Suppliers have the ability to ask questions to the Buyer against Requests they have been invited to and Public Tender opportunities they have access to. They will need to ask their question before the set Supplier query cut-off date which is set in the Request settings. After the cut-off date passes, they'll no longer be able to submit questions.
To provide this information to a Supplier, please use this link to the same article in the VendorPanel Supplier's Help Centre: https://vendorpanelsuppliers.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/900002615986-Asking-the-Buyer-a-Question-on-a-Request-Tender
The Buyer is notified when a question is asked and they then answer either publically (so all suppliers can see the answer) or private (so only the supplier that asked the question can see the answer), through their account. If the answer is made public, the supplier's name and details will not be included with the question.
You can find instructions on how Buyers answer a supplier question here: Supplier Questions - Viewing & Answering Them.
The below details how Suppliers can ask a question against a Request or Tender:
- To the right of a request or tender they will see a question mark (?) icon they can select to ask a question to the buyer.
- When they hover over the icon they will see the supplier query cut-off date and time:
- Clicking the icon will open up a pop-up window where the Supplier can type their question into the textbox and click on the Ask this question button to send it to the Buyer.
- Any questions that they have asked previously (for this Request or Tender) and answers sent back will also appear here under the Questions you’ve asked heading.
- When the question is answered they will be sent an email with the Buyer's answer. They will also be able to view the answer when looking at the request details.