2024
December 12, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Dynamic intake approvals
With intake approvals, your requests can now be automatically routed to an approval process based on rules defined for your company. If the request's location, budget, or currency or the submitting user's role matches a rule, Fairmarkit will send requests to approvers before submitting.
See: Request approvals
Multi-round event details download
When downloading the details of a multi-round event, the downloaded file will now include information for all event rounds.
See: View event details and history
View request
When viewing a request for quote (RFQ) event on the details page, you can now select to view the original purchase requisition (PR) (actions menu > View request) in your ERP/P2P purchasing application. This option provides quick access to your purchase requisition, allowing for a better workflow between your event and purchasing application.
See: Event actions
New configurations: Set required fields on RFQ events
To adjust your configuration settings, contact your Fairmarkit Customer Success Manager.
Additional required fields on RFQ: Set if the Category, Business Unit, or Requester fields are required when buyers create a request for quote (RFQ) event. By default, these fields are not required.
Require RFQ attachments from suppliers: Set if suppliers are required to add an attachment when responding to an RFQ event. By default, suppliers are not required to add an attachment.
See: Configurations
RFQ Details dashboard - Tag column
For the RFQ Details dashboard, added an RFQ Tag List column. This allows you to review the tags added to each event quickly.
See: RFQ Details
Suppliers
What's new
Valid for - New selections
When responding to a request for quote event, you can now select 7 days or 45 days as available options in the Valid for field.
November 28, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Award between rounds
When running a request for quote (RFQ) multi-round event, you can now select to award line items and send any remaining line items to a new round.
See: Multi-round events (RFQ & auction)
Delete draft rounds
For request for quote (RFQ) events, if you create a new round and change your mind, you can now delete draft rounds from your event.
See: Multi-round events (RFQ & auction)
Reverse auctions adoption dashboard
With the new Reverse auction adoption dashboard, you can now review and track your reverse auction activity.
November 14, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Reverse auction lowest bid setting
In the reverse auction configurations, renamed the 'Show supplier rank' option to "Show if bid is lowest.' By default, this option will be selected. If not selected, suppliers will not be able to see if their response is the lowest.
See: English auction configurations
New emails
Added three new emails, which can be configured for your company from Email settings.
New supplier response When a supplier responds to an event, you will receive a response summary with a link to view details.
See: New supplier response email
Events closing soon When you have events closing soon (within two days), you will receive a reminder with event details or a list of events (if multiple events closing) and a link to view more details
See: Events closing soon email
Response not awarded (to suppliers) When you award a request for quote event, suppliers will receive an email update if their response is not awarded.
See: Response not awarded email (RFQ)
Email settings: Additional configurable emails
Admins can now select to send alerts and add attachments for the New RFQ assigned (buyers) and Shipment tracking reminder notification (suppliers) emails.
See: Email settings
Suppliers
What's new
New email: Response not awarded email
When a buyer awards a request for quote event, you can now receive an email update if your response is not awarded.
See: Response not awarded email (RFQ)
October 31, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Email settings
With Email settings, Admins can now select the Fairmarkit email alerts sent from the company and add email attachments to specific email templates.
Turn emails on/off: Select the emails to send from the company. This includes emails sent to buyers and suppliers during events. Users can still update their individual notification settings for the available emails in Notification Settings.
Add attachments: For each email template, you can add up to 5 attachments that will always be included when the email type is sent.
See: Email settings
Change quantities on open/closed RFQ events
Added the ability to change line items quantities when a request for quote event is in opened or closed status. This option is available via an optional configuration. There may be editing restrictions and approvals needed based on your integration. Once an event is updated, you'll have to option to notify suppliers.
To adjust your configuration settings, contact your Fairmarkit Customer Success Manager.
See: Edit a request for quote (RFQ)
Events list - Quotes column
Added Quotes as an available column to the Events lists. The Quotes column displays the number of full quotes to an event in contrast to the Responses column which also includes quotes and no bid responses.
October 17, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Reopen last round
You can now reopen the last closed round in a multi-round event.
See: Multi-round events (RFQ & auction) and Change event dates
Save RFQ response
When working on responses to request for quote events, supplier's responses will be auto-saved in draft status. If a supplier edits an existing response, the response will display as grayed out and cannot be awarded until submitted.
RFQ Details - Urgency
Added an Urgency column to the RFQ Details dashboard. This allows you to review and assess request for quote events more efficiently based on the urgency set for the event. Additionally, you can also now filter the dashboard by Urgency.
See: RFQ Details
Suppliers
What's new
Save RFQ response
When responding to request for quote events, your response will auto-save in a draft status until you are ready to submit it to the buyer. A last edit (saved) indicator displays at the top of the event. If you edit an existing response, buyers can only award your response once you resubmit it.
October 3, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Supplier part #
Added Supplier part # as an available line item field for request for quote events. You can access the field when you show additional information for a line item.
Price books search
Supplier part # can now be considered when returning price book suggestions. See Price Book settings and Price Books overview (events).
Note: With this change, the Fairmarkit Price books template was also updated. You will need to download the new template and re-upload your price books files to ensure all necessary columns are included.
Renamed Grainger integration field
As part of this change and to avoid confusion, updated Supplier item # to Auto quoting #. See Grainger integration.
September 19, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Approvals
With approvals, your request for proposal (RFP) and request for information (RFI) events can now be automatically routed to an approval process based on rules defined for your company. By automating this process, you ensure that each event is reviewed and approved according to your company standards, maintaining compliance and efficient workflow management.
See: Approvals
Key features
Automation rules
Admins can set rules to auto-route events for approval based on criteria like event value, business unit, or category. Rules can be triggered before sending the event to suppliers or before awarding the event. See: Automation rules.
Approvals
Approvers can review the events within the event details and then approve or reject, adding notes about their choice. If needed, they can reassign the approval to another approver. See: Approve an event (Approvers).
Review approvals
Event owners can track and review approvals within the event, seeing where the approval is in the process or withdrawing the event from the process as needed. See: Review approvals (event owner).
History tracking
You can review the approval history in each event's Approvals area and the event activity log. See: View event details and history.
Events list
You can easily find and filter events needing approval using the 'Pending approval' label and filter on the Events list. See: Manage your Events list.
Email alerts As events move through the approval process, a series of emails will alert event owners and approvers of approvals, rejections, and next steps, making it easy to know when your input or action is needed.
Multi-round events (RFQ & reverse auction)
With multi-round events, you can now run multiple rounds on request for quote (RFQ) and reverse auction events, even switching between event types to ensure you're getting the best responses. Between rounds, you can add or remove suppliers and line items. Once closed, you can compare responses between the rounds and award the best responses across the event rounds.
See: Multi-round events (RFQ & auction)
Variable responses
When suppliers respond to an event, they can now add alternatives to define multiple options for buyers. This feature allows you to review multiple options from a supplier. For example, if requesting contractor rates, you can now review multiple candidates with unique skills, rates, and availability for a single supplier.
See: Review supplier responses
Display no bid responses
When a supplier responds to an event with "No bid," it will now display as a response on the Events page. This update will give you better visibility into how many suppliers responded to your events.
Suppliers
What's new
Multi-round events (RFQ & reverse auction)
Buyers can now submit their request for quote or reverse auction events for multiple rounds. When receiving a multi-round event, the event is tagged, and the round number displays at the top of the response page. Any of your previous responses will be available, and you'll only need to respond to new sections and questions, which will be marked with a New tag.
See: Multi-round events
Variable responses
When responding to an event, you can now add alternatives to define multiple options for goods and services line items. For example, if responding with information for contractors, you can provide separate resumes, rates, and details for each contractor. Previously, you could only add one alternative to goods type line items.
See: Add an alternative
September 5, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Collaborator view/send messages setting
Added a company-level setting that controls whether Collaborators can view and/or send messages to suppliers for events they've been invited to. Available options include View-only, View and Send, and No access.
Hungarian & Traditional Chinese language and localization support
Fairmarkit now supports Hungarian and Traditional Chinese language and localization (number and currency format).
See: Languages and localization
Suppliers
What's new
Hungarian & Traditional Chinese language and localization support
Fairmarkit now supports Hungarian and Traditional Chinese language and localization (number and currency format).
See: Languages and localization
August 22, 2024
Buyers
Fixes
Fixed an issue with Price Books in which uploading a catalog that contained a semicolon (;) caused the upload to fail. (TACT-1494)
Fixed an issue with Price Books in which catalogs with more than 30,000 items could not be uploaded. (TACT-1493)
August 8, 2024
Buyers
Fixes
Corrected an issue where some emails were only partially translated. (TACT-1524)
Suppliers
What's new
Email update - Shipping address
Added the event Shipping address to the Bid request close date extended, Bid awarded, and New Comment added to the Bid emails.
July 25, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Improved supplier info card
Made improvements to the Supplier info card to make it easier to review potential suppliers. This includes adding the supplier's Registration status and Supplier categories and updating the experience to improve usability.
See: Supplier info card
New Events filter - Business Unit
Added Business unit as an available filter on the Events screen. The filter is only available when the Business unit field is enabled for your company.
New UOM - Set
Added Set as an available unit of measure for service line items.
See: Available UOMs
Fairmarkit API enhancements
Pull Supplier responses: With the Fairmarkit API, you can now pull data about a specific supplier response on a request for proposal event.
Notifications for awarded RFPs: With the new RFP_AWARDED webhook, you can receive a notification when a request for proposal (RFP) event is awarded.
See: Fairmarkit API overview and Developer portal
July 11, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Partially and Split awarded filter
Added the Award Type filter to the Events list. This allows you to filter to list to view partially and split awarded events.
Suppliers invitation
Updated the formatting of the Suppliers invitation area to make reviewing the list of suppliers easier. This include cosmetic changes like updating the format of the supplier groups area, changing fonts, adding an option to expand to view of all tags/labels, and increasing spacing around each supplier listing.
Line item comments
Line item comments can now contain up to 5,000 characters. Additionally, this includes changes to ensure that line breaks are retained when displaying comments.
Allowed supplier currencies
From the Edit company preferences screen, the Allowed Supplier Currencies field allows you to select which currencies suppliers can use to respond to your events. When not selected, suppliers can respond in any currency (default). This is a company-level setting.
New archiving reasons
Expanded the list of event archiving reasons to include:
Contracted supplier
After-the-fact PO
Emergency event
Preferred Supplier
Rejected
See: Archive an event
Finnish, Dutch, & Swedish language and localization support
Fairmarkit now supports Finnish, Dutch, and Swedish language and localization (number and currency format).
See: Languages and localization
Suppliers
What's new
Email Updates
Completed the following updates to enhance communication clarity and functionality:
Invitation to Quote: Updated subject and header, added full shipping address, removed shipping method, clarified text, and exposed all filled-in line item fields.
RFQ Reopened: Updated subject, added full shipping address and preferred delivery date, removed shipping method, clarified text, added 'View Details' and 'Message Buyer' buttons, and changed 'No Bid' to 'Decline'.
RFQ Canceled: Updated subject, added full shipping address and preferred delivery date, removed shipping method, clarified cancellation details, and added 'Message Buyer' button.
Response Confirmation: Updated subject and header, enhanced clarity of email text.
Line item comments
Improved the display of long line comments on the event response page.
Finnish, Dutch, & Swedish language and localization support
Fairmarkit now supports Finnish, Dutch, and Swedish language and localization (number and currency format).
See: Languages and localization
June 27, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Terms and conditions
Added the ability to require suppliers to agree to terms and conditions before responding to a request for quote or reverse auction event. This option is set at the company level and requires that supplier agree to the terms and conditions for every request for quote event. For more information about this option, contact your Fairmarkit Customer Success Manager.
New configurations
To adjust your configuration settings, contact your Fairmarkit Customer Success Manager.
Restrict alternative currency response: Added a configuration that prevents suppliers from responding to events in a different currency.
Supplier required fields: Added a configuration that requires suppliers to provide the vendor part number, manufacturer, and manufacturer part number when a request for quote event includes an Internal Part Number.
Fixes
Suppliers
What's new
Terms and conditions
Buyers can now optionally require you to agree to terms and conditions before you can respond to a request for quote or reverse auction event.
See: Terms & conditions
Supplier part number
Added an optional Supplier part # field when responding to line items on request for quote (RFQ) and reverse auction events.
June 13, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Price books settings
As an Admin, you now have access to a Price Book settings screen. This screen allows you to select the matching fields on your event and select whether you want to proceed to award when all items match price book items.
See: Price Book settings
Evaluator default notifications
When you're added as an Evaluator to an event, notifications for supplier messages will now be turned off by default.
Fixes
Events are now auto saved before refreshing supplier recommendations.
TACT-1173
When viewing partial bids on a reverse auction, the reverse auction chart will correctly display all responses in the event currency when a supplier response is in a different currency.
TACT-1225
June 3, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Updated supplier invitations
On the Supplier invitations area of your event, updated the list to show more information to help you better select suppliers to invite to your event.
Updates include:
Registration: Added a new column, which displays an icon if the supplier is registered with Fairmarkit and/or your company.
Score: Updated Fairmarkit Insights to Score, which displays how likely a supplier will respond if invited to the event (low, medium, or high).
Response rate: Added a new column, which displays the percent of the time a supplier responds to invited events in Fairmarkit.
Serviced locations: Added a new column, which displays a list of locations where the supplier provides service.
Grouped contacts: Contacts are now be grouped by their supplier company to make selecting the correct contact easier.
Save preferred contact: When selecting a supplier contact, the last used contact will be saved for you. This is specific to your account and location.
Supplier recommendation settings: Added company-level settings to control if supplier recommendations are automatically generated for request for quote/reverse auction events or request for proposal/request for information events. See: Edit company preferences
See: Manage supplier invitations
Hide unweighted sections
When scoring a request for proposal or request for information event, if a section is not included in the evaluation (Evaluation weight is 0%), it will not be shown on the Scoring screen.
Require SSO login
Added an option that can require suppliers to log in via the buyer's company SSO to see the full details of a request for quote event. Before logging in, sensitive information will be blurred out. For more information, contact your Fairmarkit Customer Success Manager.
See: Require SSO login
What's new
From the main Fairmarkit menu, you can now click the moved What's new option to access a list of changes to Fairmarkit (release notes).
Suppliers
What's new
Collaboration tools
You can now invite users within your organization to help you respond to your request for proposal (RFP) and request for information (RFI) events. You can manage their permissions by assigning view-only access or edit access to users via the share button within the event.
See: Manage collaborators
Log in to view event details
Buyers now can now optionally require you to log in via their SSO to view the full details of a request for quote event. Until logging in, sensitive information on the event will be blurred out.
See: View event details with SSO login
May 16, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Reopened date
Added a Reopened date field to the Events list. This provides the date when a withdrawn, closed, or unawarded event is reopened.
RFP/RFI experience improvements
For request for information and request for the proposal events, made the following enhancements to improve your overall experience.
Updated read-only state: Updated the way that read-only fields are displayed to make it easier to read. When a field is read-only, instead of the entire field being grayed out, now the field label is grayed out and the line under the field is dashed.
Merged questions buttons: Consolidated the buttons used to add questions to your events when the available screen area is limited.
Suppliers
What's new
Change Quantity
When responding to a request for a quote event, if you have less than the requested amount, you can now change the quantity of the line item and respond with the quantity you have available.
See: Change quantity
Quick copy field values
Added a copy button to the Name and Manufacturer part # fields to allow you to more easily copy field values.
April 18, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Split award RFQ line items
On request for quote events, if a supplier does not have enough of an item you need, you can split award the line item to multiple suppliers. As part of this change, suppliers can now respond to adjusted quantities when they don't have enough of a requested item. Contact your Fairmarkit Customer Success Manager for more information about this feature.
See: Award an event
Response QuickView
With Response QuickView, you can automatically receive an email with AI-generated summaries of supplier responses when your request for proposal and request for information events close. Additionally, you can easily generate and download these summaries in PDF format directly from your event page. Contact your Fairmarkit Customer Success Manager to enable this feature.
See: Response QuickView and View event details and history
KIT Intake access
We've updated how you can access Intake:
Create new requests directly from the Create button by selecting the Ask KIT option.
Review existing requests by selecting the Requests option from the main menu.
See: Create a request and Manage requests
Note: These features are currently part of a Fairmarkit beta program. For more information, contact your Fairmarkit Customer Success Manager.
Event source filter
You can now easily find events on the Events list based on how they were created—select from Intake, Integration, Manual, or Public API options.
Update invalid supplier emails
When inviting suppliers to your event, if a supplier has an invalid email address, a warning will now display, and you can select it and update their email.
See: Manage supplier invitations
Price Books improvements
For price books users, made the following improvements:
Suggest by business unit: When adding a price book, you can now associate a business unit with it. Additionally, the business unit field will now also be considered when returning price book suggestions.
Validate name: When adding a new price book in Administration, the name and supplier combination will be validated for duplicates.
See: Price Books (Administration) and Price Books overview (events)
Additional improvements
Auto refresh supplier recommendations: When working on an event, the supplier recommendations will automatically refresh whenever you add new data. See Manage supplier invitations.
Business unit search: When selecting a Business unit, you can search the list of available business units.
Removed Fairmarkit categories: Removed the Fairmarkit categories field from all event types. Going forward, you only need to select your event categories in the Category fields.
April 4, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Comments, messages, & notifications
When working on events, you can now send internal comments to your team and messages to suppliers to communicate and share information about the event.
Internal comments
While working on an event, internal comments allow you to communicate about the event and clarify details with your team. Comments can include attachments. You'll receive a notification when comments are added to your events.
See: Internal comments
Supplier messages
While working on an event, supplier messages allow you to communicate about the event and clarify details with invited suppliers. Messages can include attachments. You'll receive a notification when messages are added to your events.
Old supplier messages? You may receive legacy messages from suppliers on older events during the transition from legacy messages to new supplier messages.
See: Supplier messages
Notifications
A new notifications area is available from the Fairmarkit menu. When a comment or message is added to one of your events, you'll now receive a notification in the new notification menu. This menu also includes notifications for messaging and will replace the existing Messaging menu option. From the notifications area, you can preview the latest comments or messages, open the related event, or view a complete list of notifications
Additional changes:
Internal notes: You can now access internal notes from the actions menu.
Supplier clarifications: You can now add and review clarifications from the Supplier Clarifications area your event.
Notification settings: Updated the Email preferences screen name to Notification preferences and added options related to internal comments and supplier messages.
Price books suggestions
For price books users, when entering line items, if a line's details, such as Description, Manufacturer, or Manufacturer Part number, match a price books item, a price books suggestion displays. You can review the suggestion and add it to your event line item.
When every line item on a request for quote event is matched to a price book item, you will now have an option called Proceed to award, which allows you to directly advance to awarding your event.
See: Price Books overview (events)
Category search
When selecting a Category, you can search the list of available categories.
Additional updates
Updated RFP/RFI header: Updated the request for proposal and request for information event header to better display information like event title, event type, test option, rounds, share option, comments and messages, and actions. See Request for proposal - available fields and Request for information - available fields.
View archived events: You can now view archived events.
New configurations
To adjust your configuration settings, contact your Fairmarkit Customer Success Manager.
Sealed bids: Added a configuration to control if buyers can deselect the Sealed bid option on request for quote events.
March 21, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Internal notes and supplier clarifications: As part of an upcoming release, we'll introduce a new comments and supplier message feature. As part of this ongoing work, you can currently access Internal notes from the actions menu, and Supplier clarifications are now available from the bottom of the event screen.
New configurations
To adjust your configuration settings, contact your Fairmarkit Customer Success Manager.
RFQ creation: Added a configuration to control if buyers can create manual request for quote events. By default, buyers can create RFQ events.
Edit internal tags: Added a configuration to control if users can add and edit internal tags. By default, users can add and edit internal tags.
Marketplace: Added a configuration to control if users can send request for quote events to the Marketplace. By default, user can send RFQ events to the Marketplace.
Supplier search add buttons
On the Supplier search screen, adjusted the labels on the buttons to add tags or add suppliers to make the action more straightforward.
March 7, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Test request for proposal events
You can now create test request for proposal and request for information events. This allows you to run a simulated event without sending emails to suppliers or impacting usage reports.
See: Test events
Locked questions
When you create a template, you can now lock questions so users cannot remove the questions from events created via the template.
See: Locked questions
Manual requisition label
A Manual requisition label will now display on events manually created in Fairmarkit.
February 22, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Line-level evaluation and scoring
You can now evaluate and score your request for proposal and request for information events at the line level.
See: Add evaluation criteria and Score an event
Additional enhancements
Saved line breaks: If you enter a line break on a line item's description, the breaks are now preserved when the event is sent to suppliers and pushed back to your purchasing application.
Metatag display: Supplier meta tags will now display in alphabetic order.
New business classification: Added Certified Aboriginal Business (CAB) as an available supplier business classification.
Fixes
Resolved an issue where if you declined a line item with a value or text type UOM, you could not submit your response because the Unit price was blank.
BEXP-4505
Resolved an issue where changing your language setting to Italian, German, or French and then selecting an event from the Events list would result in all events being selected.
BEXP-4588
If you invite a buyer from another team as a collaborator to a reverse auction event, they can now view the event.
BEXP-4625
Suppliers
What's new
Comments & notifications
When working on events, you and the event's buyers can now add event comments to ask questions and clarify details about the event.
Comments or messages? During the transition from messages to event comments, you may receive communication from buyers through both messages and comments.
Add a new notifications area to the Fairmarkit menu. When an event comment is added to one of your events, you'll now receive a notification in the new notification menu. This menu also includes notifications for messaging and will replace the existing Messaging menu option. You can preview comments and messages and then click to open from the menu.
See: Event comments and Notifications (suppliers)
February 8, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Fairmarkit insights & Company descriptions
To make it easier to review your supplier recommendations, you can now review the following additional columns:
Fairmarkit insights: Indicates the likelihood of a recommended supplier responding to an event (low, medium, or high). Replaces the existing Confidence scores.
Company description: Displays the supplier-provided company description.
See: Manage supplier invitations
Events list counter
On the Events list, you can now view a summary of the number of events in each status.
AI question suggestions
You can now use AI to generate a list of questions for your request for proposal or request for information event section. Using your event data, we generate relevant questions customized for your event. This option is only available when your company has enabled AI suggestions for your events.
See: Add AI questions
Section templates
You can now create section templates for your request for proposal and request for information events. With section templates, you can:
Create section templates from scratch or based on sections from existing events.
Define the title, description, and a list of questions for an event section.
Apply templates to sections in your events.
Share section templates with other buyers in your organization, ensuring consistency across events.
See: Create a section template and Add a section
Flexible evaluation start date
With the Start evaluation now button, you can now start your evaluation period as soon as an event closes.
Advanced supplier tag searches
You can now create advanced supplier tag searches by combining multiple tags with an AND or OR when searching for suppliers.
See: Search for suppliers
Metric Ton UOM
Added Metric Ton as an available unit of measure for goods line items.
New configurations
To adjust your configuration settings, contact your Fairmarkit Customer Success Manager.
AI feature configuration: Added a configuration to control if AI features, such as suggested sections and questions, are available on events. By default, AI features are enabled.
Additional line items configuration: Added a configuration to control if buyers can add or edit line items on request for quote events that have been imported via an integration. By default, users can add or edit line items on imported events.
Fixes
When searching for a supplier, the search window has been adjusted to display the results better.
BEXP-4158
The files created when downloading details from an event will now include the supplier folders again.
BEXP-4381
January 11, 2024
Buyers
What's new
Move questions between sections
For request for proposal and request for information events, you can now reorganize questions across event sections.
RFP/RFI categories
For request for proposal and request for information events, you can now assign your company categories or the Fairmarkit categories to your event. Previously, you could assign an Industry and Subindustry, which will no longer be available for new events.
Reopen evaluation & scoring
For request for proposal events, you can now extend or reopen the evaluation period as needed.
RFP collaboration configuration
When a user who does not have access to create Request for Proposal events is invited to an RFP event as a collaborator or evaluator, they are now given access to the event via a configuration. This configuration allows you to invite users to collaborate on an event without giving them full access to create new RFP events.
Fixes
When a reverse auction event is in open status, you can now add internal notes from from the Events list and the Details view
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