To invite a bidder to submit a bid
- Go to your project. Ensure that you are in the User mode.
- Click on Tasks.
- From the Tasks log:
- Select the task you want to work with, and click
> Open. You can also double-click on a task to open it.
The view-only form displays all fields on the record.
- The Upper Form contains project information, including the record number and title.
- The Task Details section displays who sent the record, who can take action on the record, who was copied on the record, the step to which the record was sent, the task due date, the task status, and in Classic View, any task notes. You cannot make changes to the Action form when you are on the Review step.
- You can add Task Notes for the next step, but you cannot view previous Task Notes.
- If you want to revisit Task Notes from the previous step, you must undo Accept Task via Actions > Undo Accept Task.
- Select the task you want to work with, and click
- In the Line Items section you can Modify/Add/Delete Line Items as needed. You must complete all required fields on each line before you can save the Line Items form.
- Click OK to save Line Items.
- In the Requester block there are three required fields:
- Name — Unifier auto-populates this field from the user profile of the record creator, but it is editable and you can change it if desired.
- E-mail — Unifier auto-populates this field from the user profile of the record creator, but it is editable and you can change it if desired.
- Phone — Unifier auto-populates this field from the user profile of the record creator, but it is editable and you can change it if desired.
- Click the Invite button. This action saves the record and disallows further modifications until after the due date. The Invitations window opens.
- Click the Add button in the toolbar. The Vendors window opens and displays a list of available vendors.
- Select the vendors that you want to receive the Requests for Bid and click the Attach button. Unifier displays the selected vendors in the Invitations window.
- You can add multiple vendors at once by using your keyboard's Shift key or Ctrl key.
- If desired, you can add additional vendors, or remove them from the list as needed.
- Select a vendor and click the Send Invitation button.
- On the Confirmation dialog box click Yes to continue with the bid invitation or No to halt the bid invitation. If you selected Yes, an invitation to bid on the project is sent to the vendor's email address on file in the Vendors record.
- Select the same vendor to whom you just sent the bid invitation and click the Send Password button. This action sends the vendor a user name, password, and URL which is needed to access a private, secure Unifier workspace where he or she can prepare the bid.
Copying an Existing BP
When a requestor sends out the bid package to the bidders, the bidders receive the request along with its line items. The line items field can have the following information:
- Unit Price
- Quantity
- Unit of Measure
- Amount
The requestor enters values in the line items fields and submits the request.
When a requester creates a new Request for Bid (RFB) BP, or when a bidder responds to an RFB, both the requestor and the bidder can copy an existing BP, respectively.
When copying an existing BP (whether to create a request or respond to a request), Unifier copies the values of all line items of the source BP. The administrators have the option to either allow or prevent the values to be copied over to the new BP.
If a requestor, or bidder, decides to copy an existing BP and create a new request, or response, the values of the line items fields gets copied into the new BP (request or response). Since the inclusion of the values can cause conflict, Unifier enables the users (requestor admin or bidder admin) to reset the values of copied fields, in uDesigner, when copying an existing BP that is going to be used for a new BP.
Once the listed fields are selected in the uDesigner options, Unifier will automatically avoid copying of the requestor or bidder data elements accordingly. As a result, the values for the selected fields will be blank in the form and the user can enter new values.
As a bid package creator or requestor, you will be able to:
- Add vendors and send out invites.
- View the submitted response, by the invited bidders.
- Send emails to vendors, from the "Proposal Management" tab, by selecting one or multiple vendors at a time.
- Remove the added vendors from the list, if they have not been invited already.
- View the vendor details, by selecting the vendor record.
- Compare the bid submissions, from the "Proposal Management" tab.
- Award bid or cancel award, from the "Proposal Management" tab.
- Add addendum or access linked mails from the "Proposal Management" tab.