Inviting Suppliers to Sourcing Events
When launching a sourcing event in Supplios, you have multiple options on how to invite suppliers.
Here's a step-by-step guide to help you efficiently manage supplier invitations.
During setup of a Sourcing Event, you can start inviting suppliers either individually or in bulk. You can do this either before you launch the event, or while it is still in Draft mode. When still in Draft mode, the invitations are queued and will be sent automatically once it is Open.
You can choose from your existing supplier list in Supplios or add new ones directly from the event interface.
1. New Invitation
You can invite suppliers one at a time by:
- Searching your vendor list: Find existing suppliers in your database and invite them directly to the sourcing event.
- Adding a new vendor: If the supplier is not already in your system, manually enter their basic contact information and send an invitation. All you need is the supplier name, contact name, and contact email address. The supplier will then be added to your saved database by default.
2. Bulk Invite (Recommended Method)
The Bulk Invite feature simplifies the process of inviting multiple suppliers at once. You can also leverage the Supplios vendor tagging system to quickly invite all suppliers that meet certain criteria. Here's how to do it:
- Filter suppliers: Use categories and tags (e.g., "Europe", "Coating", "Electronics") from the vendor section to filter and identify the suppliers you want to invite. You can include or exclude suppliers based on these tags.
- Add suppliers in bulk: Once you've filtered the suppliers, click "Add All # Vendors" to invite all the filtered suppliers at once.
- Manage individual contacts: If a supplier has multiple contacts, you can toggle contacts on or off to ensure the appropriate person receives the invitation. By default, any contact who is set as the default "Sourcing" contact for each supplier will be toggled on to receive the invitation.
3. Sending Invitations
Once you have selected your suppliers, you have two options for sending out invitations:
- Write a custom message: Customize the email invitation to cater to your specific communication needs. The same message will be sent to all the suppliers and contacts who are part of this one bulk invitation.
- Send a standard email invitation from a saved snippet: Use a saved snippet (click on Insert Saved Snippet beneath the text area) to save time and send out invitations in a consistent format.
HELPFUL TIP: Supplier contacts do not need an existing account in your portal to be invited to a Sourcing Event. They only need to have an email address on file.
Then when the invitation to the Sourcing Event is sent, the Supplios platform will automatically send them an invitation to the portal with registration instructions if they do not already have an account.
HELPFUL TIP: You can also invite suppliers to a Sourcing Event while still in Draft mode. When you do that, the invitations are queued, and will get sent automatically once you launch the event and the status changes to Open.
Suppliers will not be notified and will not have any access to the Sourcing Event while their invitation is queued. (You will see the response status of "Queued Invite" in this case.)
After Sending Invitations
Once the invitations are sent, suppliers will receive an email with all the relevant details about the sourcing event, instructions for next steps, and a link with direct access to this Sourcing Event in the portal.
You can also:
- Send reminders to suppliers who have not yet responded.
- Track which suppliers have open invitations or declined.
- Revoke invitations as needed.
For more details on managing sourcing event response statuses, read the full guide here.
For any questions regarding supplier invitations or anything else, please reach out to the Supplios team.