Sourcing event two step bidding

Two step bidding is used when you are releasing events for bidding and the qualifications of a supplier must be established before bid amounts can be viewed. The supplier must provide documentation that proves that they are qualified. If the documentation is accepted, then their bid amount is assessed.

Two step bidding scenarios support these options:

The supplier submits the technical proposal and the pricing separately. The pricing is not submitted until the supplier is told that their technical proposal has been accepted.
The supplier submits the technical proposal and pricing together, even though they are assessed in two steps.

Defining two step bidding events

Use the response options section of the event header to define an event for two step bidding. In the Two Step Bidding field select the Technical Proposal Submitted Separately From Pricing Amounts or the Technical Proposal and Pricing Amounts Submitted At The Same Time.

Two step bidding responses in supplier portal

When a supplier responds to an event that has two step bidding, there may be questions with attachments where the information is used to determine if the supplier's technical proposal is accepted. Documentation is required for both of the Two Step Bidding options. If the Technical Proposal Submitted Separately From Pricing Amounts option is selected, then the Line Responses step for event response is not displayed and does not have to be performed yet. If the Technical Proposal and Pricing Amounts Submitted At The Same Time option is selected, then both the Technical Proposal documentation and bid amounts are submitted simultaneously.

Analysis of technical proposals

When technical proposals are ready to be assessed, an Analyze Technical Proposals link is displayed when responses have been added. The the analysis forms for the event are opened. Regardless of which of the two step bidding options is selected, only technical proposal documentation is initially displayed when the response analysis is performed for the event. The buyer can use attachments and question responses to determine whether to accept a supplier's technical proposals.

Note: If a supplier has submitted their bid amounts with their technical proposal documents, then you can view line question responses and their attachments in the analysis list.

Other than assigning a Non Award Reason, the only action to perform at this point is Accept Technical Proposal. If Accept Technical Proposal is not performed for a supplier, then it is assumed that their documentation has not been accepted.

Note: For an accepted technical proposal, you can click the Unaccept Technical Proposal button. The button is available until the pricing process is started.

After all of the valid technical proposals have been accepted, click the Start Pricing Process button. Select a close date for the pricing step. When the pricing process is started, the bid amounts can be assessed to award the event if the suppliers have already submitted bid amounts.

All supplier responses with accepted technical proposals are set to an Open status so that suppliers can submit bid amounts.

On event lists, the Pricing Step Close Date is displayed as the close date in the Current Close Date column. The pricing step close date for step two is displayed in the event header.

Note: While suppliers are submitting pricing for their accepted technical proposals, there is a page available that shows a list of suppliers for which technical proposals were not accepted.

A supplier with an accepted technical proposal cannot change or remove any question answers or attachments that existed when the technical proposal was accepted.

Pricing amounts when separate from technical proposals

If the Technical Proposal Submitted Separately From Pricing Amounts option was selected for Two Step bidding, the supplier has an open event response to submit prices. The main menu in supplier portal shows an alert that indicates that there are unsubmitted pricing responses. Click the menu item to open a form that shows responses that require pricing information. To specify a price, open a list item or click the Enter Pricing button. A wizard opens to the specific form for adding line responses.

Note: To clarify what suppliers are required to work on or to watch for their responses, the unsubmitted responses that can still be submitted are shown in the My Responses section. Submitted or withdrawn responses that can still be awarded for open or award pending events are shown on the Responses Open For Award tab. Responses for events that have been closed or cancelled or where the event is pending award but the response was never submitted are on the Historical Responses tab.

After the supplier has updated pricing information and submitted their response, the responses can be viewed and awarded in the Analysis pages. Click the Analyze pricing link.

The Award process now works the same as it does for any event with these exceptions:

Only suppliers with accepted Technical Proposals that submitted pricing amounts are displayed.
The Analyze Technical Proposal Responses button is available. Click to show all initial technical proposals.

Event weighting for two step bidding

If event weighting or line weighting has been defined for a Two Step Bidding Event, then all responses are considered for scoring when viewing initial responses to the Event, but only for the weighting factors that are related to technical proposals. Weighting factors are Questions, Diversity, and Buyer. When viewing only the suppliers with accepted technical proposals in analysis forms, all weighting is considered and scoring is calculated against only those suppliers.

Unsubmitted and missing responses for two step bidding

You can remind suppliers to submit responses for Two Step Bidding processing. You can create and send emails to suppliers that have unsubmitted responses within the specified number of days of a close date. Fields in Sourcing Group and Company setup are used to determine whether emails or messages are created. You can specify the subject and content for the email.

See Notifying suppliers of unsubmitted and missing responses.

Best and final offer

You can use the best and final offer award process in conjunction with the two step bidding process on a single event.