Help for Sourcing Buyers

Buyers - Using the Negotiations Home

Page
The Oracle Sourcing Negotiations Home page is the starting place for all your sourcing tasks. The
tasks you can perform are organized into functional areas and are accessible from different tables
and links

 Requests Tab

You use the Requests tab to access the Demand Workbench feature. This feature allows you to access
and use requisition demand stored in Oracle Purchasing to create Oracle Sourcing documents. You
can use the Demand Workbench to create RFQs and auctions with either standard or blanket purchase
order outcomes. You can define your own views to automatically display only the requisition demand
that meets the search criteria you select.

 Negotiations Tab
o Searches

You can perform simple and advanced searches to locate negotiations of interest. A simple
search allows you to specify a single search criterion and search value, and then locate all
published negotiations that match the search value (published negotiations are open for supplier
responding). An advanced search allows you to specify multiple search criteria and then locate
published negotiations that match all search values.

o Published Negotiations

The Published Negotiations table displays the negotiations which you have published. This
display includes negotiations in which you are either the owner or for which you are a
collaboration member. The entries in the table appear in the following order:

 Open negotiations, in order of time left (paused negotiations are displayed with a pause
icon to the right of the negotiation number).
 Closed negotiations, ordered by negotiation number.
 Cancelled negotiations, ordered by negotiation number

There are five entries in the table. To see all your negotiations, click Full List.

Click the negotiation number link to access the negotiation summary page to view information
for that negotiation. Click the Monitor icon to access the Live Console and view supplier and
response information for any responses to the negotiation.

o Quick Links
 The Quick Links section of the Negotiations Home page provides fast access to the most
commonly performed operations in Oracle Sourcing.

 Create

You use the links under the Create section to create new negotiations. There is a link for
each negotiation type. You can also use the Copy link to access a draft or published
negotiation and use it as the basis for you new negotiation document. You can also create
events, which are collections of sourcing negotiations that can be viewed and managed as
a group.

 Manage

The Manage section allows you to:

 Manage draft sourcing documents.

 View and manage events
 View the status of any Oracle Procurement Contracts deliverables that are
associated with your negotiations.
 Submit surrogate responses on behalf of suppliers who have no Internet access but
wish to participate in a negotiation.
 Research supplier performance by searching the Approved Supplier List
information or viewing a supplier information to determine which suppliers are
appropriate for a particular negotiation you are creating.
 Templates

If you frequently conduct negotiations of a similar type that use many of the same
attributes or suppliers, you can create templates based on the negotiation type. You can
have multiple templates for each negotiation type. The templates you create are private
and available for your use only. The Sourcing Super User may have created public
templates for use by all Sourcing Buyers. Once a template has been created, you can use
the template when creating your new negotiation. You use the Resuable Templates links
to search for existing templates or to create new ones.

o Containers

On the right side of the page, there are three possible containers identifying actions items you
may need to address. If there are no entries for you for that particular type of task, the container
does not appear.

 Draft Negotiations

This container lists the draft negotiations for which you are either the owner or a
collaboration team member. The entries appear by preview date (if specified), then by
open date. If there are no dates specified, they appear according to the negotiation
number. This container lists a maximum of fifty entries.

If you can edit the draft, clicking the link navigates to the Create Negotiation:
Header page.

 Unread Messages
 While a negotiation is in progress, you can communicate with suppliers to provide
additional information or answer of clarify questions. This container lists any unread
messages. A maximum of fifty messages appear, according to the time sent. Clicking the
link accesses the Message page where you can read the text of the message.

 Incomplete Tasks

If you are a member of a collaboration team, you may have been assigned specified tasks
to perform. For example, you may be responsible for defining the invitation list for a draft
negotiation.

If there are outstanding tasks you need to perform, reminders for the fifty most current
(displayed in order of target completion date) are displayed in this container. If no date
for the task was specified, the entries appear according to the negotiation number.

Clicking the link displays the associated negotiation information.

 Intelligence Tab

The Intelligence Tab provides access to the many reports available within Oracle Sourcing. You can
use this tab both to generate the reports and view the report results. You can also export the report
output to a spreadsheet for offline viewing and analysis.

o Intelligence Reports

The following reports are always available:

 Awards by Supplier
 Savings by Category
 Awarded Bids
 Awarded Quotes

This tab also displays total award amounts for all negotiations awarded within the last 30 days. There
is a breakdown by negotiation type (RFQ or auction), as well as the cumulative total of all
negotiations.

You can drill into each report to see detailed information on the awards included in that report.
Advanced filtering capabilities allow you to generate detailed award displays including graphs. For
each award, you can access information on that award's response as well as the negotiation associated
with that award.

 Administration Tab

The Administration tab provides access to the tasks you use to administer and maintain Oracle
Sourcing. These tasks are performed by the Sourcing Super User. If you do not have the Sourcing
Super User responsibility, you do not see the tab.

Creating Negotiations
Creating RFIs, RFQs, and Buyer's Auctions
Using templates, spreadsheets, and lists

Using line attributes, attribute scoring, price factors, and price breaks

Additional creation topics