In Atamis, the criteria or questions you request from prospective suppliers are known as Requirements and are grouped into Requirement Sections. This article provides an overview of creating requirement sections and how to then add or remove requirements in each section, what the requirement fields are, adding evaluators and the approval process.
A simple example of requirement sections may include:
- Qualification Section - Pass/Fail section where requirements will pass/fail or for information only
- Technical Section - Score section where requirements will be evaluated, scored and mandatory
- Commercial Section - Scored or auto-scored section for evaluating price
A tender/project must have at least one requirement section. Each requirement section must have at least one requirement. The total weighting of all sections must equal 100% when not using lots. In lot based tenders, each requirement section is a lot.
Creating Requirement Sections
To start setting up a requirement section, click New from the requirements tab. Complete the required fields, marked by a red asterisk, and click Save. When creating your sections, set the requirement section status to Draft. You can make edits to these fields later by viewing the Section Details tab of the requirement section after it has been created.
Each eSourcing project must have at least one requirement section.
- Requirement Section Name - Atamis recommends putting letters or numbers before the name to help ensure that the sections are ordered consistently.
- Section Weighting - This is used in the system evaluation calculation. All sections must total to 100%, and if they do not the flag will be set to red on the Project Details Tab.
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Procurement Stage
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- For single-stage projects, set to Tender/RFx
- For multi-stage projects, set to the stage that this requirement section relates to
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Requirement Section Status - This is set automatically by the system to the following values
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- Draft: Default value, requirements can be added and modified
- Approved: Set when the Approve Requirement Sections action is completed. Requirements have been finalised and are ready for distribution to suppliers.
- Archived: Set when the Start Evaluation action is completed. All supplier responses have been received and evaluation is either underway or complete.
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- Description - This will be visible to suppliers via the portal and can be used to provide instructions on how to complete requirements.
- Lot Number - Enter the lot number in text format (e.g. 'Lot 1') if the procurement is divided into lots and a section represents a lot.
Adding & Deleting Requirements
Requirements can be added entirely new or by copying requirements from other projects using the Requirement Library.
From within the Requirements tab of a Requirement Section:
- Select Add Requirement From Library in the requirement section header to open a search box. Use the various search fields to locate requirements you can re-use from prior projects.
- Alternatively, click 'New' to add a new requirement from scratch
- Select the checkbox next to any requirements you wish to delete and select Delete Selected Requirements to delete
Each requirement section must have at least one requirement
Types of Requirements
There are three types of requirements you can create:
- Optional - Suppliers are not required to answer these questions
- Required - Suppliers must answer these questions to submit their bid. These require an evaluation maximum score and weighting to be defined.
- Pass/Fail - Suppliers must answer these questions to submit their bid. Based on their responses, the outcome will either be pass or fair. If these questions are set as picklists, the system will run auto-scoring. Checkbox, Date and Multi-select response field types cannot be Pass/Fail.
Requirement Fields
The table below outlines the fields on a requirement page along with any considerations for populating these fields.
| Requirement Field | Notes |
| Heading | OPTIONAL The heading will appear to suppliers in the Supplier Portal. |
| Requirement | The full-text description of the question you wish suppliers bidding to answer. There is a Salesforce enforced maximum characters in this text field. |
| Requirement Reference (Ref) |
Each requirement must have a Requirement Ref. This is used by the system to display the sort order in the supplier portal. Sorting is alphabetical, not numerical, therefore using A.1 is more effective than 1.1. |
| Type |
See above for the three types of responses. |
| Response Field Type | There are a variety of Response / Field Types to choose from. |
| Currency Auto-Score Method | Can be set to Relative to Lowest Price when Response Field Type = Currency |
| Character Limit for Response | Can be set to any number up to 32,000 when Response Field Type = Text Area. Character limits are not used for Rich Text Area. |
| Requirement URL | OPTIONAL If the question refers to an external web link, enter it here. |
| Requirement URL Appears As | OPTIONAL If entering a requirement URL, enter the text you would like to appear as the hyperlink to the supplier. |
| Evaluation Max. Score | Any maximum score can be applied; will be visible to evaluators, but not suppliers. |
| Evaluation Weighting | Any weighting can be applied as a number. Weightings can be considered as percentages if desired, but do not need to total to 100%. Visible to evaluators, but not suppliers. |
| Evaluation Scoring Guidelines | Visible to evaluators but not suppliers. |
| Dependent Requirement | OPTIONAL Use this field if your requirement is optional, but becomes mandatory dependent on how a supplier answers another picklist question. Select the system record of another Requirement (must be in the same Requirement Section and have Field Type = Picklist). |
| Dependent Picklist Value | OPTIONAL If the dependent requirement field is used, the value from the Picklist field that when selected will make this Requirement become mandatory. |
| Picklist Evaluation Score | OPTIONAL If evaluators are to score the responses using pre-set values from a picklist, enter the picklist scoring options here with a line-break between each one. For example, if you add scores 2,3 and 5 then evaluators will only be able to select 2,3, or 5 as the evaluation score for that question. |
| Link to Supplier Field |
OPTIONAL If the question is part of a standard questionnaire and this field exists on the Supplier page, this field contains the unique API name of the Supplier field that data will be saved to for future Projects. This is for Administrator use only and is normally pre-configured on Templates. |
Response Field Types
- For one-line responses. Up to 255 characters, text box appears as a single line in Supplier Portal
- Allows up to 32,000 of characters of plain text in a large text area. The character limit can be manually input for this type of response field.
- Supports formatting, images and charts. Up to approximately 30,000 characters of formatted text.
- Suppliers choose from predefined options (picklist values) which can be used for auto-scoring in evaluation.
- Yes/No or True/False answers.
- For numeric responses only. Any number with up to 16 digits and 2 decimal places
- For monetary values. Any number with up to 16 digits and 2 decimal places.
- Allows multiple document attachments up to 2GB and facility for adding multiple notes (free text comments).
- Allows entry of a date format response.
- Suppliers can select multiple options from a predefined list.
- Used for instructional text or information. No response is required.
Setting Picklist Fields and Auto-Scores
For Requirements with a Response Field Type of Picklist or Multi-Select, create the Picklist Options by clicking New on the Picklist Options tab. These are presented as dropdown values.
The sort order field allows users to sort the display order of the picklist values to suppliers. When setting up requirement options, only use pass/fail options for pass/fail type requirements, if the requirement type is optional or required leave this field blank.
Adding Evaluators
To add evaluators to a requirement section, click Add Evaluator. Check the box next to the users on the procurement team to assign them and click confirm.
By default, section evaluators are expected to score all requirements in the requirement section. It is possible to assign only specific requirements to evaluators by checking the box under Score All Requirements beside a users name.
You will then be prompted to select one or more requirements for each evaluators by checking the box for each requirement and clicking Create.
Evaluators added won't be notified or prompted to complete their evaluation until the evaluation process has started. If you'd like to ask evaluators if they are available to undertake the evaluation, we recommend using the discussions tab. See the article on Evaluating Responses for more information.
To use evaluation features, an evaluator is required for each requirement section.
Approving Requirement Sections
Requirement sections must be set to Approved before they can be shared with suppliers. This is done by completing a task with the action type of approve requirement sections and clicking Do Now. Select the sections to approve and click Done.
Once approved, requirements cannot be modified. If circumstances require an amendment to the requirements, these will need to be communicated to the bidders by performing a task of Action Type Issue an Amendment.
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