Sourcing Event Setup - Settings

This article provides an in-depth explanation of the Settings page in the Sourcing Event Setup area.

This is only applicable to Sourcing Event Owners and Admins -- users who create and manage sourcing events in their company. A Full User Supplios license is required to do this.

Settings Page

Within the 'Setup' area of a Sourcing Event, you will find the Settings page as shown below. This is used to configure the high-level settings of the RFQ, RFP, RFI, or Tender. Some of this information is for internal use, and some of it is shown to vendors. We explain each item in more depth below.

Basic Information

All the settings here are ready to go by default. You can change them if you'd like (either now or later) or leave them as is. Here's a quick explanation of each one:

Title: This is used both internally and externally with vendors. So pick something that makes sense and is safe to show to your vendors.
Event Type: Current options are RFQ, RFP, RFI, and Tender. This is currently only used for your own categorization purposes, and is also shown to vendors. Due to the flexible nature of Supplios Sourcing Events, the selection you make here does not impact the structure of what information you collect from vendors -- so just pick something that makes sense to you.
Category: The options here are unique to your company, and your company Admins / Superadmins can add/remove categories from the list. (found in Company Settings > Sourcing Settings > Sourcing Categories)
Event Owner: This is the main internal contact / internal owner of the Sourcing Event. By default, it is set to the person who created the event. But you can change it to any other user in your company who has a "Full User" license.
Show Contact Info: If enabled, this will show the email address of the Event Owner on the Sourcing Event Details page when shown to your vendors. By default it is disabled, as we encourage your vendors to send any questions about the event using the built-in messaging / email system. But if you prefer to share your own email address for vendors to contact you, then turn this on.
Confidential: If enabled, this will show "CONFIDENTIAL" on the Sourcing Event Details page when shown to vendors.
Sourcing Tags: This allows you to tag or classify this Sourcing Event in a free-form way that makes sense for your company. You may want to add tags for project names, factory or office locations, cost center, etc. The main purpose is to help you easily find previous Sourcing Events in the future. When you search for Sourcing Events within Supplios, all tags on a Sourcing Event are included in the search criteria by default. New tags can be added when creating new Sourcing Events, and company Admins can view and manage all tags in the Company Settings > Sourcing Settings > Sourcing Tags area.

Response Deadline

The Response Deadline does what it says -- sets a deadline for when you want vendors to submit their responses. But it actually serves 2 purposes.

Purpose 1 - Displaying a deadline: If set, the deadline will be clearly displayed to vendors when they view the event and prepare their response. So it encourages them to submit on time.
Purpose 2 - Enforcing a deadline: If set, and if "Allow Late Responses" is turned OFF, then the deadline will be a hard deadline -- meaning that any un-submitted response or open invitation as of this deadline will be cancelled or expired, and the vendor will be unable to submit their response after the deadline. If the deadline is set, and if "Allow Late Responses" is turned ON, then the deadline will be a soft deadline -- meaning that the event will still show "Closed" on the deadline, but any un-submitted response or open invitation will still be able to submit after the deadline (although your vendors will not know this in advance). You can override this at any time by clicking on "Close All Responses" on the Event Dashboard. Which one you choose is totally up to you -- but we often find it easier to use a soft deadline (keep Allow Late Responses turned ON) if you're more focused on getting more bids rather than enforcing a strict set of rules.

Setting a Response Deadline is completely optional -- if you prefer, you can manually close an event whenever you choose, whether you set a Response Deadline or not.

A few additional notes about Response Deadlines and the related settings:

Time zones: The time zone of the deadline will be shown after you set it, and will automatically be set based on your own time zone. Supplios will close the event on that specific date / time / time-zone, no matter where your vendors are located. But when we display this date/time to your vendors, it will be converted to their local time zone (and we will display that time zone to them, to avoid any confusion). So you will have one deadline enforced globally.
Allow Late Responses: As described above (see Purpose 2 - Enforcing a Deadline), this controls whether the deadline is considered a hard or soft deadline. If enabled, the Response Deadline will still be shown, the event will still show "Closed" on that deadline, but any un-submitted or open invitations as of the deadline will not be expired/cancelled.
Allow Revisions After Deadline: This setting determines if vendors can make changes to their responses after submitting them, as a default. If you want all responses to be locked automatically after submission (no modifications allowed), turn this OFF. But if you want to let vendors update their responses after submission without any action from you, then leave this ON. We recommend leaving it ON, simply to reduce burden on you -- that way if a vendor realizes they made a mistake on something, or wanted to offer a better price, for example, they could do it on their own. You can always override this on an individual response (locking or unlocking) from the Manage Responses area. The setting here is only the default to use (locked vs. unlocked modifications) for this event.\