Using Custom Offline Response Sheets in Guided Sourcing

Custom offline response sheets enable Project Owners with the ability to create and import their own customized version of an offline bid sheet for guided sourcing events.

Based on the event configuration for items and questions, event participants can use the customized offline bid sheets to submit their bid responses. Project Owners determine which questions can be customized in an offline response sheet and which questions will be answered in the guided sourcing user interface.

• The Enable custom offline response rule in the Set event rules area must be enabled.
• Custom offline response sheets are only applicable to RFP and auction events that contain Line Items, Questions, Item lots, and Baskets with No Items.
• Custom offline response sheets cannot be used to collect bid responses from participants for sections, attachments, requirements, material master items, and service line items.
• You can either import a default custom offline response sheet for all participants, a common custom offline response sheet for a group of participants, or a participant-specific custom offline response sheet for each participant.

Use this procedure to configure guided sourcing events to use custom offline responses.

1. Open the event that you want to utilize custom offline bidding, and Edit the event.
2. To configure line items, perform any of the following steps:

   1. From the Items that need quotes panel, select Add, then choose Item. In the Add item popup, select the Add to offline bid checkbox and choose Add.

   2. From the Items that need quotes panel, select the More icon (...) available for individual line items and choose Add to offline bid.
   3. To add multiple line items, select the line items in the Items that need quotes panel and choose the Add to offline bid button available in the panel.
3. To configure questions, perform any of the following steps:

   1. From the Questions, requirements, and attachments panel, select the More icon (...) available for individual questions and choose Add to offline bid.

   2. To add multiple questions, select the questions in the Questions, requirements, and attachments panel and click the Add to offline bid button available in the panel.
4. The Customized Offline Bid icon will be displayed next to the item or question configured to use custom offline responses.
5. Within the More Actions in the top right corner of the event, the project ower will need to select Import Options and select Import Custom Offline Bid.
6. The system will provide a Custom Offline Bid Sheet for the project owner to complete in Microsoft Excel:
7. The Project Owner will see several sheets within the workbook with instructions on how to complete the workbook and a blank Offline Content sheet to add Excel-formatted sheets that their participants are accustomed to completing. The Project Owner will then need to map the important cell values to the SAP Ariba-formatted sheet using Excel functions.

   The example shows a table of line item cost per region within the Offline Content sheet of the workbook. The supplier adds pricing in the yellow cells of the table during bidding, with total calculations using =sum() Excel functions. The project owner has mapped the totals from cell H9 to the Questions for Offline Response sheet that populates the values into SAP Ariba Guided Sourcing. In this case, we are using a line item to capture the price from the table.