Inviting Participants to Events

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Participants are the contacts from your suppliers that are invited to bid on the goods and services that the project owner listed in the event.

The individual listed under the contact name column is the person that will receive the invitation, and participate in the bidding process when the event opens.

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The Invite Participants button allows project owners to use the search filters to find already registered and approved suppliers in your SAP Ariba Sourcing system using the default search fields.

1. ClickSuppliers on the left side of the Event page.

2. Click Invite Participants button.

3. Search for the supplier to add.

4. In the search results, select the participants that you want to add. If you want to add more participants, click Add More.

5. When you are done searching for participants, click OK to return to the Suppliers page.

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Project owners have the option to import suppliers from a previous event into the current event by pressing the Excel Import button.

Project owners can download a supplier list from a previous event and upload into a new event which can be helpful when you have a large number of suppliers.

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For an understanding on how to search for an existing participant within an event, and add them to the event, watch this video.

After suppliers have been selected, you can mark the incumbent suppliers and the response teams.

Incumbent suppliers are the current suppliers providing the goods or services for which the project owner is creating the event. This information is useful when making your awarding decision.

The Response Team is based on how many bids that will be accepted from a supplier. You can add more than one contact from a supplier organization to your event, and then group them into a Supplier Response Team so they can work on one response as opposed to each contact providing their own individual response.

1. Click the checkbox adjacent to the current suppliers.
2. Click the Set/Clear button.
3. Select Incumbent. The Incumbent flag changes to Yes.

1. Click the checkbox adjacent to the suppliers.
2. Click the Set/Clear button.
3. Select Response Team. The Response Team flag changes. If the flag is Yes, that means only one bid will be submitted for the supplier. A flag set to No means that multiple bids will be submitted for the supplier.

The Supplier step allows a buyer to invite suppliers to bid on the line items or lots in the event. Once all the suppliers have been added, you will mark the incumbents and the response team.

Designating the incumbent will assist you when creating award scenarios and bid evaluation with other suppliers.

Flagging the response team determines how many bids will be accepted from a supplier.

An alternative to adding a participant is completing an SAP Ariba-defined spreadsheet using the Excel Import option.

1. To create an Excel import template from an unpublished sourcing event:

   1. Navigate to the Suppliers page of a sourcing project.
   2. Click Excel Import button
   3. In Step 1 of the Import Content from Excel page, select Participants.
   4. In Step 2 of the Import Content from Excel page, click Click here to open your RFP in an Excel Spreadsheet to create and download a template for the content you want to add.
2. On the Item Participants worksheet:
   1. Complete each row for each participant you want to invite.
   2. Go to the column of the participant you want to invite. Change the value from Invited.
3. Save your changes. This is step 3 of the Import Content from Excel page.

1. Navigate to the Supplier page and click Excel Import, if you are not already there.
2. In Step 1 of the Import Content from Excel page, select Participants.
3. In Step 4, select Add or Edit Event Content to add the participants to the event.
4. In Step 5, select the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet file you want to import.
5. In Step 6, click Import.

You can use the Excel Import option to upload many suppliers from a SAP Ariba configured spreadsheet to be included in your current event. Most likely, you will download a supplier list from a previous event and upload into a new event. This can be helpful when you have a large number of suppliers.