How You Use Online Messages
Throughout a negotiation, there may be times when you must communicate with other internal users (such as members of your negotiation collaboration team) or suppliers to provide additional information or clarification. Also, collaboration team members may want to communicate with each other.
You can use online messages to communicate online with other participants in your negotiation.
Participants using online messages can be:
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The category manager who created the negotiation.
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All members of the collaboration team.
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Procurement agents with access to the negotiation.
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Suppliers participating in the negotiation.
You use online messages within the context of a negotiation. An online conversation is organized into one or more message threads, which any of the participants can initiate. You can start communications with other internal users as soon as a draft negotiation is created. After a negotiation is published, you and other internal users can exchange messages with supplier users who are participating in the negotiation.
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Internal users can send a message to all other internal and external users or a select group of internal and external users.
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If an internal member is added, the new member can see all messages from the beginning of the negotiation.
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A message sent to a collaboration team is visible by all the team members.
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If there's an amendment to the negotiation, all messages, including messages from the previous version, are visible on the same page.
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Supplier can reply to an internal individual, but they can only send a message to the buying organization as a whole. All the internal participants can see the message, but only internal members with full access can reply.
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You can export all online messages in a negotiation into Microsoft Excel to review them offline, or add as an attachment when submitting the negotiation or award for approval.
The table shows the different view and reply options for participants in sealed negotiations.
|
Participant |
Can Send To |
Accessible By |
|---|---|---|
|
Category Manager Collaboration Team Members (Full Access) |
All/Any collaboration team member All/Any internal member All/Any suppliers |
The user on the To list All internal users Suppliers |
|
Collaboration Team Members (Without Full Access) Procurement Agent with View Only Access to Other Agents' Documents |
All/Any collaboration team member All/Any internal member |
The user on the To list |
|
Procurement agent with Full Access to other agents' documents |
All/Any collaboration team member All/Any internal member All/Any supplier |
The user on the To list Suppliers All internal users |
|
Suppliers |
Buyer company |
All internal users |
The table shows the different view and reply options for participants in the sealed negotiations.
|
Participant |
Can Send To |
Accessible By |
|---|---|---|
|
Category manager Collaboration team members (Full Access) |
All/Any collaboration team All/Any internal member Any supplier |
The user on the To list Suppliers All internal users |
|
Collaboration team members (without full access) Procurement agent with View Only access to other agents' documents |
All/Any collaboration team All/Any internal member |
The user on the To list |
|
Procurement agent with Full Access too other agents' documents |
All/Any collaboration team member All/Any internal member All/Any supplier |
The user on the To list Suppliers All internal users |
|
Suppliers |
Buyer company |
All internal users |
The table shows the different view and reply options for participants in blind negotiations.
|
Participant |
Can Sent To |
Accessible By |
|---|---|---|
|
Category manager Collaboration team members (Full Access) |
All/Any collaboration team member All/Any internal member All/Any suppliers |
The user on the To list suppliers All internal users |
|
Collaboration team members (without full access) Procurement agent with View Only access to other agents' documents |
All/Any Collaboration Team member All/Any internal member |
The user on the To list |
|
Procurement agent with Full Access too other agents' documents |
All/Any collaboration team member All/Any internal member All/Any supplier |
The user on the To list Suppliers All internal users |
|
Suppliers |
Buyer company |
Internal users |
Message Security
Messages sent to all participants are public and can be viewed by all users - collaboration members, procurement agents, and all suppliers. Messages sent to individual users are private and can only be viewed and replied to by those users. You can change a message thread from public to private by replying to a subset of its participants. Similarly, you can change a private thread to a public thread by replying to all participants to the negotiation.
Message Alerts and Notifications
If you have any unread messages, you receive an alert in your Online Messages field. Clicking the button in this field opens your Online Messages table. From there you can view your messages and reply. You can also subscribe to alert notifications so you're notified whenever a new message or reply exists.
Printing Messages
All messages can be printed. You can print an individual message or all messages for a particular negotiation. The messages appear in the same order as online. You can also archive messages.