Buyer Side - How to Create a Negotiation Round?

As you enter on the Tender Dossier page, in the tab “Replies opening and qualification” you will have available a new button “Create negotiation round” that is presented when the deadline to submit proposals is reached or when the proposals are opened in case of tenders with opening.
In this case, there isn’t the need to indicate in the tender creation if negotiation rounds will be allowed or not, since the button will be always presented. That decision can be done during the process.

Negotiation Round Creation 

The negotiation round creation consists in:

• Filling a modal dialog with the deadlines for the negotiation process;
• Select the suppliers that you want to invite for the negotiation;
• Publish that information for the invited suppliers.

Define negotiation dates

Depending on if the tender requires opening or not, you may need to define more or less dates for the negotiation process.

In a tender without opening, you just need to define the deadline to submit the proposals. In a tender with opening, you will need to define the deadline to submit the proposals and the opening date.

Define invited suppliers list 

A list of suppliers that had submitted a proposal for the tender is presented for your selection. You can select all suppliers presented or just select the ones that you want to invite to the negotiation round.

Access to the negotiation round information

After publishing a negotiation round, you can see the information about it in the “Amendment” widget.

A new amendment type named “Negotiation” is presented in the amendments table where you can consult the detailed information clicking on the detail.

Buyer Side - How to update a Negotiation Round? 

After publishing a negotiation round, you will have available a new button “Update negotiation round” that it is presented until the negotiation deadline is reached and that will allow you to perform several actions:

• Anticipate the negotiation deadlines;
• Postpone the negotiation deadlines;
• Change the invited suppliers (add or remove).

This button appears to you in the same place that the “Create negotiation round” is presented and additionally it is also presented in the tab “Overview”.

Buyer Side – How to access to the negotiation proposals?

Depending on if the tender requires opening or not, you may have access to the negotiation proposals right away or you may need to open them.

Tender without opening process

In a tender without opening, you will have access to the negotiation proposals as soon as they are submitted by the supplier. They will be listed in the tab “Replies opening and qualification” in the same way as the “original” ones.

Tender with opening process

In a tender with opening, you will need to decrypt the negotiation proposals to be able to access them.
To decrypt the negotiation proposals, first the negotiation opening date must be reached. As soon as the date is reached, you need to proceed to the “Opening qualification panel” where you can see an “Open” button.

The negotiation proposals will be presented in the same envelope as the original ones, but they will be encrypted until the opening is complete.

After selecting the “Open” button and when the decryption process is complete you can access to the negotiation proposals information.

Supplier Side – How to create a negotiation proposal?

As a Supplier, you may be invited by the buyer to participate in a negotiation round. When this happens, notifications will be activated by the system, and you will be able to create a negotiation proposal.

Negotiation Round Notification 

As soon as the buyer publishes a negotiation round where you are invited, you will be notified through several channels in the platform.

Notification email

You will receive a notification email indicating that you were invited to a negotiation round with the tender identification and the negotiation round deadlines.

Invitation message

You will also receive an announcement message that you may consult through the announcement’s icon or through the message’s widget from the Opportunity Dossier.

Opportunity Dossier badge

Additionally, if you have a service with access to the “Opportunities Manager” you will have a badge “In Negotiation” when accessing to it so that you can easily identify the tenders that are in negotiation phase.

Negotiation Proposal Creation

As you enter on the Opportunity Dossier page, you will see the negotiation round counter with the corresponding deadlines and a button to create the negotiation proposal.
This information will be available in the “Replies” tab and for suppliers with paid services it will also be presented in the “Overview” tab.

Copy Negotiation Proposal

When the user selects “Create Negotiation Proposal”, if the company doesn’t have the service with access to the copy proposals feature, the system will create a proposal from scratch, and you are able to record all the information and submit it in the same way that it is done in “normal” proposals.

If the company have the service with access to the copy proposals feature, the system will present a modal that will give you the possibility to either create a proposal from scratch or duplicate an existent one.

Every time that a negotiation proposal is created, the system will automatically generate a prefix (RND_) in the proposal reference, so that it can be distinguished from the other proposals.