A project manager can share information about bids that have been submitted by multiple vendors with the rest of the project team members by way of the Bid Comparison module and through exporting the Bid Comparison sheet data (record details and line items details) based on certain parameters.
The following explains the process of exporting the Bid Comparison sheet data based on certain parameters:
- Go to your <shell> (User mode).
- From the left Navigator, click the Financial Transactions node > Commitments sub-node > Requests for Bid sub-node.
- In the Requests for Bid log, click to select and then open a record.
- In the record <record-name> Requests for Bid log window, go to the desired tab that contains the bid information that you want to compare, for example, the Proposal Management tab.
- From the left-hand pane, click the Compare tab to open the Compare <record-name> window. By default, the Record Details tab is active which shows the details of the bid comparison. The other tab on the Compare <record-name> window is the Line Items tab.
- In the Record Details tab, from the top right-hand corner, click the Export icon to enable Unifier to generate the export file (The Excel file "Compare_Export - ....xlsx" shown at the bottom of the screen).
- After the Excel file is generated, open the file, or the exported comparison sheet file. Notice that the file hast to worksheets: Record Details and Line Items. These two worksheets correspond to the Record Details tab and the Line Items tab, on the Compare <record-name> window, respectively. The coloring scheme used within the columns of each tab is also maintained in the columns of the corresponding worksheets of the export sheet.
The Records Details worksheet contains the following informational text:
This file contains the proposals received for - <Record No>: <Record Title>
The content of this file is for information purpose only and cannot be used to import data into the system.
The upper form data has been exported into the Record Details worksheet. The line item data has been exported into the Line Items worksheet.
Proposals for the following Vendors have been exported along with the Requestor Estimates.
<Vendor 1, Vendor 2...>
The record details are displayed in columns. The Requestor Estimates column is locked, by default. The color format, as mentioned, is according to the color format of the sheet. The text in each cell is wrapped and can be displayed in multiple lines when the size exceeds the column width. The rest of the columns show the vendors (for example, the vendors according to the selection of the Star Vendors Only field at the time of export).
In the Line Items worksheet, the Requestor Estimates column is locked, by default. The color format, as mentioned, is according to the color format of the sheet. The rest of the columns show the vendors (for example, the vendors according to the selection of the Star Vendors Only field at the time of export).
When you are on the Compare <record-name> window, you can select the Star Vendors Only option before exporting the data and compare the requestor estimates with bids submitted by only the star vendors in the comparison sheet.
In general, on the Compare <record-name> window, you can conduct a combination of comparisons by selecting or not selecting the Attachments Only or the Star Vendors Only options and selecting various bids (under the Compare With drop-down field). The Sort icon (on the top right-hand corner, next to the Export icon) enables you to sort the bids displayed on the on the Compare <record-name> window.
Again, all of the selections or views set in the Compare <record-name> window will be reflected on the generated export file.