How do I create Vendor-specific BidTables (Partial BidTable)?

The Partial BidTable Feature on Bonfire allows you, a buying organization, to create vendor-specific BidTables from a master list of items. The Partial BidTable allows buyers to allocate items to the specific Vendors that they would like to bid on them. From a Vendor's perspective, this means that any items on which the buyer does not want you to bid will be omitted from your BidTable template, sparing time and confusion. 

A few notes before we begin:

1. The project must be Invite-Only.

2. Bonfire advises that any user creating a Partial BidTable completes the mapping prior to opening the project OR prior to inviting vendors. Once vendors are invited and the project is open, they can download an 'unfinished' BidTable template that might cause them to upload errors upon submission. 

3. Making changes to the BidTable once it is in the open stage is advised against, as Vendors may have already downloaded the BidTable template. 

4. Mapping BidTable items to vendors who have not yet created Bonfire accounts is not currently possible. 

Enabling a Partial BidTable

The Partial BidTables feature will first need to be enabled in your portal's backend. To do so, please contact Bonfire Support ([e-mail]). 

To create a Partial BidTable, you must start by creating a BidTable in your project. If you are unfamiliar with creating a BidTable, head to the Creating a BidTable article first.

Once in your BidTable, navigate to the Actions drop-down menu and open up the "Edit BidTable" modal. 

 

Once here, you can switch on the "Allow Partial BidTable" toggle.

Vendor Mapping

Once you've created your BidTable, you can begin to map your items to specific Vendors. You can do this either as you add items to the BidTable, or after all the items have been added or Bulk Imported.

To map while adding items, simply click Add Item to open up the "Add Item" modal. Once in the modal, you can choose a basket, input all of the item information and map that item to a vendor. Click on the Vendor Mapping search bar and input the vendor that you would like to have mapped. The vendor information will appear as a search result, and you can select them.   

To map an item to a vendor that is already in the BidTable, navigate to the item you wish to map and click on its corresponding pencil icon in the Actions column.

 

Doing so will open up the "Edit Item" modal, which is identical to the Add Item modal. Here you can select vendors to bid on the item from your list of all vendors. You can always go back into the window to add, delete, or switch vendors that are mapped to that item. 

If you would like to see which vendors are mapped to certain items in your BidTable at a glance, simply hover over the item in the Vendor Mapping column.

NOTE: When a Vendor is not mapped to any items, they will be able to see and bid on all of the items listed. If you would like a specific Vendor to be able to bid on all items, do not map them to any items.