The Sourcing Workbench: Shortlists, Bid Rounds and Award Rationale

Open an RFQ and choose Sourcing workbench from its actions. The Shortlist card lists every supplier the RFQ was sent to, with their status and a Note, such as “Best lead time, confirm warranty”. Tick the ones you are taking forward and press Save shortlist. The next round is offered to them first, and the note is there for whoever picks the RFQ up after you.

Saved shortlists make the good work reusable. Under Saved shortlists, give the current shortlist a name, such as “Stationery suppliers — Nairobi”, and an Item category, and press Save for reuse. On a later RFQ, shortlists whose category matches are marked Matches this RFQ and can be applied with Apply. The RFQ’s own send form can also tick suppliers from a saved shortlist, so a buyer does not rebuild the same list from memory every quarter.

In practice: a Kisumu school group buys exercise books, chalk and toner every term. After the January tender, the buyer saves the four suppliers who quoted well as “Stationery — Western” against the Stationery category. In April she applies it to the new RFQ in one click, adds a new supplier she met at a trade fair, and sends.

Open next round asks for the Suppliers invited, a new deadline, whether it is a Sealed round, and What you want revised, such as “Please sharpen line prices and confirm a 14-day delivery”. Opening a round needs the permission to approve RFQs. Each round keeps its own deadline and sealing, and the RFQ’s deadline always describes the current round, so the sealed-bid rules you already know apply round by round: a sealed round hides every price until its bids are opened after the deadline, and nothing can be awarded meanwhile.

A round is a decision about who is still in. A supplier left off it can no longer quote or be awarded. A supplier who quotes again in a later round replaces their earlier quote: the old one is kept for the record, marked superseded, and cannot be edited, awarded or counted in comparisons and analysis. The Bid rounds card lists every round with its suppliers, deadline, sealing and note to suppliers.

Price movement across rounds shows each supplier’s quoted total per round against their first, hidden while a round is sealed. In practice: a Nairobi county water company gets five quotes for pipe fittings, shortlists three, and opens a sealed second round asking for best and final prices. After the deadline the bids are opened; the leading supplier dropped 8% from round one, and the two left off round two cannot slip in a late quote.

Questions, clarifications and negotiation keeps everything said on the RFQ with system events such as a round opened, a quote revised or bids opened. A buyer chooses Who can read it: One supplier, Every invited supplier, or Internal note. A supplier’s post is seen only by the buyer until the buyer shares it; shared, it reaches every invited supplier without the author’s company name, and the buyer’s reply is shared with it. That way one supplier’s good question improves every quote without exposing who asked.

Suppliers can offer alternates: a different product for an RFQ line at its own price, up to twenty per quote, each naming the line it replaces. Alternates offered lists them as Instead of, Offered and Unit price. They are compared there, not awarded; to buy one, ask for it as a main line in the next round.

Under Weights and quote validity, a minimum validity makes every quote hold its prices at least that many days from its quote date, or it is refused. Quotes expiring lists quotes close to or past their valid-until date; Ask to extend sends a note, and the supplier extends from their portal without re-quoting, to a later date only. An expired quote cannot be awarded. In practice: a Mombasa shipping agent sets a 30-day minimum because board approval takes three weeks, and asks two suppliers to extend when the board meeting slips.

Comparative scoring ranks the suppliers invited to each round on their standing quote. There are four criteria: price, delivery time, track record from the supplier scorecard, and a technical fit mark the buyer enters out of ten. Weights are set per RFQ and start at price 50, delivery 15, track record 15 and technical 20. A criterion nobody has a figure for is dropped and the rest re-weighted, so an RFQ with no technical marks is not dragged down by an empty column.

Award and rationale needs Why this supplier, such as “Second-lowest price but the only supplier able to deliver in 7 days with a 2-year warranty”. The award runs through the same checks as any other: budget control, approval rules and the sealed-bid rules all still apply, and a budget override field appears only when the budget blocks and you hold that permission. The rationale and the scores at that moment are kept with the decision, so a later audit sees what the buyer saw.

Each award also records negotiated savings: the supplier’s own round-one total minus the awarded total, in the quote’s currency, never converted and never negative. Procurement Spend Analytics adds these up per currency. One thing to know: the older Approve button on a quotation and the item-level award page can still award without a rationale; requiring one there is more we can add to your workspace.