In Cloudia Sourcing, any items put out to request are referred to as sourcing items so irrespective of whether you are putting goods, services or contract price out to open tender, these will be entered in the system as ‘sourcing items ’. Sourcing items are created in ‘groups’ or ‘lots’. If the request concerned has been divided into lots, a sub-area will be created in the ‘Sourcing items and criteria' section of the call for tenders, under which the sourcing items will be listed. If the request concerned has not been divided into lots, a group will be created in the ‘Sourcing items and criteria' section of request, under which the sourcing items will be listed. The selection on whether the request is to be divided into lots is made in the ‘Procedure’ section.
The suppliers’s electronic response consists of two electronic forms: ‘Qualification and ‘Sourcing items and criteria’. The ‘Sourcing items and criteria' section is used for defining the items being requestes, i.e. Sourcing items and criteria, and the requirements pertaining to them, i.e. Sourcing items and criteria (see Sourcing items and criteria).
Add group/sub-area
The creation of sourcing items is started by adding a group or a sub-area, depending on whether or not the request has been divided into lots.
Add group (procurement not divided into lots)
Under the ‘Sourcing items and criteria’’ section, create a group for the request objects using the ‘Add group’ button. The edit group window is displayed.
- Enter a name for the group
- Asking the price and price decimals (see Asking the price)
- Add the objects and their criteria
FIGURE: Adding a group for a request that has not been divided into lots.
Add sub-area (procurement divided into lots)
Under the ‘Sourcing items and criteria’’ section, create a sub-area for the request objects using the ‘Add sub-area’ button. The edit sub-area window is displayed.
- Enter a name for the sub-area
- Asking the price and price decimals (see Asking the price)
- Add the objects and their criteria
FIGURE: Adding a sub-area for a request that has been divided into lots.
- The following options will be displayed in the sub-area basic information if you allowed partial responses in the ‘Procedure’ section.
- Select whether you want to allow partial responses within a sub-area
- If you select ‘Yes’, the suppliers may choose which objects in the sub-area to tender and which objects not to response
- Select whether the sub-area concerned must be tendered
- If you select ‘Yes’, the tenderer may not choose not to tender the sub-area concerned.
- Select whether you want to allow partial responses within a sub-area
FIGURE: Procurement sub-area ‘Transportations’, where the tenderer may choose whether to submit a tender for both areas.
Processing groups or sub-areas
Processing all groups or sub-areas
The top-right corner of the ‘Sourcing items and criteria’’ section includes functions for processing all the groups/sub-areas at the same time.
- Check information
- The system highlights in red any missing mandatory information or conflicting choices
- Preview
- The preview opens on a separate tab where you can check what the entry form of the ‘Sourcing items and criteria’’ section looks like for the supplier
- NOTE! If the request includes several sub-areas or groups, they will be closed by default and the desired group/sub-area can be opened from the ‘Expand group >>’ link
- Object metadata fields
- The function can be used for adding a specific metadata field for all sourcing items s at once to accommodate additional information when the object is saved (e.g. package size, product code).
- Upload sourcing items from an Excel file (see the instructions below)
- You can import the sourcing items all at once from Excel
- Close all groups/sub-areas
- You can close all groups/sub-areas as single lines to make processing easier
- Open all groups/sub-areas
- You can open all groups/sub-areas so that all the information they contain is visible
FIGURE: Procurement with three sub-areas. The figure depicts the shared functions of the sub-areas.
Processing an individual group or sub-area
In the top-right corner of the group/sub-area, you will find functions for processing the group/sub-area concerned.
- Delete the selected objects and criteria of the group/sub-area
- Select the desired objects and/or criteria of the group or sub-area by checking the box at the end of the line.
- Click the red recycle bin
- Export the selections in the form of a criteria group (see Criteria library)
- Select the desired objects and/or criteria of the group or sub-area by checking the box at the end of the line.
- Click the icon with a cloud and an arrow
- Criteria library (see Criteria library)
- Select the desired objects and/or criteria of the group or sub-area by checking the box at the end of the line.
- Click the book icon
- Moving and copying group or sub-area objects and criteria (see Moving and copying group or sub-area objects and criteria)
- Select the desired objects and/or criteria of the group or sub-area by checking the box at the end of the line.
- Click the arrow icon
- Close group/sub-area
- Click the underscore icon to close the group/sub-area as a single line
- Delete group/sub-area
- Click the red cross to delete the group/sub-area from the call for tenders
Above the objects of the group/sub-area, you will find functions for processing all the objects of the group/sub-area concerned at once:
- Close all objects in the group/sub-area
- Open all objects in the group/sub-area
- Select all objects in the group/sub-area
- NOTE! You may select an individual object from the end of the object line concerned.
FIGURE: The figure depicts the editing options available for an individual group
Sourcing items
Sourcing items can be created manually or imported from Excel
Add new object
- To add a new sourcing items, type its name in the ‘New object’ field.
- Add the quantity being requested. NOTE! If you leave the quantity blank, the system will treat the quantity as one
- Add organisation unit
- Add the unit to be used in comparison and the unit in which the price should be entered
FIGURE: In the figure, a new object ‘Reinforcing steel’ has been added in the ‘Steels’ group, and a new object can be added under ‘New object’’.
Editing an object
The icons at the end of the object line allow you to edit the object.
- Delete object
- Click the red cross to delete the object from the group/sub-area
- Move
- To move an object to another location within the group/sub-area, drag and drop the line to the desired location
- NOTE! If you want to move an object to another group/sub-area, select the ‘Moving and copying group or sub-area objects and criteria’ arrow icon from the top of the group/sub-area (click here for more detailed instructions)
- Functions
- Close object
- Click the underscore to close the object as a single line to make the objects easier to manage
- Copy object
- The function creates a copy of the object below the current object
- Object metadata
- This function can be used for adding text in the metadata defined for all objects (see Processing all groups or sub-areas > Object metadata fields)
- Close object
FIGURE: The ‘Functions’ menu of an object
Upload sourcing items from an Excel file
Sourcing items can be imported using a pre-defined Excel template
- Click ‘Upload sourcing items from an Excel file’
- In the window that appears, click ‘download template’ to download a pre-defined import template
- Define the sourcing items in the pre-defined import template
- Click the ‘Select file’ button to import the pre-defined template back to the system
- Select the ‘Groups/sub-areas and objects imported from Excel will replace the current ones’ option to overwrite the information in the ‘sourcing items and criteria’ section
- If you do not select this option, the groups/sub-areas and objects will be added after the current ones
- Click ‘Submit’ to import the groups/sub-areas and objects to the request
- In the window that appears, click ‘download template’ to download a pre-defined import template
FIGURE: In the ‘‘Import groups/sub-areas and objects from an Excel file’ window, select ‘download template’ and import it to the system by selecting it from your computer.
Filling out the pre-defined Excel template
The Excel file includes pre-defined fields for entering the necessary information. Columns A and B in the Excel file are mandatory; the remaining fields are optional. Any information entered in the fields will pass to the sourcing itemsunder the respective headings
- Column A is used for defining whether the row concerned is a group/sub-area (G) or identifier (I)
- Column B is used for defining the object name
- Column C is used for defining the quantity to be procured
- Column D is used for defining the unit
- Column F is used for defining the product code
- Column G and the subsequent columns can be used for creating own additional columns that will be shown in the procurement objects as additional information
FIGURE: Example of filling out the Excel file