How to Enable/Disable Scoring Vendor Responses?
When Issuing RFPs to Vendors, RFP360 provides a setting to Score Vendor Responses. This setting is directly tied to how RFP360 updates the RFP status at the due date and time. RFP status’ determine when and if a vendor is able to submit their responses.
How does the Score Vendor Responses setting affect an RFP status?
- When this setting is enabled, the RFP360 platform automatically moves the RFP status from ‘Awaiting Responses’ to ‘Scoring’ at the RFP due date and time.
- When this setting is disabled, the RFP360 platform automatically moves the RFP status from ‘Awaiting Responses’ to ‘Scoring Closed’ at the RFP due date and time.
How do RFP statuses affect when a vendor is able to submit their responses?
- If the RFP status is ‘Awaiting Responses’ or ‘Scoring’ a Vendor is able to submit their responses in RFP360.
- If the RFP status has been moved to ‘Scoring Closed’, either automatically or manually, a Vendor will no longer be able to submit their responses in RFP360.
What if I don’t score Vendor responses, but I want to accept late submissions?
No problem, we understand that as an RFP Issuer, you may choose to not score your RFP responses and also accept late submissions. In this scenario, it is critical that you opt to enable the setting to enable scoring on the first step of creating a new RFP. This will prevent the status of your RFP from automatically moving to ‘Scoring Closed’ at its assigned due date and time.
NOTE: You will not be required to score the vendor responses or set up scoring criteria if you enable this setting.
We also recommend messaging all vendors via the Message board to encourage timely submissions. Click here to learn more about Messaging with Vendors in RFP360 .
If the setting for Score Vendor Responses is disabled at the time of RFP creation, enabling it after the fact, unfortunately, will not allow vendors to submit responses past the deadline. The system will allow you to visit the RFP details tab and check the box to enable the setting; however, the system doesn’t save the setting on the back-end of the application and the RFP status will automatically be moved to Scoring Closed at the RFP due date and time.
If your Vendor is still having trouble submitting their proposal after the deadline, and the RFP is not in a status of ‘Scoring Closed’ on your side, here is a helpful article you can send them about How to Submit a Proposal After the Due Date .