A Protest is defined as an objection by an interested party to a solicitation or cancellation of the solicitation, an award or termination/cancellation of the award. The objection usually contains an allegation that there are improprieties concerning the award or solicitation of the contract.

The supplier who initiates the objection usually believes that the awarding of the solicitation is improper or unfair and thus logs a protest.

The buyer or contracting professional can enter a protest for a solicitation which has a status of Draft, Published, Amended, etc. That is, a protest can be initiated for a solicitation with any document status. A protest can be initiated for an award that has a status of Approved or has any other post-approval status.

Please note that in CLM, the buyer or contracting professional enters the protest in the system on behalf of the suppliers, because all suppliers may not have access to the CLM system.

Using the appropriate CLM Purchasing responsibility, navigate to Buyer Work Center menu and click the Protests link. Please note that the Protests link is available via Buyer Work Center only.

Click the Protests link to open the Search page. Enter criteria such as Protest Number, Protest Status, Document Number and Supplier to find existing protests. Additionally, you can add more search criteria fields such as Filing Date, Protest Category, Resolution Date, Document Type etc by using the Add Another list of values and clicking Add. The additional search criteria fields appear below the first four search criteria fields. Enter a value for the additional search criteria fields and click Go, the search results appear in the region below. Click the Update (pencil) icon to edit a protest's details.

Click Create Protest to create a new protest against a solicitation or award. The Create Protest page displays and you need to enter the relevant protest details here.

In the first region, it is mandatory to enter a Protest Number, and a Document Number. You can enter any Protest Number of your choice. This number should be unique. The CLM document that needs to be associated with the protest can be selected using the Document Number search list of values. When you have selected a CLM document (solicitation or award) and associated it to the protest, you can proceed to fill in other information. Enter a Protest Status by selecting a value from the Protest Status LOV. The Protest Status LOV is a user-defined lookup, therefore users can add / modify the values of the LOV, as required.

The Supplier / Protester Information region enables you to enter the details of the supplier who logged the protest. Even though none of the fields are mandatory for entry, it is better to enter the protester details in the system. If you wish to enter a supplier / protester who has not been registered in the system, select the Supplier information is not available in the system checkbox. This way you can enter a supplier / protester who is not in the system.

The Additional Information region consists of additional fields that you can use to enter protester or protest information. These are mandatory fields.

The Attachments region enables you to attach relevant protest documents, such as objection documents, to the protest you have created. There are two categories of protest attachments - Protest and Protest Internal. Attachments belonging to the category Protest are sent as notifications with a zip file to the relevant receipient's email address.

Click Save or Apply to save your changes. Click the Notify button to inform the required people about the protest that has been entered. You can send notifications to any number of persons / email ids. The Notification Details page displays and you can enter notes as part of the notification. Enter recipients by typing in their names (Person) or email addresses (Email). Click the Send button. You get a confirmation message that the notification was sent successfully.

As a recipient of the protest notification, you will see the read-only notification in your notification inbox. The protest details are shown in the notification. A message displays at the top of your screen informing you that this message does not require a response.

You can opt to reassign the notification to someone else or request more information from the supplier. Click Ok to confirm that you have read the notification.