Weighted Scoring is the time-honored practice of setting weights (or point values) for sections in an RFP. You may tell your bidders that 20% of your choice is based on criteria x, 35% is based on criteria y, etc.
For those of you with complex Excel spreadsheets, you may just take it on faith that your calculations are working. Here at RFP360, we bring the algorithm into the platform so you have fewer documents to administer…and everything is centrally controlled in real-time.
Configure Scoring for RFPs
Not only can you set values/weights for Sections and Questions, but you can configure some auto-scoring to speed up your evaluations. Now, auto-scoring is a bit of a misnomer. We actually prefer default-scoring since we allow your evaluators to override the default scores tabulated. More on Default Scoring below.
You can even set up a scoring team, composed of users in your account. You can specify which sections you want them to score.
Default Scoring
When you set up custom drop-down options in your Library, you will be able to set default values for scoring. So, for example, when respondents select a certain option from the drop-down, a default score will be applied. You and your scoring team can override this, but this provides a great start…especially if you ask dozens of detailed questions.
In the example below, we have some drop-down options and default scores set up in the Library in the List area. When a vendor responds with the option 1,000,001 or more, for example, they get 5 out of 5 possible points for that response.
Section Weights
When you set up your RFP (or RFI), you select points values (weights) for each section. In our example, we have two sections with weights identified below.
And they do not have to add up to 100%. Our algorithm will take care of that. Just give relative point values for each section. This lets your respondents know what’s more important what’s less important.
Below you can see the section weight (at the top next to the star). You can adjust this on the right-hand side using the slider. You can also see the question weight of the questions in that section.
Question Values
Questions can have relative weights within a given section. By default, all questions are relatively the same importance within a section. But using the slider during question configuration, you can make certain questions more or less impactful.
For example, you can see the Priority (weight) of the select question below is 3 (out of 5). You can see next to the star icon the individual weight of each question within that section.
Scoring vendor Proposals
So you have the responses back from vendors. Your scoring team is making their evaluations. Of course, now they can do this all from the RFP Dashboard. As they read, they can apply scores using the slider in the right-hand margin (1-5 score) and add Internal Notes as a scoring team.
You can toggle through the various vendors and easily compare apples-to-apples. We take all of the scorers’ inputs and average them together. Keep reading.
Weighted scoring calculations
Using the weighted scoring calculated during setup, we have a potential number of points available for each question. We apply the percentage of the earned points to calculate the awarded points.
Why Weighted Scoring?
Having the right information to make your decision should be as objective as possible. You set the guidelines before you publish, then you conduct side-by-side comparisons. Now you can take your results to your management, shareholders, or other stakeholders and you can feel confident about your recommendation.