Attach Documents
In this Topic
DOCUMENTATION NOTE: Images shown in this online help utility may be for a Formal (Bid) or Informal Solicitation. The steps to perform actions and submit responses are the same, regardless of the type of solicitation being responded to, unless otherwise noted.
See the Respond to Solicitation topic to learn more about saving and submitting your response.
For each response to a solicitation, you may add attachments as needed. Documents may be added to solicitations with or without line items, however, see note below:
IMPORTANT: Attachments are required when responding to a solicitation that does not include line items. The attachments are considered as the response and will be reviewed by the buying organization during the evaluation and award process. The Submit button will not be available on the Review Response page until an attachment has been added.
Select Attach Documents to open the Supplier Documents page:
Advisory Messages
The system will provide an advisory message as you move through the solicitation response. See sample image below:
In the above sample image, all the items have had a response entered, however, the system is also advising you that you have not added any attachments with your response using the Attach Documents process.
NOTE: The statement regarding the attachment does not mean that an attachment is required. It is simply a declarative statement identifying that an attachment has not been added.
If an attachment is added on this, the Attach Documents page, this message will update automatically; the 'Your response has no attachment!' sentence will no longer display.
If the solicitation does not contain line items, then an attachment must be added to serve as your response.
The system will display an advisory message stating that an attachment is required.
Add Attachment
Click Add Attachment to open the Upload Document and browse and select the document or documents to attach.
Click Browse or Choose File, depending on your web browser, to navigate to the local or network location of the file to be attached.
From the Choose File to Upload window, select the document and click Open.
Repeat these steps for each document that needs to be attached.
Up to 5 files may be uploaded at a time.
To add more than 5, simply click Save, return to the Document Selection window and click the Upload New Documents button again.
Repeat the steps for browsing and selecting your documents.
Confidential Documents
NOTE: Buying organizations can choose whether or not to allow participating vendors to mark their uploaded documents as Confidential. If the buying organization has this
enabled, the Confidentiality column will be visible and you should follow the instructions below. If, however, the buying organization disallows marking documents as Confidential,
the following advisory message will display: 
Once your attachments have been added, you may designate which of the attachments are to be considered Confidential.
Click Upload to attach the documents to the solicitation.
Cancel will discard the selected documents and close the Upload Document window without adding any attachments.
If one or more documents was designated as Confidential, a confirmation message displays.
The message reads: 'You have chosen to designate one or more of your attachments as confidential. Any confidential attachments will not be published by default upon Solicitation award. Buyer, at their discretion, may choose to override this setting and publish any documents included in the Solicitation response. Please confirm that these attachments are confidential by typing the word YES in the confirmation box below and clicking the Confirm button. Clicking the Cancel button will allow you to change your attachment settings before upload.'
To proceed with labeling your uploaded attachments as Confidential, enter YES into the text field.
Click Confirm.
After uploading, the application will return to the Attach Documents page and display the selected documents.
The documents will display in ascending order by Document Name. Each Document Name is an active hyper link; click to open and view the document.
Those documents that were marked as Confidential will display with the following icon: 
In the sample image above, only the first document was identified as Confidential.
Actions
Once a document has been added by you, icons will be available from the Actions column. See table below for icon and their meaning.
|
Option |
Icon |
Resulting Action |
| Delete |
|
Select the Delete option to remove an attached document. A confirmation message will display. |
| Download |
|
Select the Download option to download and view/save the document. |
When finished adding and managing the documents, click Done.
Buyer Attachment on Behalf of Supplier
If the buyer attached documents on your behalf, such as when they enter a paper response for you, then those documents will be visible on this page as well. See sample image below:
The buyer-added attachment will not have the Delete option available from the Actions column whereas the supplier-added document will.
Also, the document added by the buyer has the words paper quote to the right of the document name.
Had this example been a Formal solicitation, then the document would state paper bid.
Two-Envelope System
If the buyer is applying a two-envelope system to a formal solicitation, vendor solicitation responses are separated into two sealed bids, or envelopes: a technical proposal and a price proposal. These envelopes are evaluated independently to prevent response evaluations from being unduly influenced by pricing or pricing taking precedence over the technical piece – which means the technical merit needs to be judged first.
When a formal solicitation is has a two-envelope Evaluation Type, the Attach Documents tab will display two distinct sections: one for adding Technical Evaluation Attachments and the other to add Price Evaluation Attachments. Select the appropriate Add Attachment button to proceed.
Add Technical Evaluation Attachments
Select the Add Attachment button in the Technical Evaluation Attachments section.
Use the Upload Document window to browse and select the document or documents to attach.
Select Upload to proceed.
Add Price Evaluation Attachments
Select the Add Attachment button in the Price Evaluation Attachments section.
Use the Upload Document window to browse and select the document or documents to attach.
A read-only Price Evaluation Document checkbox marks the attachment as a file related to pricing.
Select Upload to proceed.
Uploaded Files
Once uploaded, Technical and Price Evaluation files display on the Attach Documents page, where they may be deleted
or downloaded 
.
IMPORTANT: In the two-envelope process, attachments are required when:
-
responding to a solicitation that does not include line items
-
response does not include sufficient technical and pricing information in other sections of the solicitation.
In either scenario, attachments are considered the response that will be reviewed by the buying organization during the evaluation and award process.
