This article will provide a quick overview of the Bonfire platform. Once you have received an invitation from your contact at Bonfire and created your account, you'll be able to use this article to get acquainted with the portal. It is worth noting that this is a high-level overview; many of these modules have been broken down more extensively in other articles.
Upon logging in, you may see several tabs across the top of your screen: Intake, Community, Projects, File Library, Contracts, Vendors, Insights, Manage, Portal, and Settings. This article will provide a high-level overview of each of these tabs.
Note that the tabs that you see will be dependent upon your User role within your Bonfire portal and your organization's Bonfire subscription.
Intake
The Intake module contains powerful features that enable procurement professionals to work smarter with less paperwork! No more arriving at your office with paper on your desk, post-it notes stuck to folders, or digging through your email folders to locate those important procurement requests.
With Intake, stakeholders are able to easily fill out a preset form for any procurement needs! You define the form - this way you are getting the information you need to do your job. Requesters are given access to their own small portal to manage and track their requests, while procurement teams can organize, assign and create project drafts right from Intake.
Select Intake at the top of your page and you’ll be directed to the dashboard for this module that will provide a few key performance indicators (KPIs) on requests submitted, any requests that are not assigned, new requests that have come in and requests that are ready to be drafted into a project. As well, you’ll see a Request Inbox that allows you to locate previous requests using the search bar and see your filtered results below. Alternatively, you can sort the columns by clicking on the header name or leave the table as-is with all the requests showing.
From here, you can open a request to manage it with features such as adding notes, updating the status, sending items for approval, assigning it to a specific user, and so much more!
For a requester, their view and access is more limited as seen in this screenshot:
Requesters are able to select the Requests option at the top of their portal and use the + Submit a New Request feature that will allow them to complete a predefined form request and send it to their procurement team. Intake managers will be notified and can log in to manage the request!
Community
The Community tab will enable teams to develop their scope of work while referring to other projects and bid documents for guidance and ideas on the best practices followed by other organizations. The access to these resources will build a sense of community while simultaneously saving you time during the market research and drafting phases, and beyond!
In collaboration with Pavilion, the Cooperative Contracts tab allows users to search a database of over 70,000 cooperative and piggyback-able contracts from 300+ sources. This database increases the number of contracts you can draw knowledge from, aiding procurement professionals during market research and the contract drafting process.
Community Projects is a page listing all the public projects across the Bonfire client network. Users can search and filter to locate relevant projects, see the project description, all the related public information, and access public documents.
- Instant access to all public projects across the Bonfire client network
- Help procurement professionals during the market research and documents drafting process with projects details and bid documents from other organizations
- Easily search through open, closed, and awarded public projects across the entire Bonfire community
- Enable everyone to share the best practices and good bid documents to develop a sense of community
Projects Dashboard
The Projects Dashboard is the main page you will see when you click on the Projects tab in your Bonfire portal. You can create projects from this tab and navigate to any active, templated or drafted projects.
You will see a number of graphs and metrics on display in the top center left of the dashboard; these are your project insights and key performance indicators (KPIs). Current project statuses, number of submissions received, money awarded/saved for the year, and pages saved are all covered here.
On the right-hand side of your KPIs, you can see your feed, which will update based on user interactions. All interactions with your projects by any user type will show up here with a timestamp.
The Navigation menu on the left-hand side gives you an overview of all your projects, as well as which status they're in. You can use the search bar to find a project based on keywords.
Finally, there are three tabs near the bottom of the dashboard, all of which can be expanded by clicking + Show.
- The Active Projects tab will hold all projects you are running or have run in the past, including projects in the Pending, Open, Evaluating, Complete or Awarded stages. You can create a project by clicking Add Project.
- The Project Templates tab will store any existing templates, which are created from past projects and can be utilized for future projects. Within a project, click Actions in the dropdown menu and then click Create Project Template from Project.
- The Project Drafts tab will hold any project drafts you've created that have yet to be published. You can create a draft by clicking Add Project Draft.
- The Schedule tab can be expanded to display a full calendar containing all of your projects' major deadlines. (NOTE: This section is only visible if there are less than 50 Active Projects.)
File Library
The File Library is the main component of the Bonfire Solicitation Builder, with the other component being the In-App Document Editor (Drafting). The builder gives procurement professionals powerful tools to create their opportunities from start to finish without ever having to leave their Bonfire portal. It is best used in conjunction with Intake and Approvals, as this will save valuable time and help with maintaining compliance throughout the whole process. The pain of navigating through many programs, endless email trails and random papers to find what you’re looking for is virtually eliminated with this module. And one of the best features of this tool is that user access is controlled, ensuring that only those involved in the building process are uploading and editing documents as needed. In turn, any changes made to documents are cascaded to project templates that they are associated with and all edits are tracked with timestamps.
Building your File Library is simple and easy and it will become your central repository for all RFx documents. Users are able to upload multiple documents at once with the option to add a description so that the file contents are easily identifiable. As well, Word files are able to be opened with the In-App Document Editor and users with appropriate permissions can begin to work on creating, maintaining and finalizing documents. As mentioned, the files can also be linked to existing project templates and whenever those files are changed within the editor, the project templates receive those edits, too!
For more information on the Bonfire Solicitation Builder, please reach out to your Client Success Representative today!
Contracts Dashboard
The Contracts Dashboard allows you to view all your contracts and contract templates. Be sure to reach out to your contact at Bonfire if you wish to enable this feature in your portal.
Similar to the project's dashboard, your contract key performance indicators (KPIs) are on full display on your dashboard. This tracks your total contracts, the total value, and differentiates between extendable and non-extendable contracts.
The calendar below this section indicates when important contract actions are scheduled to occur. Darker shades of orange indicate a higher number of contracts with respective actions on that given day.
The Reminders section outlines upcoming custom reminders with respect to your contracts. You can change the timeline by clicking the drop-down menu; your options are Next 3 Months, Next 6 Months, Next Year, or Next 2 Years.
The Contracts chart provides a similar view for contracts as it does for projects. Here you can view all Pending, Active, and Expired contracts. You can add contracts by clicking Add Contract.
There are also four additional sections located on the left-hand menu:
- The Templates section holds all contract templates you have created. You can create a template by clicking Add Contract Template.
- The Archived section holds any contracts you have archived. Should a contract need to be unarchived, it can be found here.
- The Settings section gives you the option to define Custom Contract Fields, Custom Contract Documents, and Contract Types.
The Search section enables you to search your contracts by using key words or phrases.
Vendors Dashboard
The Vendors Dashboard houses all Vendor information and records from your past and current projects.
Vendor KPIs will be visible in the same way project and contract KPIs are on their respective dashboards. You can see how many Vendors have joined this month or this year, and you can also see the number of Vendor lists you have created this year.
Your Vendor feed will update when a Vendor joins your portal or performs some sort of action within a project.
There are four expandable tabs on this page to familiarize yourself with:
- The Vendor Records tab stores a list of every Vendor that has interacted with your portal at some point in time. It contains important Vendor details, including contact name, email, date joined, etc.
- The Vendor Lists tab allows you to manage and create lists to keep track of your Vendors and make it easier to do Vendor invites.
- The Registration Settings tab enables you to customize the process a Vendor must undergo to create their Vendor Record for your Organization. Here, you can indicate which custom fields and Vendor documents you wish to request of your Vendors. You can also create various Vendor Types that your Vendors can assign to their accounts and dictate whether or not you would like to make Commodity Codes mandatory.
- The Performance Surveys tab stores every Vendor Performance survey you have sent out. This tab allows you to view Vendor name, contract info, cadence with which the survey is sent out, associated respondents, engagement score, and performance rating. Click Create to send out a new performance survey for one of your Vendors. If you would like to inquire more about Vendor Performance Surveys, reach out to your Bonfire contact.
Insights Page
The Insights Page provides ample gathering of data from all of your past projects. This feature must be enabled for your portal by your Bonfire contact, such as your Client Success Representative.
The bar graphs visible on this page can reflect whichever type of data you would like to view; in this case, they reflect the Average Number of Users per Project. You can opt to either view this information in chart form, as seen above or in raw data form.
On the right-hand side, the drop-down menu entitled Insight will allow you to choose the type of data you would like to view. Upon changing this, the chart data on the left will change accordingly.
The Filters section below this drop-down can be toggled on and off to render more specific data. You can filter based on date, project type, project owners, or departments. To remove these filters, click Undo or Reset near the bottom of the section.
Manage Page
The Manage Page allows you to manage users, departments, and general portal settings. Any high level modifications can be made on this page.
The Users tab holds all Bonfire users you have created, as Observers, Reviewers, or Advisors, as well as any organization members you have added as users, including Department Managers and Org Admins. Reach out to your contact at Bonfire before creating new users, as some roles have a cost associated with them. Roles can be edited at any time, and account accesses can be either enabled or disabled easily under this tab.
The Pending User Invitations tab holds any org member you have invited to your portal. Once they accept their invite, they will move into the Users tab.
The Departments tab allows you to create and store any relevant departments you would like to include in your portal. Departments can be created, edited, or deleted under this tab.
The Upload Organization Logo tab allows you to import an org logo, which will display in the top left corner of your portal.
The Primary Contact Information tab holds any information you initially inputted pertaining to whomever you select as your primary contact. This information can be changed at any time.
Public Portal
The Public Portal page displays your portal exactly as it will appear to Vendors. You can use this tab to preview your projects from a Vendor's perspective.
The Open Public Opportunities tab allows you to view any active projects in your portal. Click on View Opportunity to view the project how any of your Vendors would.
The Past Public Opportunities tab (if enabled) provides a similar view to the previous one, but it displays projects that have closed or been awarded. Vendors will be able to view these opportunities, but will not be able to bid on them.
The My Opportunities tab will list any projects that a Vendor has already bid on, or has been invited to bid on. Note that since you are a buyer and a not a vendor, this tab will be blank.
Settings Page
The Settings Page allows you to modify your basic portal settings.
The Name tab allows you to change your first and last name if this information was entered incorrectly. Your name always shows up in the top right corner of your portal.
The Email and Password tab allows you to change either the email or password associated with your account.
The Profile Picture tab allows you to upload a picture that will appear in the area beside your name in the top right corner of your portal.
The Preferred Language tab allows you to select the language you would like your portal in.
The Timezone tab allows you to select your timezone so that any time that appears on your portal will be displayed for your timezone.
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