Sourcing workspaces and RFP emails

A sourcing workspace holds one request for proposal, or RFP. It keeps the requirements, the suppliers you invited, their offers and your decision together. Planners create it from the hub, and everything in it is saved against the organisation that owns it.

There are two kinds you can create.

• Venue and room block. Find a venue for an event, with or without guest rooms. Hotels for the event are asked in the same workspace. Open it on the bid board.
• Hotel transient programme. Agree yearly negotiated rates with hotels for business travel. Open it on the set-up wizard.

Create a workspace#

1. 1
   On the hub, in the Sourcing section, press Create a new RFP workspace. For a rate programme, use the Corporate hotel program card instead.
2. 2
   For a venue and room block workspace, fill in the form headed Workspace details.

   • Workspace name / Event name. The name suppliers and your team will see.
   • What kind of event. Choose one. It sets the starting point for your requirements, and you can still change them later.
   • Event dates. Choose a start and an end date. Dates in the past cannot be chosen.
   • Venue city & country. Start typing a city or a full address and choose a suggestion.
3. 3
   For a hotel transient programme, fill in the form headed Hotel transient.

   • Program name. Required.
   • Program period. Choose a year, or pick a custom range.
   • Reporting currency. Used only for roll-up totals. Bids stay in the supplier's own currency.
   • Program scope. Choose Global, Regional or National.
4. 4
   Press Continue.

Continue stays greyed out until the name, event kind, dates and city are filled in for a venue workspace, or the name is filled in for a programme. A venue and room block workspace opens on the bid board. A new programme opens on its set-up wizard, and later visits open on the sourcing decision page.

Change a workspace's details#

1. 1
   On the hub, find the workspace card and press the three dots (More actions).
2. 2
   Choose Edit details. The Edit RFP workspace panel opens.
3. 3
   Change what you need.

   • RFP name and Company. Company defaults to your own organisation. Change it when the RFP is run for another.
   • The dates, labelled Event dates for a venue workspace and Program period for a programme.
   • Bid currency for a venue workspace, or Reporting currency for a programme.
   • Under RFP important dates, set Closes to suppliers and Award by, each with a date, time and zone.
   • Under Other key dates, press Add a date to add a briefing, a site visit or any other date. Press Remove date (the bin icon) to remove one.
   • For a venue workspace, under Venue search, set Event kind, Venue city & country, What sort of venue and Anything specific.
4. 4
   Press Save changes.

The name is required. The closing and award dates you set here appear in the workspace header and are the dates suppliers are held to.

Find your way around a workspace#

The header shows the HAPR mark, the module name Sourcing and the page you are on, then the workspace name, its code and its key dates. A date that has not been set is left out rather than shown as a blank. Press Go to hub at the top of the side rail to leave.

A venue and room block workspace has these tabs.

• Set up RFP requirements. Your questions and requirements.
• Bid board. Who you invited and the offers that arrive. A Shortlisted tab sits next to it with a count of your shortlisted venues.
• Email templates. The emails suppliers receive.

A hotel transient programme has these tabs.

• Program set up
• Solicitation list
• Sourcing decision
• Compare
• Email templates

Each kind has its own page in this guide.

• Venue sourcing
• Room block sourcing
• Hotel transient rate programme

Edit the emails suppliers receive#

1. 1
   Open Email templates in the workspace side rail.
2. 2
   Choose a template in the Your templates list on the left. Each shows the moment it is sent for.
3. 3
   Change the Subject line and the Greeting.
4. 4
   Edit the Email body. Each part is a block. Use Add a block to add Text, Bullets, Button, Closing, Contact, Access code or Divider. You can set alignment, bold, italic and colour, and move or remove blocks.
5. 5
   To drop in details that are filled in for each supplier, click in a field or text block, then press a tag under Insert personalisation.
6. 6
   Check the live preview on the right. It uses this workspace's name, your company and the closing date, and sample details for everything else.
7. 7
   Press Save changes. The message Templates saved confirms it.

app.thehapr.com/sourcing/…/email-templates

The templates you see depend on the kind of workspace.

• Venue and room block. Venue invitation to a single venue or to several venues held by one operator, the same two for venue and accommodation together, a reminder for each, the decision emails (accepted, revised proposal requested, not selected) and Proposal received.
• Hotel transient programme. Invitation to participate for a single property or for several properties under one account manager, RFP response reminder, and three decision emails (accepted into the programme, rates being renegotiated, not selected).

Tags you can insert include Recipient name, Property name, Property city, Buyer company, RFP / programme name, RFP code, Response deadline and Response link. Decision emails also offer Negotiation round and Link to their response form.

Send yourself a test email#

1. 1
   Choose the template and press Send test.
2. 2
   Enter one address in the Send test email box. It starts with your own address.
3. 3
   Press Send test. The message Test sent to your address confirms it.

The subject starts with [Test]. The workspace name, your company and the closing date are real. Everything else is a sample, such as the recipient and property.

A test can go only to you or to another user in your organisation.

Send invitations and reminders#

You do not send these from the templates page. Invitations and reminders go out from the bid board, or from the solicitation list in a programme, using the template for that moment. A reminder quotes the response deadline, so set Closes to suppliers first. See the page for your kind of workspace.

Good to know#

• Saved templates belong to your organisation. They are used for that kind of email in all your sourcing workspaces, not only the one you edited.
• Each template is sent for its own moment. Changing Used for on a template does not change when it is sent.
• Only the standard set is saved. A template you add with New template, Add another template or Duplicate is not kept, and a deleted one comes back when you reload. After saving you see a message saying how many were not saved.
• Test emails and copies can go only to your own team.
• You need an account that includes Sourcing, and access to the workspace. People from another organisation can open a workspace only when it has been shared with them. See Roles and access.

If something looks wrong#

• Your account does not include Sourcing (RFP). Contact your administrator to enable it. Ask your organisation's administrator to switch Sourcing on for you.
• That sourcing workspace does not exist. The link is wrong, or the workspace was removed. Go back to the hub and open it from there.
• You do not have access to this sourcing workspace. Ask the workspace owner to share it with you.
• Could not save RFP workspace. Your changes to the details were not saved. Try again, and check your connection.
• If creating a workspace fails, a red message appears at the foot of the form and the form stays open, so you do not lose what you typed. The message says what to fix.
• Sign in with a client account to save templates. Sign in again with an account that belongs to a client organisation.
• Could not read the templates. The save did not go through. Reload the page and try again.
• Enter one email address. Send the test to a single address, not a list.
• That address is not one of your organisation’s users. Test emails and copies can only go to your own team. Use your own address or a colleague's.
• You have sent as many of these emails as your account can today. Please try again later. You have reached the daily or hourly limit for one-off emails.
• Test send failed or Could not save templates. Try again in a moment.