Release 4.8 has focused attention on the Sourcing module following customer demand and excellent market feedback.
New Features:
Making Sourcing More Flexible
Communities now select the type of bid request they are creating which determines the type of sections available. Communities can now also work on bid requests with their team over a long period of time if needed and only have to define dates and times when they are ready to publish to suppliers.
Merge schedules and criteria into sections
To make the solution more flexible we've done a bit of a re-think and pulled together Schedules and Criteria into Sections. Sections can be Requirement (question) based, they can be Item based (for RFQ's) or they can also be Award sections which are used to define the award breakdown in an RFP.
Updated the Look and Feel
We have worked hard to improve the way Sourcing looks and operates. The tabs used for schedules and criteria have be replaced by new collapsing sections together with outline numbering. We have also reorganized the main tabs to make things easier to find.
Support for different question types
It's now possible to have requirements that are text, Y/N or a defined picklist. We have also added the ability to allow (or require) an attachment as part of the supplier response and if needed make it mandatory that the supplier supplements their response with additional comments.
Weighted questions
Feedback also brought to light the need for more granular weighting so we have added the ability to weight questions within a weighted section.
Flexible community defined evaluation scales
We have added the ability for your community to define the standard you want to use.
New Selection and Award Process
With the changes to support RFP and RFI we have also updated the award process to cater for all scenarios. The type of award is determined by the type of bid request selected.
Other Changes and Fixes
- Contract name has been added to contracts notification emails
- Sourcing integration has been updated to reflect the sourcing module changes
- We have added an extra field on the Community to make the display name configurable and separate from the community name that goes out on all orders.
What's Next?
As part of the on-going contract management roadmap we will be adding functionality for communities to define a contract approval workflow which includes the ability to define your own contract statuses.
We will also be updating the Sourcing Scorecard functionality and making improvements to the user interface, including removal of the bouncing menus!
To view the Release Notes in full please Click here