How You Add Requirements by Spreadsheet

Spreadsheets facilitate easy and efficient offline development of negotiation requirements. Spreadsheet import is very useful when dealing with negotiations that have many requirements or requirements having complex criteria.

You can view and complete the spreadsheet online, or you can download the spreadsheet and complete it offline. This facilitates easy entry and review by multiple participants as well as the ability to complete the spreadsheet over a period of time.

For fields which have specific possible values (for example, Yes or No), you can click in the field, and a down arrow appears at the end of the fields. You can click the arrow to display the values for the field. From the dialog window, you can select the appropriate value.

The requirements spreadsheet is not tied to a particular negotiation. You can download and save a spreadsheet containing your values, and then upload it later to a different negotiation.

The following table describes each spreadsheet field and indicates which fields are required and which are optional.

How You Add Requirements Spreadsheet

You can open the spreadsheet online by selecting the Open with option on the Opening Add Requirements dialog window. The spreadsheet opens, and you can enter your values. Once you are finished defining your requirement information, you can save it locally.

The Add Requirements spreadsheet uses Excel 2007 and later. Excel macros generate fields needed to define all your requirements, so you must enable macros to take advantage of all the spreadsheet capabilities. Consult the help for your version of Excel to enable macros.

Once you enable macros and open the spreadsheet file, you will see a new tab called Oracle Sourcing. By using the operations available from this tab, you can easily create new requirements and requirement sections. Specifically, you can:

Add a section.

You can define a new section name, select and add an existing section name, or use an existing qualification area defined in Oracle Supplier Qualification to create a section including its requirements. When you use a qualification area, its questions are added as requirements.
Add a requirement.

You can define a completely new requirement, or use existing questions in Oracle Supplier Qualification to create your requirement.
Add acceptable values.

You can define acceptable values for multiple choice requirements or number/date/date and time requirements that are automatically scored.
Use the groups displayed in the margin to collapse or expand sections of the spreadsheet to more easily navigate among your requirement sections and requirements.

How You Manipulate the Spreadsheet

Once you open the spreadsheet, you see an additional tab called Oracle Sourcing. If you click that tab, you see three sections.

Add section

You can use the options available from the Add section to add new requirement sections, requirements, or acceptable values for a requirement.
Edit section

You can use the options available from the Edit section to perform standard editing tasks.
Import section

You use the Generate Upload File option to create a .zip file using the information in your spreadsheet.

To add a new requirement section, highlight the row for an existing section. This enables the options in the Add section. Click the Add Section option. A new set of entry fields are generated in the spreadsheet, and you can use them to define your new section.

To add a new requirement, highlight any row within the section that will contain the new requirement. Click the Add Requirement option. A new set of entry fields is generated where you can define your new requirement.

To add new acceptable values for a requirement, highlight any of the rows for the requirement. Click the Add Acceptable Value option. A new row is added to the acceptable values area for the requirement. Note that depending on which requirement type and scoring method you select, the spreadsheet will automatically generate a set of five rows where you can enter acceptable values.

Once you complete your spreadsheet, save it locally. When you are ready to upload your new requirement information, click the Generate Upload File option. This creates a .zip file in the same folder where you saved your spreadsheet after you completed it. To upload the requirements to your negotiation, navigate to the Edit Negotiations: Requirements page. From the Actions menu, select the Add by Spreadsheet > Import Requirements option. Browse to the location where you saved your spreadsheet and where the generated .zip file is stored. Select the .zip file and click OK.

Note that on the Import Requirements window, you have the option to either append your new requirements to any existing requirements, or to overwrite any existing requirements with your new requirements.

Requirement Section Columns

The following table shows the columns used in the requirement section of the Add Requirements spreadsheet.

Column Name	Explanation	Comments/Values
Number	This column appears if you are exporting existing requirements using this spreadsheet. The number value identifies the requirement section.	NA
Section (Required)	The name of the section containing the following requirements. The Section column has a length limit of 240 characters.	If you clicked Add Section, this is a free form text field. If you clicked Add Predefined Section, this field displays a list of predefined sections to choose from. If you click Add Predefined Qualification Area, the Qualification Area column is displayed instead of the Section column.
Evaluation Stage (Required)	The stage (Technical or Commercial) in a two-stage RFQ during which this requirement is evaluated.	Two stage RFQs group requirements into either technical or commercial requirement sections. All the technical requirements are evaluated and scored before any of the commercial requirements can be unlocked and accessed.
Weight	The weight value reflects the importance of this requirement section to other requirement sections.	The sum of the weights of all the scored requirements across all sections must add up to 100. (Note that you can upload this spreadsheet without the weights equaling 100, assuming you add additional weighted requirements online. But the weights must equal 100 before you can validate or publish the negotiation.) If weights are not enabled for the negotiation, the Weight column is not displayed in the spreadsheet. Instead, the Maximum Score column is displayed and the total maximum score of all the requirements within the section is shown.

Requirement Columns

The following table shows the columns used to define columns in the Add Requirement spreadsheet.

Column Name	Explanation	Comments/Values
Number	This column appears if you are exporting existing requirements using this spreadsheet. The number value identifies the requirement.	NA
Requirement (Required) Question	Name of the requirement.	Requirements have a limit of 80 characters If you click Add Predefined Question, this column is named Question. If you are exporting existing requirements that are based on questions that have revisions, the revision number is displayed in parenthesis. For example: Applicable certifications (Revision 2).
Requirement Text (Required)	Text of the requirement.	NA
Level (Required)	The level at which this requirement applies.	Supplier/Supplier site
Response (Required)	Requirement behavior.	Possible values are: Required (a supplier response is required) Optional (a supplier response is not required) Display only (informational) Internal (available for internal viewing and scoring)
Requirement Type (Required)	Controls what type of response the supplier can enter.	Possible values are: Text entry box. Multiple choice with a single selection. Multiple choice with multiple selections. If you use either of the multiple choice-based options, you must also define acceptable values for the requirement. (See the following).
Value Type (Required)	Data type allowable for the requirement's response.	The value types available depend on the requirement type. For multiple choice requirement types, the value is single line text. This value cannot be changed. For a text entry box requirement, the values can be Single line text Multiple line text Number Date Date and time For Number, Date, and Date and time types for which the scoring method is automatic (see the following), you must also define acceptable values. From Acceptable Value To Acceptable Value Score URL
Attachments from Suppliers (Required)	Whether a supplier can add attachments to this requirement in a response,	Possible values are: Not allowed Required Optional
Allow Comments from Suppliers (Optional)	Whether to allow suppliers to add comments to their response.	Yes/No
Attachments Exist (only if exporting existing requirements)	Yes/No	If you have exported existing requirements, the Attachments Exist column displays and indicates if there are attachments for the requirement.
Hint (Optional)	Additional guidance about the expected response.	The Hint column has a character limit of 1000.
Target	The target response.	Maximum of 4000 characters long (for non-multibyte languages). Lengths for multibyte languages are smaller.
Display Target (Optional)	Indicates whether the target value is shown to suppliers.	Yes/No
Scoring (Required)	How the requirement response will be scored.	Possible values are: None Manual For manual scoring, you must also specify a maximum score (if there is no default) and a weight (if weights are enabled). Automatic For automatic scoring, you must also specify: Acceptable response values. Scores for the response values. The weight for the requirement (if weights are enabled for the negotiation).
Weight (if weights are enabled) (Optional)	Indicates the importance of this requirement relative to the other requirements defined. The value must be a number between 0 and 100.	The total of all scored requirements across all scored sections must be equal to 100.
Maximum Score (Required)	Numeric value indicating the maximum possible score for this requirement.	Must be a positive whole number. If the maximum score is not specified in the spreadsheet, the application will use the default maximum specified for the negotiation (if any) and default that value for the requirement during import.
Knockout Score (Optional)	Minimum score a supplier must attain to be shortlisted for award.	Once the negotiation closes and the requirements are scored (either automatically or manually), applying the knockout scores automatically removes from the shortlist all suppliers having a score that doesn't meet or surpass the knockout score for this requirement. Knockout score must be a positive whole number.

Acceptable Value Columns

The following table shows the columns used in the acceptable value section of the Add Requirement spreadsheet.

Column Name	Explanation	Comments/Values
Number	This column appears if you are exporting existing requirements using this spreadsheet. The number value identifies acceptable value.	NA
Acceptable Value (Required)	An acceptable value for the supplier to select. The value has a character limit of 1000.	You can define multiple acceptable values for the same requirement.
Acceptable Value From/Acceptable Value To	A numeric range that encompasses the allowable values.	Acceptable value ranges are used with number, date, date and time value types.
Target (Optional)	Indicated that this value is the target value.	Yes/No
Attachments from Suppliers (Required)	Indicates whether suppliers can add attachments to the value.	Possible values are: Not allowed Required Optional
Score (Required)	The score for this acceptable value.	NA