Manage your tenders

Your buyer dashboard can be found by clicking on the ‘Buyer’ drop-down tab in the top-right corner. Your interface features a sidebar to the left hand side. Listed within that sidebar, you’ll see:

Notifications:

Here you can find updates related to your procurement activities, such as confirmations of opportunities or notices published on Cimple. You’ll also see when a supplier applies to one of your opportunities or submits clarification questions. Any new notifications will be marked with a red dot –so you don’t miss out on anything that requires your attention! 

Live:

Any actively running procurements that your organisation has created can be found here. 

Awarded:

If you’ve already awarded a procurement to a successful supplier, you’ll be able to review the details of those procurements here. 

Cancelled:

If your organisation has cancelled any of the notices or procurements previously published, you can find those here. 

Closed:

If you’ve run a procurement and the deadline date has now passed, ,  you’ll find those opportunities here. Your next step is to shortlist or award a supplier for this opportunity – don’t forget!

Drafts:

Whether it’s a notice or a procurement, all work in progress can be saved as a draft and revisited later. You’ll find all your saved drafts conveniently stored in this section.

Create opportunity:

By clicking on this button, you’ll be able to create a new opportunity. Jump to our ‘Create an opportunity’ chapter in the Help Centre to find out more about the different kinds of notices you’re able to publish.

Search Cimple:

By clicking 'Search' on the top right will take you back to our main search bar. Here you can search for suppliers, organisations, frameworks, existing tenders – anything, basically. 

Occasionally there might be a need to upload extra documents or give additional information on a particular tender. The best place to do this is within the ‘Clarification questions’ section of a procurement. We’ll walk you through the process:

1. Log in to Cimple 

2. Navigate to your dashboard by clicking Buyers along the top-navigation bar and then click on 'Buyer dashboard'

3. Select ‘Live’ from the competitions list in the left-hand sidebar

4. Find the opportunity you’re looking for, and click ‘View details’

5. A box will appear with a list on the left-hand side

6. Select ‘Clarification questions’

7. You’ll see that there’s a box for you to type an update, and below that box, there’s a section where you can upload documents

8. Add your extra information and click ‘Post update’ just underneath the upload box

9. Your documents and extra info will automatically be shared with all suppliers who have been selected or already applied for the opportunity

Pro Tip: Keep an eye on your notifications for the opportunity—suppliers may have follow-up questions for you to answer!

For Competitive Flexible Procedure (CFP):

Clarification questions get a little more exciting here! Instead of a single section for the whole procurement, you’ll find clarification questions split across each stage of the process.

This means you get a chance to provide updates or answer supplier questions that are specific to each tender stage. 

Once you’ve published a procurement, you may occasionally receive emails notifying you that a supplier has asked a question about it, or you’ll see a notification in your buyer dashboard with a red dot next to the notification section on the top left corner. Clarification questions to help suppliers to better understand what you need from the project or prospective partner. 

1. Log in to Cimple

2. Navigate to your dashboard by clicking 'Buyers' along the top-navigation bar and then click on 'Buyer dashboard'

3. You’ll notice a red dot next to your ‘Notifications’ at the top of your right-hand side bar

4. Click on this section and you should see a notification telling you that a supplier has submitted a clarification question

5. Click into where it says ‘You can view this here’ and you’ll be taken directly to that particular procurement

6. Alternatively, you can click on ‘View procurement’ in the email notification you received about the clarification question. This will redirect you to the relevant procurement within your buyer dashboard

7. Next, you’ll be able to ‘Clarification Questions’ section on the left hand side, expanding that you’ll be able to see the supplier question

8. You’ll then find a box under ‘Add Response’ in which you can type an answer

9. When you’re done, you can choose to post your answer directly to the supplier, or make your response publicly viewable to all. Making your response publicly viewable may be useful if you think other suppliers might have the same questions

10. Finally click ‘submit answer’ when you’re done, and the supplier will be notified that you’ve answered their question