Price-Only Bidding is designed for junior or decentralized users who run Price-Only Bidding projects or other competitions that do not require scoring or a qualitative evaluation. With some of Bonfire's most critical features built-in, Price-Only Bidding will get your junior users up and running quickly while the rest of their colleagues can continue to use Bonfire's full functionality.
- What Is Price-Only Bidding?
- How Do I Get Started?
- Building A Price-Only Project
- Publishing Your Project
- Further Reading and FAQs
What Is Price-Only Bidding?
Price-Only Bidding is a specific project type that restricts a user to what functionality they will have access to in Bonfire. The primary difference is that Price-Only Bidding users can create Price-Only Bids. These projects are set up to meet the needs of the most common Price-Only projects, and feature the following:
- No complicated features like Questionnaires, BidTables or Multiple Categories
- One Evaluation Group
- One Reviewer
- Pass/Fail criteria scoring
No confusing mapping or complicated Criteria are required, getting your Projects launched easily and quickly.
How Do I Get Started?
Before creating your first Project, you will first need to be invited to your organization by your organizational or systems administrator. At minimum, you will need to be assigned the Projects - Department Simple Bid Manager before beginning. If you do not know who your organizational or system administrator is, please reach out to Bonfire Support for assistance.
Once you've been invited, you'll receive an email with more information! Click on Accept the invitation to begin.
Once you've accepted the invite, you'll automatically be brought to your Account Confirmation screen. Accept the Terms and Conditions to continue, then click on Continue to Bonfire.
You'll automatically be directed to your Project Dashboard, where you have a clear overview of all projects to which you have access.
Building A Price-Only Project
To get started, navigate to your Project Dashboard, and click Add Project.
From here, you'll see multiple options for the type of project you wish to create. Select Blank Price-Only to create an all-new Price-Only project.
On the Define your Project Draft page, name and label your project, select which Submission Type you would like to use, choose the level of visibility, and set important dates. Please note that the Project Owner will automatically become the sole Reviewer in Price Only Projects.
Click Create Project Draft when you're ready.
NOTE: Strategic Sourcing Project features, such as Multi-Category Decisions, Rank Analysis or Best Value Projects are not available on Simple Bids. If you need these features, please create a Strategic Sourcing Project.
Once your Project Draft has been created, you will be brought to the project page, as shown below:
Details
The Details page is the default project page where you can view important project information, such as who the Project Owner is, what features are active on the project, and upcoming important project dates.
Files
Under Files, you can upload documentation for the Project, as well as documentation for internal stakeholders. You can add almost any file type to a maximum size of 1000MB each. You can learn more about uploading files here: Public Files
Messages
You can use Messages to centralize communication between internal stakeholders or vendors, or issue Public Notices. You can read more about Messaging here:
Approvals
The Approvals section is where you can view, create, and edit any Approval requests tied to the project. For more information, feel free to check our full Approvals guide.
Evaluation Groups
As part of Simple Bids, Evaluation Groups are automatically set up for you - no further actions are required! With Simple Bids, you can have a single Evaluation Group at a time.
NOTE: If you need more Evaluation Groups, please create a Strategic Sourcing Project instead of a Simple Bid.
People
Under People, you can view internal users who are currently associated with this project. For Simple Bids, no additional setup is needed - you're automatically included as a Reviewer!
NOTE: Only the Project Owner will be added as a reviewer with Price-Only Projects. If you need additional reviewers, please convert the project to a Strategic Sourcing project.
Additionally, if Declarations, such as Project NDAs or COIs, are active on your portal, you can view your current Declarations here. If Declarations is not active on your Bonfire Portal, you will not see this tab.
Requested Information
You can add additional elements of Requested Information under the Requested Information tab. Click Manage to add more requested Documents or Data, or Edit to make changes to your Pricing Sheet. You can learn more about creating or editing Pricing Sheets, here: Pricing Sheets in Bonfire
NOTE: Simple Bids only permits one BidTable, which is automatically set up for you as a Pricing Sheet.
Criteria
With Criteria, you can add additional Pass/Fail conditions for your project, as well as group your Criteria if needed. Learn more about adding Criteria here: Criteria Types
Note: With Price-Only bids, you can only add Pass/Fail Criteria.
Vendor Invites
Under Vendor Invites, you can choose to directly invite vendors (Invites) to your project. Learn more about inviting Vendors here: Vendor Invites and Invite-Only Projects
Also in this section, you can view, add or replace Commodity Codes associated with your Project. Adding Commodity Codes can assist vendors in discovering your Project, and in most cases, we recommend adding Commodity Codes. You can learn more about Commodity Codes, here: Commodity Codes for Buyers
Submissions
Under Submissions, you can view which vendors have downloaded documents (Document Takers) or view your Submissions.
Publishing Your Project
Once you've completed your project setup, you can go ahead and Publish your Project! You will see this option as a banner, as indicated below:
Alternatively, you can also go to Actions -> Publish Project.
NOTE: While Project Agents can create Project Drafts, they cannot publish those drafts in Active Projects. A user with the Department Manager Role or above must publish project drafts created by Project Agents.
At this point, you'll see an overview of your project noting all pertinent details, allowing you to double check before completing publication. When ready, click Publish Project.
Congratulations! You have successfully created a Project!
Now that your project has been created, it will appear on the Projects Dashboard under the Active Projects section. You can then click your project to view and edit any aspect of it (including everything you just set up).
NOTE: While Price Only projects can be converted to Strategic Sourcing projects, the reverse is not possible; Strategic Sourcing projects cannot be converted to Price Only projects.
Further Reading and FAQs
Once your Project is ready for Evaluation, please be sure to check out our guide: Evaluating a Project in Bonfire
Can I add additional Reviewers or Evaluation Groups?
- Simple Bids are designed to be quick and easy, and as such, will only permit the Project Owner to act as a Reviewer. No other Reviewers or Evaluation Groups can be added or created.
Converting a Price Only Project
- Sometimes you might go through the process of configuring your Price Only project, only to realize that this project requires some of the features that are only available in Strategic Sourcing projects. Don't worry, Price Only projects can be converted to Strategic Sourcing projects! From the Actions drop down on the Details page, select Convert to Strategic Sourcing. This will convert the project and enable all of the features associated with a Strategic Sourcing project.
What if I already started a project draft before this update?
- If you created a project in Drafts prior to the release of our new Project Creation Flow, you'll find those projects under Project Drafts, accessible from your main Project Dashboard.
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