There may be times when buyers, collaboration team members, and/or suppliers need to contact each other for additional information or clarification on a negotiation. While a negotiation is in draft status, collaboration members can communicate with each other by means of internal messages. Once a negotiation has been published, collaboration team members and suppliers can communicate with each other by entering into an ongoing conversation called an online discussion.

The negotiation creator and any members of the collaboration team who have full access can create and respond to messages from each other as well as from the supplier. Collaboration Team members with view-only or scoring-only access can create and reply only to messages from other Collaboration Team members.

Using online discussions

Once a negotiation is published, you can initiate and/or participate in a online discussion from the Online Discussions page. You access this page by:

• Clicking the Unread Messages alert icon on any page where it appears. Unread Message alert icons appear in the top right hand corner of a page and notify you that you have message you have not yet read.

• Selecting Online Discussions from the Actions menu on the negotiation summary page and clicking Go.

The Online Discussions page displays all discussions associated with this negotiation (there can be multiple ongoing discussions for a single negotiation). The Subject label identifies each discussion. The more recent messages appear at the top of each discussion subject. . For each discussion, there is an entry for the original message that initiated the discussion as well as replies to that message (see below for information on the visibility of participants' responses). Once you read and/or reply to a message, the Status of the message changes to either Read (you have read the message) or Replied (you have both read and replied to the message). Additionally, if another collaboration team member has also replied to a supplier message, an icon appears in the Status column. (regardless of whether your own personal status is Unread, Read, or Replied).

• To create a new discussion, on the Online Discussions page, click New Message. The Create New Message window opens. In this window you:

  • Specify whether the recipients are internal (other collaboration team members) or the supplier.

  • Select the recipient(s) of the message. You can send the message to All Participants, or to a specific supplier.

    • For supplier recipients:

      • If the negotiation style is open or blind, you can send the message to one or more collaboration team members, one or more supplier contacts, or all participants.

      • If the negotiation style is sealed, you must send to message to all Collaboration Team members and all supplier contacts, or to the buyer's organization.

    • For internal recipients, you can send message to one or more collaboration team members, and/or one or more scoring teams if they are defined (messaging capabilities are the same regardless of negotiation style).

  • Specify the subject heading for the message.

  • Enter the full text of the message.

    Note: Buyers and suppliers can add attachments to include any additional information they might want to share. You can do this for all negotiation styles.

  When you have finished entering your message, click Send. A new discussion is created by the system.

• To view a message, click the link under the Message column. The Message window displays the text of the message and other information such as the time, date, and recipients of the message.

  • To reply to the message, click the Reply. The Reply to Message window opens. Select the recipients of your reply and enter the text of your response. When finished, click Send.

    Note: Buyers can reply to a particular sender or to all participants based on their selection from the list of values. For messages from a buyer, suppliers can reply to both the buyer and to all participants. For messages from other suppliers, suppliers cannot view the name of the other supplier, or reply to the message.

  • To print this message, click Print. Fill out the network print box and click Print.

• To reply directly to a message without viewing the message text first, click the Reply icon. Enter your reply text and click Send.

• You can document all discussions associated with this negotiation by clicking Printable Page, and then Print.

Online Discussion Participants Messaging Capabilities The table below details the rules governing the messaging capabilities of the negotiation creator, Collaboration Team members, and suppliers. Note that the rules vary depending on the style of negotiation and the access level of the Collaboration Team members.