them."

Adding a preferred vendor, carrier, or TPA

1. 1Select the tab you want (Vendors, Carriers, or TPAs), then click the add button in the header (Add Vendor, Add Carrier, or Add TPA). A modal opens titled "Add Preferred Vendor," "Add Preferred Carrier," or "Add Preferred TPA."
2. 2Type at least two characters into Search Catalog (placeholder: "Type at least 2 characters…"). After a short pause, Verinode searches the network's canonical entity catalog for matches. While the search runs the list reads "Searching…"; under two characters it reads "Start typing to search the catalog."; if nothing matches it reads "No matches yet." Vendor-tab searches also surface catalog entries classified as products alongside vendors, so a manufacturer's product line can turn up here too.
3. 3Click a result to select it. The modal shows the chosen name (and its domain, if the catalog has one) in a small confirmation box, with a Change link if you picked the wrong one.
4. 4Set the Tier: Approved, Preferred, or Required. Preferred is selected by default when the modal opens.
5. 5Optionally add Notes, an internal, free-text field (placeholder: "Internal notes (optional)").
6. 6Click Add. The button reads "Saving…" while the write is in flight. On success the modal closes, the table refreshes, and a toast confirms: "Vendors added," "Carriers added," or "TPAs added," matching whichever tab you were on. On failure, a toast shows the specific error, or "Save failed" if none was returned.

If you add an entity that is already on the list for that tab, Verinode updates its existing row (tier and notes included) instead of creating a duplicate. There is no separate edit or remove control on this screen itself: once a row is added, changing its tier or notes means adding it again with the new values, and removing a designation entirely is not exposed from this particular table.

How this relates to the Programs primitive

This block looks and behaves like a standalone legacy table, but under the hood it now reads and writes the same underlying rows as the Programs catalog above it: one the network data row per (network, type), holding an approved-party list of the network data rows. Adding a vendor here creates or reuses a program named "Preferred Vendors" (or "Preferred Carriers," "Preferred TPAs"), set to an approved-list enrollment model with an annual audit cadence for vendors and a quarterly cadence for carriers and TPAs, exactly like a Vendor approval, Carrier, or TPA program created through + New program. The tier you pick here, and the notes you leave, are stored inside that approved-party row's terms, alongside the same negotiated-rate field a full vendor-approval program uses, see Approved parties on a program for how that data is structured on the primitive side.

What makes this block "legacy," then, is not its data model anymore, it is its position and its purpose: it exists purely to keep the older consumers below working while they get migrated over, not as the place to start a new preferred-partner relationship.

Where these picks show up

Two places outside the Programs page still read from this data:

• Operator badges. When a franchisee's vendor card in IQ matches a canonical entity that appears on any of their HQ networks' preferred lists, IQ shows a Steel Blue "Network Preferred" badge on it, tagged with the tier and which network designated it. If a franchisee belongs to more than one network and both have an opinion on the same vendor, the stronger tier wins on the badge. This is a soft nudge only: it never blocks a franchisee from using a vendor that isn't on the list. Carrier and TPA badges are wired on the data side but don't yet render on the operator-facing card, that surface is still being built out.
• The quarterly network review report. The PDF and spreadsheet HQ generates each quarter includes a line naming how many preferred vendors and preferred TPAs exist across the network, drawn from the same counts this table manages. See Report library for the rest of what that report covers.

The privacy boundary

Adoption on this table is a network-wide aggregate, the share of franchisees using that vendor, carrier, or TPA, not a list of which specific franchisees do or don't. Nothing on this screen exposes an individual franchisee's actual spend, contract terms, or usage; it stays an aggregate percentage the same way every other adoption figure on the Programs page does. See Network privacy boundary for how that boundary holds everywhere on HQ.

Related

• Programs: how HQ codifies what the network adopts: the full Programs page this block sits at the bottom of.
• The Programs catalog: the hero, tabs, and Active/Drafts/Sunset rows above this block.
• Approved parties on a program: how a vendor, carrier, or TPA's qualification, tier, and negotiated rate live on the new primitive.
• Vendors: negotiated rate and rate drift: what a negotiated rate captured here or on a program feeds into.
• Vendors participating in a program: how a vendor's own detail page shows which programs it's on.
• Compliance: where program-level audits and violations roll up network-wide.
• Network privacy boundary: the rule that keeps this table's numbers at the aggregate level.