Sourcing Event Stages - Draft, Open, Closed, Archived

The Sourcing Event Stage reflects the current state of the Sourcing Event, and mainly controls its overall visibility internally, and with external vendors.

The Sourcing Event Stage is not the only thing that controls the visibility with suppliers, however. Each vendor you invite can individually move through your sourcing process, and can therefore be individually controlled in terms of what the vendor can and cannot do, and what they can and cannot see. (controlled by the Response Status for each Supplier Response)

There are 4 options for RFx state: Draft, Open, Closed, and Archived.

You will see the Stage listed as you look at lists of your Sourcing Events, and you can control the current Stage on the Event Dashboard for each Sourcing Event as shown below.

Sourcing Event Stages - as shown on Event Dashboard

On a high level, you can think of the Sourcing Event Stage by answering "do you want to accept new submissions from suppliers?" If yes, then you should set the Stage to OPEN. If not, but you still want to negotiate with suppliers, have them modify their responses, and review internally, then set it to CLOSED. While the individual status of each Supplier Response can override things, that's the high level way to think about Sourcing Event Stage.

The following table outlines the available options for Sourcing Event Stage and what each means:

Stage	Description	Who can see internally?	Suppliers can submit NEW responses?	Suppliers can REVISE existing responses?	Suppliers can VIEW the RFx detail and their own response?
Draft	The RFx is being prepared internally, not yet live.	Event Owner & Admins + included team members	No	No	No
Open	The RFx is live, published to suppliers, and open for submissions.	Event Owner & Admins + included team members	Yes	Yes, unless you lock or reject their response.	Yes
Closed	The RFx is closed to new submissions. Suppliers who already submitted can still submit revisions if you allow. Un-responded invitations are cancelled.	Event Owner & Admins + included team members	No, unless they are specifically invited (or re-invited) after submissions are closed.	Yes, unless you lock or reject their response.	Yes, unless you lock or reject their response.
Archived	The RFx is closed and hidden by default, including for internal users. Use this status for events that you want to keep for reference, but are not actively being worked on.	Hidden by default for all internal users. Can be found when specifically including 'Archived' events in list views by admins/owners.	No	No	No

It is also possible to completely DELETE a Sourcing Event. This is a permanent and immediate action, and will delete all supplier responses to the event at the same time. It should only be used when you really want to delete the event, such as if you only created a draft and want to delete it as it is no longer relevant. A delete can only be done by the event admin, and your company admins.

Recommendations

Here are some guidelines and tips on using the Sourcing Event stage:

All events start in DRAFT.
After you setup the event, you can either launch the even (go to OPEN), then invite suppliers, or you can invite suppliers before launching the event. If you invite suppliers before launching the event, the invitation emails are put on hold (queued) until you launch the event so suppliers do not get confused.
Keep the event as OPEN until you are done collecting new submissions, then move to CLOSED. You can either close it manually (click button on event dashboard) or it will automatically close on the Response Deadline if you set one on the Setup page.
If you want to invite a new supplier while the event is CLOSED without opening the event for everyone, you can just send a new invitation to that one supplier. They will still be able to respond, unless you close all submissions after sending their invitation.
If you launch an event (OPEN), but later want to make changes and hide everything from suppliers until you're ready, you can move it back to DRAFT status.
If you want to put an event on hold, locking all changes from suppliers, you can move the event to CLOSED. Then later you can change the status back to OPEN or some other status when you want to make changes, or continue the event.
If OPEN is not selectable as an option on the event dashboard, that means there is some required setup information that is not complete. Go to the sourcing event > Setup > Launch -- this will show you a specific message of what must be fixed before you can launch the event.