How can I manage supplier responses conducted outside of the platform? Follow

Ideally, all Requests for Quote (RFQs) are conducted in the LevaData Platform with Suppliers and/or Contract Manufacturers / Original Design Manufacturers (CM/ODMs); however, there may be instances where your supplier and/or CM/ODM will not quote in the LevaData platform because they refuse to use the portal and your company is in agreement. In such cases, the responses from these vendors will not be captured by the LevaData platform, which will impact the user savings calculation.

When a Global Commodity Manager (GCM) receives the vendor response outside of the LevaData platform, an RFX response can be uploaded on behalf of the vendor by a proxy vendor/GCM.

Setting a User as a Proxy GCM

On the Manage Vendors page within Smart RFX, a dropdown is provided for supplier/vendors who do not have any users and the row text will be in black. If they have 1 or more users, the text in the row will be greyed out and you will not be able to establish a Proxy GCM.

Customers who wish to upload RFX responses on behalf of the supplier can assign a Proxy GCM to complete this process. This ensures that the RFQ data loop is tracked on the platform, ensuring spend/savings data integrity.

(1) Identify a supplier entry in Manage Vendors with 0 total users (text in black), (2) click the dropdown and input their email address or select them from the list of users already in the platform, (3) after assigning the proxy GCM user(s), select the [SAVE PROXY USERS] button to save the configuration.

Responding to an RFX by Proxy

Once an RFQ is sent to the vendor, the proxy GCM(s) navigate to the respective RFX page, where they can find an option to Respond on behalf of the Supplier.

After clicking on the response by proxy option, a dialog appears with RFX preview and a button to download the pre-populated template or upload the response file (if the supplier has already filled it out).

The primary step in requesting the quote from the supplier is downloading this Excel Workbook as part of the supplier request. This will ensure the supplier provides the data back in the correct format.

• Note: For the supplier perspective, please see - How can I export RFQs to Excel and import RFQs into the supplier portal?

Mandatory Input and Response Process

Within the Excel Workbook template file, there are several rules:

1. The supplier (or Proxy GCM) should not make any structural changes to this Excel document.
2. MPN Cost, MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity), and LT(Days) (Lead Time in Days) are all Mandatory Fields which will not accept the number 0 as an input.
3. STD/Custom (Standard vs. Custom) and Incoterms are both Dropdown list of values fields which will not accept the number 0 as a manual input.
4. COO (Country of Origin), MPQ (Minimum Purchase Quantity), Reschedule - Days, Cancellation Term - Days, Supplier Comments, and Distributor are not Mandatory fields, and will accept 0 as input.

When the GCM receives the quote, they should open the RFQ, re-select this upload icon, then upload the Excel Workbook of the supplier response, taking care to account for the rules above.

After successfully uploading the file, a message will appear showing that the changes were successfully validated, and the GCM will then select the Upload button.

If there is missing information, the GCM will receive a notification and erroneous fields will be highlighted in red.

After a successful upload, the GCM can enter a name and description for the quote as they see fit:

Additionally, the supplier response is updated on the RFX page:

The customer can now go ahead and accept the supplier response similar to a normal RFX.