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Importing Bid Information From an Excel® Spreadsheet

After suppliers receive the RFQ in an Excel spreadsheet, they can enter their bid information and email the spreadsheet back to the buyer. The buyer can then import the bid information into the RFQ.

Before the RFQ is updated with the supplier’s reply, the system scans the spreadsheet for errors. If any errors are found, the system attempts to correct the error and creates an error message. Some possible errors are:

•	Units of measure or lead-time are not valid values

•	Items were left blank that should be filled in

After the import is complete, you can review the error messages and make any necessary corrections.

The information that can be imported from the Excel spreadsheet includes:

•	Effective date and expiry date

•

Lead time

•

Notes

•	Substitute manufacturer/OEM

•	Price and unit of measure

•	Manufacturer

Note: Each row in an Excel spreadsheet can represent a different site and time zone. When APM objects are updated with the imported data, the time zone information is retained and displayed.

This topic explains how to import bid information from an Excel spreadsheet. To manually enter bid information from a supplier, see Entering Bid Information on an RFQ.

To Import a Bid to an RFQ

1.	Save the Excel spreadsheet that the supplier emailed to you to disk or a shared location.

2.	Open the RFQ document.

3.	On the Properties view, select the Suppliers tab.

4.	Right-click the supplier whose bid you need to enter and select Import Bids.

Note: This option is only available if the status of the supplier is Sent.

The Import Bid Sheet dialog appears, open to the File to Import tab.

5.	Enter the path to the supplier’s Excel file. You can browse to the file by clicking the folder icon at the end of the Source file box.

6.	Click Next. The Bid Sheet Info tab appears. For example:

7.	Click Finish to import the selected bid sheet. A message appears advising that the RFQ bid data based on the selected Excel spreadsheet will be imported.

Click Yes to continue. A dialog appears showing the import progress. A message is displayed when the import is completed, including whether or not errors were encountered during the import. Click OK to close the message.

The Import Bid Sheet dialog now shows a Completion Status tab that shows the number of items processed, the number if items imported successfully, and the number of unsuccessful imports.

8.	Click the Details tab to view the source file name and type, the name of the employee who initiated the import, and the import status, date, and time. The number of items processed is also shown, along with the number of successful and unsuccessful imports.

9.	You can click Open to view the imported bid sheet.

Note: If necessary, you or the supplier can fix any the errors on the spreadsheet and then re-import it. To re-import the spreadsheet, you must first delete the supplier’s bid from the RFQ. For more information, see Deleting Supplier Bids from an RFQ.

10.	Click Close to close the Import Bid Sheet dialog.

When the import is complete, the status of the supplier on the RFQ changes from Sent to Bids Entered.

Once you have entered or imported the bids for all of the suppliers, you can analyze the RFQ. For more information, see Analyzing Bids.