The Proposal Management tab will have the option to add vendors and send out invites. The bid received will also be listed in the Proposal Management tab. The following scenario explains the function of the Proposal Management tab.
Employee 1 (Requestor) initiates a bid package and adds the bid-related line items and submits the bid package to Employee 2 for review.
Employee 2 reviews the bid package and sends the bid package to the "Bid Invitation" step in the workflow.
Unifier adds the Proposal Management tab to the bid package, automatically, if the Send bid invitations and allow bid receipt option (in uDesigner, Requests for Bid > Upper Form > Properties > Options) is checked.
Note: Starting with the 20.11 release, the Invite option will not be available in the Menu Options drop-down.
The Proposal Management tab opens and provides the following options:
Field | Description |
|---|---|
Add | To add vendors. Unifier launches a picker with references to Master Vendor List or the Project Vendor List (depending on the Send bid invitations and allow bid receipt option selected in uDesigner). |
Send Invitation | Once the vendors are added to the screen, Employee 2 can select the vendor records and click "Send Invitation" to send the invites to the selected vendors, listed in the window. |
Actions | Contains options such as:
See below for details on the Actions options. |
Refresh | To refresh the list of items on the window. |
Find on Page | To search and find any particular vendor record. |
The details for the request is displayed in the upper portion of the Proposal Management tab. These details include fields and columns.
Fields | Columns |
|---|---|
Due Date | Proposal |
Requestor Name | Status |
First Name | |
Phone | Last Name |
| Company Name |
| User ID |
| Invite Date |
The above fields are editable. Once edited, the new values are saved automatically. The values of the fields listed will be fetched from the Vendor BP, in the BP log.
When Employee 2 clicks Add, Unifier launches the Vendor picker which references to the Master Vendor List.
Employee 2 can select the vendors to be added to the Proposal Management tab. The selected companies on the right section would be added to the Proposal Management tab log, displaying the values for the "uuu_contact_company" and "uuu_user_id" columns.
- If Employee 2 clicks Add, then the selected vendor records will get added to the Proposal Management tab tab.
- If Employee 2 clicks Cancel, then the action will be canceled.
Once the selected vendor records are added to the Proposal Management tab, the status of the invites would reflect: "Not Invited," and the "Invite Date" would be blank, as the invitation has not been sent yet.
Employee 2 can select multiple vendor records (Unifier would highlight the records in blue color) and click Send Invitation.
When Employee 2 clicks a vendor's record to send, the first invitation (from the Proposal Management tab) will appear indicating that the upper form would get locked for any further changes.
If Employee 2 clicks No, then the invitations would not be sent.
Once Employee 2 clicks Send Invitation, Unifier will display a confirmation request. Once Employee 2 clicks Yes, the invitation will be sent to the selected vendors. Clicking No will cancel the invitation.
Once the invites are sent, Unifier updates the invite sent date and time in the "Invite Date" column of the Proposal Management tab. In addition, the status of the invite would be updated to "Not Responded," from "Not Invited."
When the bidder takes an action on the invite, the invite status will turn to one of these:
- Submitted
- Awarded
- Viewed
- Not Responded
- Not Invited
- Accepted
- Declined
See Opened or Viewed Bid Invitation for details on each status, above.
The gear menu (
) options for a vendor record are:
- Open Vendor Details
To open the vendor details in a pop-up window and reference the details from the Vendor BP. The requestor will be able to view the vendor details only if the requestor has permissions to view. When you click this option the Vendors window opens with the Vendor Details tab displayed.
- Send Mail
The user initiates a new email to all of the selected vendor records. See After the RFB Due Date for details on how to continue working with the bidders even after bid closes.
- Send Password
To send password to the selected vendors.
- Remove
To remove vendors from the list in the Proposal Management tab log. You can only remove the vendors who have not received an invite (Status = Not Invited).
Any addendum that needs to be sent to all of the invited vendors will have to be sent from the Attachments tab of Proposal Management tab. If a vendor is added to the Proposal Management tab, Unifier selects the first vendor record by default.
The Linked Mail tab displays:
- All of the invitations that have been sent.
- All of the initiated emails.
The gear menu () options for an uninvited bidder (Status = Not Invited) is as follows:
- Open Vendor Details
- Send Invite
- Send Password
- Remove
Once the RFB due date has been reached, the Proposal column is displayed (if the Send bid invitations and allow bid receipt option in uDesigner is selected). The Proposal column contains a View link for all of those vendors who have submitted a response.
If anytime before the bid closure date the bidder withdraws the submission, the View link will be removed automatically, and the bid status would become Withdrawn.
If the option Display bid responses before RFB Due Date (in uDesigner) is not checked, then the Proposal column would not be available for the requestor. The Response or Proposal columns would only be available after the RFB due date.
After the RFB due date, you have the option of comparing bids and determine the winner bid (Award Winning). In this case, the Add and Send Invitation options are no longer available.
- See After the RFB Due Date for details on comparing bids.
- See Before the RFB Due Date for details on how to view the bid responses before the RFB is due.
A requestor can select the vendor record and can click Award Winning Proposal, or the Award Winning Bid option from the gear icon, to award any particular vendor who has submitted the bid response. The Award Winning Bid option would only be available in a step where "Winning bid" picker is added. Once awarded, the Award Winning Bid option would be disabled, unless the requestor cancels the awarding. Also, if the requestor selects any vendor record with the status other than "Submitted" (for example, In Progress, Not Responded, Not Invited, and so forth), the Award Winning Bid option would be disabled.
When the clicks Award Winning Bid, Unifier displays a pop-up window that contains the details of the bid response.
When the clicks Confirm, the vendor is awarded the bid.
When the clicks Cancel, the action will get canceled.
The awarded vendor name appears in the upper form of the Winning Bid picker.
A requestor can select Cancel Award to cancel an awarded vendor. The Cancel Award option is available under the gear icon menu of the awarded vendor record, only. Once the award is canceled, the status will be reverted to "Submitted."