Response to a Negotiation by Spreadsheet

After you export the spreadsheet data, you can open it in Microsoft Excel (version 2003 or later). Excel automatically formats the display based on the style format that you selected. The spreadsheet consists of multiple worksheets.

The sections describe the information contained in each worksheet, and the tables in the sections describe each spreadsheet for that worksheet.

Your spreadsheet can have multiple worksheets, depending on the content of the negotiation. Use the instructions in the table to complete the spreadsheet. After you've completed the spreadsheet, you can import the data back to the application.

When responding through spreadsheets, you can enter a zero price when responding to negotiations, thereby offering items for free or services at no cost for products still under warranty.

The table shows the sections of the Respond spreadsheet.

Response Worksheet Section	Contents
Common Section	This section provides general information about the negotiation. You don't enter any information into this section.
General Section	In this section, you can enter your response to negotiation requirements and other general information such as a note to the category manager.
Lines Worksheet	Use this worksheet to enter your response information as required by the category manager.
Requirements Scoring Worksheet	This worksheet shows any requirements scoring information if provided by the category manager. You don't have to enter any response in this worksheet.
Attributes Scoring Worksheet	This worksheet displays any attributes scoring information for line items if provided by the category manager. You don't have to enter any response in this worksheet.

Using Spreadsheet Processing

This file contains the instructions for creating and importing responses in negotiation using an XML spreadsheet. Spreadsheets enable suppliers to easily respond to negotiations offline. Spreadsheet import is very useful when dealing with large negotiations having many requirements or lines, or having complex lines with many attributes or price tiers. Spreadsheet processing effectively speeds up the response process by enabling you to enter data into your spreadsheet offline and then import the data in a single operation

Common Section

The table shows the fields in the Common section of the spreadsheet.

Field Title	Meaning
Negotiation Title	Title of the negotiation as defined by the category manager, This appears over the common area table.
Negotiation	Type of negotiation, such as auction, RFQ, or RFI, and the number assigned by the application
Close Date	Date and time when the negotiation closes and responses are no longer accepted. Note that the category manager can optionally extend the negotiation or close it early.
Negotiation Currency	Currency defined for the negotiation by the category manager
Response Currency	In a multicurrency negotiation, the currency you selected when you began your response
Price Precision	Price precision applied to the response currency
Conversion Rate	In a multicurrency negotiation, the conversion rate
Company	Name of the buying company
Buyer	Name of the buyer
Phone	Phone number of the category manager
E-mail	Address of the category manager
Supplier	Your company name, as registered with the application
Supplier Site	Your company site

Requirements Section

The requirements section contains questions the category manager wants you to answer. Your responses are used by the category manager when evaluating your response. If there are requirement sections, they're grouped together in the section name. For two stage RFQ, at least one section is labeled technical and one or more sections are labeled commercial. If requirements are scored and the category manager decided to display the scoring information, then you can see it by clicking the View Scoring Criteria link.

If your negotiation contains many requirements, you can control the display by clicking the down arrow. You have several options including sorting the requirements by number to display specific requirements.

When companies conduct complex negotiations with a large number of negotiation lines, and requirements, suppliers need to respond to these negotiations efficiently, which can be challenging when using the full response template of requirements and lines. Supplier bidders can separately respond to requirements using a rich-style spreadsheet consisting only requirements. Category managers have an option to send two separate files to suppliers for collecting responses. One for lines only, and another for requirements.

To respond to requirements in high line volume negotiations using this spreadsheet, in the Export Spreadsheet dialog box, select Requirements only to use this template.

The table shows the fields in the Requirements section of the spreadsheet.

Field Title	Meaning
View Scoring Criteria	Link to the Requirements Scoring Worksheet. This link only appears if the category manager decided to score requirements and provide scoring related information.
Gray bar	The name of the requirement section is displayed. There's a row for each requirement. If there's a branched requirement, it's in its parent requirement. The hierarchy of the branched requirement is indicated by the numbering value: Number: the number of the parent requirement Letter: the indicator of which response to the parent requirement triggered the branch question If the category manager defined a branching question for this requirement, then the text of the branch question and its response field appear indented in the primary requirement question. If this is a two stage RFQ, one or more sections are labeled Technical and one or more sections are labeled Commercial.
Response value fields	Enter your responses here. If the requirement type is multiple choice with either single or multiple selections, and if the category manager defined a branching question for this requirement, the text of the branch question and its response field appear indented in the primary requirement question. If the requirement is multiple choice with a single selection and if the category manager defined acceptable values for this requirement, you can display them by clicking the field and then clicking the down arrow. If the category manager defined a branching question for this requirement, the text of the branch question and its response field appear indented in the primary requirement question. Depending on which value you select for the primary question, the branching question becomes unprotected, and you can respond to it. If the requirement allows multiple selections, the options are listed for the question. To select a value, click the field for the response and select Yes from the dialog box menu. (You can also optionally select No for values you don't need.)
Comments	You can enter comments in the text box.

Lines Worksheet

The Lines worksheet displays the line information defined for this negotiation. Some fields appear depending on whether the negotiation outcome is purchase order or purchase agreement. The table contains descriptions of all possible columns regardless of negotiation outcome.

If your negotiation contains many lines, you can control the display by using the choice list. You have several options including sorting the lines by line number to display specific lines.

The table shows the fields in the Lines worksheet.

Field Name	Meaning
Proxy Decrement Amount or Proxy Decrement Percentage	Enter the amount or percentage by which the application should reduce your response price before submitting a subsequent bid in a proxy negotiation. Proxy bidding is available for the auction outcome only.
Response Amount	Automatically calculated as you enter your responses into the spreadsheet.
Line	Line number and description as entered by the category manager
Item	Unique numeric indicator of the item that the category manager wants to purchase
Revision	Version of the item that the category manager wants to purchase
Rank	Rank of this response among competing responses
Start Price	Starting response price for one unit of the item or service being negotiated. Your response price can't be higher than the response start price.
UOM	Unit of measure in which the category manager plans to buy the item.
Negotiation Quantity	Number of units the buyer wants to purchase
Estimated Quantity	Expected quantity to be bought over the life of the agreement
Estimated Total Amount	Expected total amount that the buyer pays for a fixed price line item over the period of the agreement.
Target Minimum Release Amount	Minimum amount the category manager wants to release against this blanket agreement line.
Response Price	The price you're offering for one unit of the item or service. Use numbers only. Omit currency signs. Required for any lines on which you want to bid. For lines that you don't want to bid on, you can leave all the bid-related columns blank. This only applies to auctions that don't require you to bid on all lines. If this line has cost factors, you don't have to enter a value for this field. Instead enter the line price in the Cost Factors table. The application automatically calculates the response price based on your line price and cost factor responses.
Proxy Minimum	Enter the minimum price that you're willing to proxy bid for this line. See the online help for a discussion of how proxy bidding works.
Response Quantity	The number of units of the item that you plan to buy. Required for all lines that you want to bid on. If this negotiation allows only full quantities, this field displays the Quantity value and is protected against update. If you're bidding only on selected lines, you can leave all the bid-related columns blank for lines with no bids. This applies only to RFQs that allow you to quote on selected lines. If the line doesn't allow partial quantity bids, this field displays the Response Quantity value and is protected against update.
Promised Delivery Date	Date by which you can promise to deliver the item or service to the category manager's location
Response Minimum Release Amount	The minimum release amount you offer for this agreement line
Note to buyer	Any additional information for the buyer about this negotiation line
Requested Delivery Date	Date by which the item or service the category manager wants to purchase is needed at his location.
Target Price	Target bid price for one unit of the item or service to be purchased
Category Name	Name of the broad family or category to which this line belongs
Location	The address where the item or service must be delivered
Note to Suppliers	Any information the category manager wants to communicate to you

Cost Factors Table

The Cost Factor section displays cost factor information defined by the category manager for this line. The first row of this table is named Line Price. When using cost factors, you enter your per-unit price here instead of in the Response Price field.

The table shows the fields in the Cost Factors table.

Field Name	Meaning
Cost Factor	Name of the cost factor defined by the category manager
Pricing Basis	Method for calculating his particular cost factor Use a fixed amount, a per-unit amount, or a percentage of line price amount.
Target Value	Amount the category manager expects for this cost factor.
Response Value	Your response to the cost factor.
Response Price	Your response value converted to a per-unit price.

Price Breaks and Tiers Tables

Price breaks are only available for purchase agreement outcome negotiations. If there are empty rows in the table, the category manager has defined the price breaks as optional. In this case, you can enter your own price breaks in the empty rows or modify the existing ones.

Category managers can ask for price breaks or quantity based price tiers in negotiations. Suppliers must respond by entering prices for these tiers. They have the option to modify, replace, or delete the proposed tiers.

When suppliers use the spreadsheet import, the price breaks or price tiers in the spreadsheet will replace the tiers previously added online. As a supplier you can delete or modify the price breaks suggested by category manager when responding using a spreadsheet.

The table shows the fields in the Price Breaks table.

Field Name	Meaning
Type	Cumulative or Non-cumulative. With non-cumulative price breaks, only the quantity for this negotiation is eligible for a price break. With cumulative price breaks, a running total of the item quantity is kept over the life of the agreement, and subsequent negotiations can take advantage of the previously accumulated quantity values.
Location	Category manager's site address for which this break applies
Quantity	Quantity bought
Start Date	Date that this break begins
End Date	Date that this break ends
Target Price	Price that the category manager is expecting. This price is shown only if the price break is optional.
Price Basis	Whether the response value you enter is an actual price or discount percentage of the line price
Response Price	Price or discount percentage of the line price that you're offering

You can use quantity-based price tiers in negotiations with any outcome. They function similarly to price breaks in purchase agreements. You enter your own price tiers in the empty rows or modify the category manager-defined price tiers.

The table shows the fields in the Price Tiers table.

Field Name	Meaning
Minimum Quantity	Minimum number of units available for this price
Maximum Quantity	Maximum number of units available for this price
Price	Price per unit offered for this quantity range

Attributes Table

The Attributes table displays Information about the line's attributes. You enter your response in the response value field.

The table shows the fields of the Attributes table.

Field Name	Meaning
View Scoring Criteria	Link that opens the Attribute Scoring worksheet. For Multiattribute Weighted Scoring auctions, you should consult the scoring information that the category manager defined. This link only appears if the category manager defined scoring information for at least one attribute and made the information visible by suppliers.
Attribute	The name of the attribute group and the attribute text is displayed.
Target Value	The target value entered by the category manager for the attribute
Response Value	Your response to the attribute. If the category manager defined acceptable values for this field includes a choice list.
Weighted Score	This field is calculated by the application when you enter a value in the Response Value field. This field only appears if the category manager defined scoring criteria and made the information visible by suppliers.
Total Weighted Score	Automatically calculated by the application as you enter values in the response Value fields. Total Weighted Score is the sum of all the Weighted Score fields. It only appears if the category manager defined scoring criteria and made the information visible by suppliers.

Requirements Scoring Worksheet

The Requirements Scoring worksheet only appears if the category manager defined scoring criteria and made it visible by the supplier. View the Requirements Scoring worksheet to determine how the category manager evaluates your responses to the negotiation's requirements.

The table shows the fields of the Requirements Scoring worksheet.

Field Name	Meaning
Requirement	The name of the requirement section is displayed. There's a row for each requirement. If there are any branching requirements, the hierarchy of the branched requirements is indicated by the numbering value: Number: the number of the parent requirement Letter: the indicator of which response to the parent requirement triggered the branch question Number: the number of the answer selected for the branch question If this is a two stage RFQ, one or more sections are labeled Technical and one or more sections are labeled Commercial. You must respond to the requirements in both sections.
Acceptable Values	Acceptable response values for the requirement as defined by the category manage For text requirements, this is a list of values. For numeric, date, and date and time requirements, it can be a set of numbers, dates, or one or more ranges of numbers (ranges can't overlap).
Score	If using automatic scoring, the numeric score assigned to that value by the category manager.
Weight or Maximum Score	If weights are enabled, this field displays the numeric value that the category manager defined to reflect that requirement's importance, relative to other requirements. If weights aren't enabled, this field displays the Maximum Score for the requirements as defined by the category manager.

Attributes Scoring Worksheet

The Attribute Scoring worksheet only appears if at least one line attribute has scoring information defined and the category manager decided to display scoring information to the supplier. Each line that has an attribute for which the category manager has entered score information has a table. Additionally, if there's a table for a line, entries for all attributes for that line appear. These attributes appear even if no scoring information was defined for a particular attribute. You can view the Attribute Scoring worksheet to determine how the category manager evaluates your responses to line attributes.

The table shows the fields of the Attribute Scoring worksheet.

Field Name	Meaning
Attribute	Name of the attribute.
Acceptable Response Values	Acceptable bid values for the attribute as defined by the category manager. A text attribute displays a choice list. Numeric and date type attributes, display a set of numbers, or one or more ranges of numbers (ranges can't overlap).
Score	For each acceptable bid value, the numeric score assigned to that value by the category manager
Weight	For each attribute of the line, the numeric value assigned to it by the category manager to reflect that attribute's importance, relative to any other attributes for the line.