Surrogate Responses

A surrogate response is a negotiation response that you enter on behalf of a supplier company. This feature gives the buying organization the ability to capture responses from suppliers who aren't able to directly enter their responses online.

Supplier companies may submit their responses using different communication methods such as faxing or mailing paper documents, emailing PDF documents or spreadsheets. Once you receive the supplier response, you can enter this response in the application as a surrogate response. Surrogate responses are handled by the application the same as responses entered by suppliers with online access. You use surrogate responses to act on behalf of the supplier to:

• Create and manage draft responses.

• Acknowledge the supplier's intent to participate in the negotiation.

• Enter the values that comprise the supplier's response, including values for requirements, negotiation lines, line attributes, cost factors or price breaks.

• Acknowledge an amendment to the negotiation.

• Update a response for a new round of responding or as required by a negotiation amendment.

You can enter surrogate responses online or using a spreadsheet. All response rules applicable to a regular response entered by the supplier will also be applicable to a surrogate response. All features and bidding tools (like proxy bidding, mass price reduction) that are available to suppliers entering an online response can also be used when creating a surrogate response. Since the supplier has no online access to the application and therefore can't receive notifications, you must stay in communication with the supplier about any changes to the negotiation.