Inviting to RFB

For public bidding, invitations are sent to the Vendors that you have selected from the Vendors business process (a company-level BP). The Vendors BPs can be found using the following steps:

Go to the Company Workspace tab and switch to User mode.
In the left Navigator, select Company Logs, and then select Vendor.

To start the bidding process:

Go to the shell tab and switch to User mode.
In the left Navigator, select Logs, and the select Request for Bid.
Open the bid that you want to send.
Go to the Proposal Management tab.
If this is the first time you are sending an invitation, click Add to open the Add Vendors window, select the applicable Vendors BPs, and move them from the Available block to the Selected block. When all the applicable vendors have been selected, click Add. See Public Bidding and Private or Non-Public Bidding for more details about the options in the Proposal Management tab.
Select a vendor from the log.
If you are sending an invitation for the first time, click Send Invitation. Unifier Essentials sends two emails:
1. An invitation email, which contains the Unifier Essentials Login URL.
2. A credential email, which contains the user name and password.
If a vendor who has received an invitation loses their password, the vendor can change their password with the Forgot Password link on the Sign In page. For best results, bidders should change the password at the first log in, and then sign in using the newly set password.

The left section includes the general information about the requestor and the bid.

To modify the date, click the date icon, modify the date, and click Done.

The right panel includes the list of invitees to whom the invitations have been either sent out or will be sent in future.

When you click Add, a new full-screen window overlay appears (similar to BP Picker) that lets you select the list of vendors (from the Master Vendor List BP) that you want to add to the invitees list.

Add vendors by selecting items from the Available list and moving them to the Selected list, using the arrow buttons in the middle. Click Add when finished.

The gear menu ( ) options in the left tab are:

Open Vendor Details
Remove
Send Mail

Be aware that these options change depending on the Status of each invitation. For example, Send Mail is not available for vendors whose Status is Not Invited and Remove is visible but only functional for vendors whose Status is Not Invited.

The right pane displays the following tabs:

Attachments
Mail
For correspondence with internal team members. Unopened emails are displayed in boldface type to indicate that they have not been viewed.

For an RFB BP that is enabled for public bidding, if you click Send Invitation after the BP is opened for public bidding, the system displays an overlay screen that lets you modify the due date. Modifying the due date in public bidding is similar to the same feature in private bidding.

To view a list of emails sent:

Click the Mail tab in the right pane.
Use the column headings to sort the list by From, To, Bidder Company, Subject, or Date, or use Find on Page _ Find on Page to specify search criteria.

See Also