Introduction to Sourcing Events
This is an overview of the main concepts of Sourcing Events in Supplios.
Sourcing Events are the general term for RFQs, RFPs, RFIs, Tenders, or whatever else you may call your sourcing processes. Throughout the app and help documents we just call them Sourcing Events, or Events.
Sourcing Events are purposely very flexible in Supplios, built to accommodate multiple sourcing workflows and things being sourced. This allows you to easily create RFQs, RFPs, or tenders in the format that makes sense to you, your industry, and your suppliers, rather than forcing you into a rigid structure.
The Sourcing Process
In general, all Sourcing Events (in Supplios or otherwise) consist of these main activities:
- Describing what you are sourcing: could be a lengthy RFP document, a BOM with items for quote, etc.
- Specifying how vendors should respond -- the response format: a specified proposal format, quote template, form to fill out, etc.
- Finding and inviting suppliers/vendors to respond: could be suppliers you invite, or suppliers that find you by posting the event publicly
- Managing responses from suppliers/vendors: tracking who has responded, ensuring completeness, and tracking all data and files
- Analyzing responses and making a sourcing decision: all the stuff you do to review, analyze, and compare responses to reach a sourcing decision
Supplios gives you tools to help you with each of these steps, as well as tools to help manage the entire workflow in your team, track all sourcing history, and more.
The table below shows each of these steps in the sourcing process, and the tools and concepts in Supplios to help with that step.
| Activity | Supplios related concepts & tools |
| Describing what to source | Built-in document editor & file attachments for each sourcing event |
| Specifying response formats | Create custom forms for vendors to fill out with the drag & drop form builder Create Excel-like quote sheets for vendors to complete with the quote sheet builder, including multiple price breaks or configurations per item Request documents for vendors to upload Provide document templates for vendors to fill out and upload |
| Inviting & finding suppliers | Invite new or existing suppliers from your sourcing database 'Quick-share' links that you can send to any supplier via email, SMS, etc. to invite them to bid 'Open for Bidding' portal to allow any suppliers to respond to your event, either restricted to registered suppliers, or publicly available |
| Managing responses | Track the status of each vendor individually from invite to award/reject decisions Single-page view of all responses in 'Manage Response' area Message/email suppliers directly from the app with the 'External Messages' feature Record and share comments & feedback with your internal team with the 'Internal Comments' feature Automatically request updates from vendors with one-click 'Flag Response' button Allow or restrict vendors from updating their responses after submission with the 'Lock Response' button Send updates to all suppliers at once with 'Bulk Update' feature ...and many more things found on other help pages. |
| Analyzing & making decisions | Automatic side-by-side comparison grid for all responses (with Excel export) Automatic highlighting of high/low prices/vendors for each item on a Quote Sheet Compare supplier quotes to internal target / actual benchmarks Full sourcing history for all vendors Full sourcing history for all sourced items |