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If you are familiar with the process of placing an RFQ, then you know that there are several steps that need to be completed before the order can be placed. One of the most important steps is to create each item you need for your order. You can do so in the items section.
The item section in an RFQ is the most important part of an RFQ. Is where you define what you want to order from your suppliers, and it contains all the information that suppliers need to bid on your request.
When you are working with complex RFQs, the standard item section may not be enough. Different items might require different information and therefore need to have their own tab for you to get all the data that is needed for this specific item. In this situation, you may wish to use some of the more advanced functionality available in the items section.
As you already know, there are many fields to fill out in the items section, which makes it hard for suppliers to understand what exactly they must do when bidding on a specific product or service.
Prokuria has developed a solution for these problems by developing advanced functionalities to make it easier for buyers and suppliers alike.
Prokuria has a powerful section for items in an RFQ where you can customize the item section to fit your needs. This will save lots of time for both yourself and your suppliers because they don't need to guess what exactly you're ordering or send follow-up questions which may cause delays in getting your products delivered on time. It also makes it easier for everyone involved when there are multiple people working on the same project as everything is clearly defined upfront so no one has any doubts about what they should be doing next.
The most important advanced functionalities available in the items- section are:
1. Edit columns
Managing the columns in your grid is time-consuming. You must go through all of them one by one and set up the fields you want to use.
With the Edit Columns advanced feature in Prokuria, adding or removing a column to your grid takes only minutes!
It's easy to add new fields on the fly without worrying about column layout. Just choose from available options or enter your own data and watch as our grid adapts accordingly!
The page is divided into 3 sections:
Available fields - Here are all the fields that you can choose from. You also have an option to make a specific field visible for either buyers or suppliers
Selected Columns Buyer - In this section select which data is visible to the buyer and whether they can edit it. This section also allows you to set whether a displayed field is mandatory or not.
Selected Columns Suppliers Section - This section allows you to decide which data is visible to the suppliers and whether they can edit it. You can also set what I the field is mandatory or not.
It is simple to remove or to add a field in the template, by checking or unchecking "show to buyer" or/and "show to supplier" boxes in the "Available fields" section.
For more details regarding the edit columns feature, you can check our support article here.
2. Special mentions for suppliers
Are you looking for a way to make your event more engaging and also make your suppliers feel special? This can be challenging, but it doesn't have to be.
When you are publishing new RFQs and you have an important message that needs to be delivered to all the suppliers, does the same thing always happen? You can't do it properly, without sending them all individual emails.
We have the solution. Now, you can write a special mention and we will deliver it directly into their inboxes.
With our special mentions for suppliers tool, you can add supplier details to your events without having to contact them directly! This will save you time and money when planning your next event.
Add a special mention for each supplier in order to give them an individual message that is unique from the other exhibitors' messages. You can do this when editing or pausing an event, but not when publishing it.
You can get more information about Special mentions for suppliers on our support article here.
3. Working with multiple tabs for items
RFQs are more complex than they look. It can be difficult to get all the information you need from your suppliers in order to make a decision on which supplier has the best bid.
It is very important to have all the items information in one place when you are working on an RFQ, otherwise, it will take more time to fill in the different fields and the quality of your work may decrease.
To help you out, we've added this feature where you can work on multiple tabs for items. It is a great way to organize your RFQ and make sure that you ask for the right information in each tab. It also allows you to see all of the information at once without having to go back and forth between tabs. Also, the "Bulk action" function helps you to move an item from one tab to another, avoiding having two or more documents open at once.
More information on working with multiple tabs for items may be found in our support article.
4. Supplier view
When creating an RFQ, everything looked fine until started adding the items. The problem is that the suppliers' responses page can look a bit messy because the suppliers often don't know exactly what their customer wants.
This happens because they usually have to fill out a lot of information about items which is not easy for them to do. They also have no idea how to put all of that information into one page without making it look cluttered and confusing.
With this new feature, you can preview what your suppliers will see before sending out your RFQs.
Also, you can choose which fields are visible and which are not. This feature makes it easy to create perfect RFQs that will help you get exactly what you need from suppliers.
Check out our support article for more information about supplier view.
5. Add new columns
Buyers have a lot of questions when they send an RFQ to a supplier. They want to know what the product is, how much it weighs, and other details about it.
In some cases, It's not enough to just enter basic information. You need more details that will help you identify the best proposal that fits your requirements.
The functionality Add new columns will allow users to add as many fields as they need for each product so they don't have to make several entries if they want several fields saved about their products. Users can also choose which columns are visible and which are not, as well as whether or not they are mandatory.
You can also set the column to be visible to the buyer and/or supplier:
More information about adding new columns can be found on our help page here.