Sourcing Event Two Step Bidding
Two Step Bidding is used when releasing Events for bidding where the qualifications of a Supplier need to be established prior to looking at bid amounts. The Supplier provides documentation that proves they are qualified. If the documentation (commonly known as a Technical Proposal) is accepted, their bid amount (commonly known as pricing) is then assessed.
Two Step Bidding supports the following options:
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Where the Supplier submits the Technical Proposal and the pricing separately. The pricing is not submitted until the Supplier is told their Technical Proposal has been accepted.
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Where the Supplier submits the Technical Proposal and pricing at the same time, even though they are assessed in two steps.
Defining a Two Step Bidding Event
Define an Event as using Two Step Bidding from the Response Options section of the Event header. Choose the Technical Proposal Submitted Separately From Pricing or Technical Proposal and Pricing Amounts Submitted At The Same Time option from the Two Step Bidding dropdown list.
Two Step Bidding Responses in Supplier Portal
When a Supplier responds to an Event that has Two Step Bidding, there may be required questions with attachments where the information is used to determine if the Supplier's Technical Proposal is accepted. Documentation is required for both Two Step Bidding options. If the Technical Proposal Submitted Separately From Pricing option is selected, 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, both the Technical Proposal documentation and bid amounts are entered at the same time.
Analysis of Technical Proposals
When Technical Proposals are ready to be assessed, an Analyze Technical Proposals link is displayed when responses have been entered. The link opens the analysis forms for the Event. Regardless of which of the Two Step Bidding options is chosen, 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 if a Supplier's Technical Proposals should be accepted.
If a Supplier has entered their bid amounts at the same time as their Technical Proposal documents, it is also possible to view line question responses and their attachments in the analysis list.
Other than assigning a Non Award Reason, the only action to be performed at this point is Accept Technical Proposal. If Accept Technical Proposal is not performed for a Supplier, it is assumed that their documentation has not been accepted.
For an accepted Technical Proposal, there is also an Unaccept Technical Proposal button which can be clicked until the pricing process is started.
Once all valid Technical Proposals have been accepted, click the Start Pricing Process button. Select a close date for the pricing step. When the Start Pricing Process is performed, the bid amounts can potentially be immediately assessed to award the Event if the Suppliers have already entered bid amounts.
All Supplier responses with accepted Technical Proposals are set to an Open status so Suppliers can enter bid amounts.
On Event lists, the Pricing Step Close Date is now displayed as the Close Date in the Current Close Date column. The Pricing Step (Step Two) Close Date is also displayed in the event header.
While Suppliers are entering pricing for accepted Technical Proposals, there is a related page available that displays a list of Suppliers where 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.
Entry of Pricing Amounts when separate from Technical Proposals
If the Technical Proposal Submitted Separately From Pricing option was selected for Two Step Bidding, the Supplier has an open Event response to enter prices. The main menu in Supplier Portal displays an alert indicating there are unsubmitted pricing responses. Click the menu item to open a form that displays responses that need pricing information. To enter a price, open a list item or click the Enter Pricing button to open a wizard that opens the specific form for entering line responses.
To clarify what Suppliers need to work on or watch for their responses, the unsubmitted responses that are still able to 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.
Once the supplier has updated pricing information and submitted their response, the responses can be viewed and awarded in the Analysis forms. Click the Analyze pricing link to open the Analysis forms.
The Award process now works the same as it does for any Event with following differences on the forms:
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Only Suppliers with accepted Technical Proposals that submitted pricing amounts are displayed.
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The Technical Proposal Responses button is displayed, which displays 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, all responses are considered for scoring when viewing initial responses to the Event, but only for the weighting factors pertaining to Technical Proposals (Questions, Diversity, 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.
Notifying Suppliers of Unsubmitted and Missing Responses
In order to help Suppliers be aware of responses that need to be submitted for the pricing of Two Step Bidding processing (as well as other purposes), a program creates and sends emails to Suppliers that have unsubmitted responses within the specified number of days of a close date. Access the program from the Sourcing Administrator menu under Utilities.
There are flags in Sourcing Group and Company to determine if emails or messages should be created and sent along with a base subject and content for the email.