Create & Publish a Reverse Auction At Item Level_New interface
For the auction at each item level, the focus is on conducting a thorough analysis of the offer. This includes considering the quotation, starting price, and minimum increment for each individual product or service. The buyer has the flexibility to choose multiple winners for the same event, evaluating each line separately.
Regardless of its complexity, each auction goes through 4 phases:
- Creation – the process of configuring the event to be published and made available for the identified suppliers
- Publishing – inviting the suppliers to bid
- Monitoring – closely surveying the event, ensuring supplier attendance, quoting, and deadline adherence
- Closing- centralizing offers, distribution to interested parties, and evaluation of the most advantageous offer.
Like any event, the reverse auction is created as part of the Event page using the “Create event” button in the upper-right area.
Add event modal appears. You must add the project where you want the event to be created. Then click “Save”.
Each auction in Prokuria contains 4 sections: General info, Attachments, Settings, Suppliers, and Items.
Section 1: General info
To get started, add the name of the Reverse and describe what you want to purchase.
Section 2: Settings
Check: Auction at each item level
Cool-down period: it is the period expressed in minutes by the user, placed at the end of the auction, within which any change to the best suppliers leads to an extension of the auction deadline by the same
Show best bid to suppliers: if checked, all participating suppliers will see the value of the best bid you received. However, they will not know the name of the supplier with the best bid.
Show rank to suppliers: if checked, the supplier can see its position versus other participants.
Show starting price: if checked, fill in the Starting price field and suppliers will not be able to place a higher bid than this
Total starting price: the total starting price (sum of all items and quantities) that you will accept
Minimum step: minimum bid difference: consecutive Total bid (sum of all items and quantities) from one supplier must have this minimum difference
Currency: the currency of the event
Rounding: the number of decimals for Bids related fields
Allow multi-currency: multi-currency
Allow adjustment factor: adjustment factor
Section 4: Suppliers
Suppliers: the email addresses of the suppliers invited to the event are added here. They can be new or existing contacts in the supplier module.
There are two options for contacts/suppliers invited within a Reverse Auction
Option A: The one where only one contact for each supplier can be added into the Reverse auction page
Option B: This advanced option permits the inclusion of multiple contacts for a supplier, with each contact accessing the same response page via a one-time password (OTP). Activation of this feature is available upon request and is tailored to suit the specific needs of the buyer. It’s particularly useful in scenarios where several contacts within a supplier organization collaborate to provide a comprehensive response, typically in large-scale RFPs. Please contact our support department for more details support@prokuria.com.
The key distinction between the two options lies in the enhanced security and audit tracking provided by Option B, especially when multiple contacts from the same supplier are involved in responding to the same event.
This functionality is activated upon request and depending on the buyer’s needs.
Section 4: Items
- Starting price/um – minimum value accepted at the item level (per unit of measure). Suppliers will not be able to place a quote higher than the starting price for the respective item.
- Minimum step/um– the minimum difference with which a new bid at the item level of the same supplier must be smaller than its previous bid for that item.
Once all the required fields have been completed, the auction can be published to the suppliers by clicking on the “Publish event” button.
The event thus goes into the “Published” or “Started” status and the suppliers receive an email inviting them to participate.
After the event has been published, the buyer can modify the event’s end time by clicking the “Change end time” button.
When the event is in the “Published” status, all sections are disabled except for the Suppliers section, where new suppliers can be added to the auction.
All sections can be edited when the event is paused by clicking the “Pause” button: General info, Settings, Suppliers, Items
When the event is in the “Started” status, all sections are disabled and cannot be edited.
Only the specified sections can be edited when the event is paused by clicking the “Pause” button
Settings section: End date, Budget, Cost center, Show best bid to suppliers, and Show rank to suppliers.
Suppliers section: new suppliers can be added to the event.
Are you stuck somewhere? Don’t worry, we’re here for you. Drop us a mail at support@prokuria.com and we’ll get back to you.