mini guide - nhs sc procurement portalprocurement.supplychain.nhs.uk/iss/documents/supplier2_message...

MINI GUIDE

MESSAGE CENTRE FOR SUPPLIERS

MINI GUIDE MESSAGE CENTRE FOR SUPPLIERS

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Table of Contents 1. DOCUMENT APPROVAL ............................................................................................................. 3

1.1. DOCUMENT CONTROL........................................................................................................ 3

2. MESSAGE CENTRE - OVERVIEW ..................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

2.1. LEGAL GUIDELINES ............................................................................................................. 4

2.2. OVERVIEW OF FUNCTIONALITY .......................................................................................... 4

3. USING MESSAGE CENTRE ........................................................................................................... 5

3.1. CREATING A MESSAGE ....................................................................................................... 8

3.2. RESPONDING TO A MESSAGE ........................................................................................... 10

3.3. DRAFT MESSAGES ............................................................................................................ 12

3.4. ARCHIVING MESSAGES ..................................................................................................... 12

3.5. DELETING DRAFT MESSAGES ............................................................................................ 14

3.6. RECALL SENT MESSAGES ....................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

3. REVISION CHART ...................................................................................................................... 15


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1. DOCUMENT APPROVAL

NAME DATE SIGNATURE

Nicolette Fick

Koos Mynhardt

Anthony Walker

Lee Whip

1.1. DOCUMENT CONTROL

REFERENCE: Supplier2_Message Centre

DATE: 30 March 2012

VERSION: 1.0

RELEASE:

AUTHOR/S: Christina Meyer

COMPANY CONFIDENTIAL: Copyright Intenda

This document and information herein is the property of Intenda.

Usage and/or reproduction of this document is restricted to

authorised members of staff of Intenda, or authorised persons of

companies that have entered into a confidentiality agreement with

Intenda.


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2. AIM

The aim of this document is to provide a guide for the use of the Message Centre

function.

3. INTRODUCTION

The Message Centre provides the communication between the Buyer and the

Suppliers for all OJEU contract notices, PQQ’s and tenders. As soon as any OJEU

contract notice, PQQ or tender is published, the Message Centre can be used by the

Owner of the event (Buyer) or the Respondent (Supplier).

4. OVERVIEW OF FUNCTIONALITY

As soon as the event (OJEU, PQQ or Tender) is published, the Buyer or Supplier

can send and receive messages relating to the event.

Suppliers can only communicate with the Buyer/Owner of the event once the

supplier has expressed an interest in the event. Once the supplier has expressed an

interest in the event, Message Centre will send a notification email to the supplier

whenever there is a new message available for the event in which the supplier has

expressed an interest in. The notification email will only inform the Supplier that there

is a new message, but will not disclose the message content.

Straggler participants - suppliers that express an interest in the Event after the Buyer

had already published a message - will receive the message in their Inbox in the

Message Centre as soon as they have expressed an interest for that Event. All

messages published by the Buyer after the Supplier’s expression of interest will also

trigger a notification email to the supplier for all new messages.

When a Buyer responds to a message sent by a Supplier and decides to make the

response visible to all participating suppliers, the participating suppliers will not be

able to see the name of the supplier that initiated the message or the other

participating suppliers.

Message Centre can be used during any stage of the event once the event has been

published. This allows the Buyer to use Message Centre for bid clarification after the

tender has closed.


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5. USING MESSAGE CENTRE

Message Centre is only available from within the NHS Supply Chain procurement

portal once a supplier has registered on the portal. The portal can be accessed via

http://procurement.supplychain.nhs.uk/.

From the dashboard, select the Message Centre icon.

Select the Message Centre icon. The Message Centre screen will open.


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The Message centre is designed to replicate the normal environment found in most

email tools found on desktop computers.

The tree view down the left hand side of the screen allows users to move

between the different folders. By clicking on a folder you will expand that view

in the centre of the screen.

The tabs across the top of the screen reflect the sequence of folders in the

tree view at above. The tabs will highlight the number of unread items in

each tab.

Message Body, this will display the message text and can be used as a review

pane. Use the slider on the right hand side of the screen to see the full text or

expand the window by dragging the bottom edge of the screen down.

This section will contain any attachments which have been sent with the

message. For the Inbox this will be information from suppliers, but when

viewed from the Sent Items folder this should be documents which have been

made available to the suppliers.

Expand the Attachments section by selecting the (Expand) button next to

the Attachment label.


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Select the attachment that is to be open and right click on it. Select the Open

option that displays. The document will be downloaded and will be available

to open from the download bar at the bottom of the screen.


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The Search function allows the user to search for an email by title or content.

Input the search criteria and click the (Search) button.

5.1. CREATING A MESSAGE

Select the New Message button and the new message screen will appear.

Select Procurement Event from the drop down icon.

Select one of the options by clicking on it.


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Based on the Procurement Event that is selected, the Recipient list will automatically default with the details of the buyer who is the owner of the event.

View the recipient list by selecting the (Expand) button next to the Recipients label.

Input the Subject for the email

Create the body of the message in this portion of the screen; there are options for editing the text similar to those of Microsoft Outlook.

To add attachments to the message, expand the attachments section and select the Attach File button which will take the user to a browser screen where you can select the file location, and then the file to be attached.

To add attachments to the message, expand the attachments section and select the Attach File button which will take the user to a browser screen where you can select the file location, and then the file to be attached.


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The file will be attached to the email. Multiple files can also be added at one time by selecting all relevant files and selecting the Open option. To delete a file incorrectly added, select the file, right click on it and then select the Delete option.

To complete the process select the Send button which will send the email to

the recipient; there is also the option to Cancel or Save as Draft.

5.2. RESPONDING TO A MESSAGE

To respond to messages from buyers, select the relevant message from the Inbox

tab.


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To open a file, users can either double click the Message Header or they can

highlight the message and then right click to get the following pop up options.

Select the Reply option.

Input the content of the reply into the message content box.


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Add attachments to the reply if required.

Select the Send button to send the reply to the owner of the procurement event.

5.3. DRAFT MESSAGES

If a user has saved messages as drafts whilst creating new messages or whilst

responding to supplier messages, to edit and send those messages select the Draft

folder and then follow the instructions above for responding to a message.

5.4. ARCHIVING MESSAGES


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To archive a message select it from the appropriate folder, right click on the

message and then select Archive Message from the drop down list. This will move

the message into the Archive Folder.

Messages may be brought back from Archive by selecting the Archive tab or Folder,

and then highlighting the message to be restored and right clicking. Select the

Restore Message option.


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5.5. DELETING DRAFT MESSAGES

Users are only able to delete draft messages. To delete a message right click on the

message on the Drafts tab and then select Delete from the options provided.

If a message has been deleted in error, a user can restore the message back to the

Drafts Folder by highlighting it in the Deleted Items tab and right clicking and

selecting the Rerstore Message.


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4. REVISION CHART

VERSION:

AUTHOR/S:

DESCRIPTION:

SECTIONS AFFECTED:

DATE:

1.O CM Initial Document None 30/03/2012

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