Many organizations have numerous rules and regulations pertaining to the advertising of their sourcing event. Many public sector organizations, for example, have regulations that require publishing information on upcoming procurement events to external sources (such as centralized web sites). Additionally, many companies want to advertise their negotiations to increase the number of suppliers that participate in the negotiation. If you need to advertise your negotiations, you can use the negotiation abstract and forms feature to provide both high-level and in-depth information about a particular negotiation.

If you wish to advertise a negotiation from your own website, you can do so completing an Abstract and publishing it to an external website. This external website will be accessible to suppliers without having to log into your system. Oracle Sourcing delivers a default template called Abstract. You can take this template and modify it as appropriate for the negotiation.

If you wish to advertise a negotiation on an external source (for example, a centralized website), you can do so using a Form. This assumes that the external source accepts XML files.

Before you can complete an Abstract or Form for a negotiation, the Sourcing Super User must perform some setup steps. Once they are done you can complete the Abstract and Forms anytime during the lifecycle of the negotiation. After you complete the Abstract or Form, you can publish the information they contain.

You can create or edit an Abstract or Form at anytime during the lifecycle of the negotiation.

To add an Abstract or form to a negotiation:

1. Add the Abstract or form to the negotiation:

   • If the negotiation is in draft status:

     1. On the Create: Header page, click Add Another Row under the Abstract and Forms section. (If there is no active Abstract or Form, this section does not appear).

     2. When the page refreshes, click the flashlight icon next to the name field.

     3. On the Search and Select: Name page, search for your form.

        • To add the Abstract, enter "Abstract" as the search value, and click Go.

        • To add a form, search for the form name. You can search for any active Form.

     4. When the results display, click the quick select icon, or click the radio button and then Go. You are returned to the Create: Header page.

     5. If you wish to complete the Abstract or Form now, continue with the instructions in Step 2. Enter data into the Abstract or Form below. (Note: You are not required to enter data in the Abstract or Form in order to publish the negotiation. You can enter the data after the negotiation is published. See below for instructions on completing a published Abstract or Form.)

   • If the negotiation has been published

     1. Search for the negotiation to which you will add the Abstract or Form.

     2. From the negotiation summary page, select Manage Abstract and Forms from the Actions menu, and click Go.

     3. On the Manage Abstract and Forms page, click Add Another Row.

     4. When the page refreshes, click the flashlight icon next to the name field

     5. On the Search and Select: Name page, search for your form.

        • To apply the Abstract, enter "Abstract" as the search value, and click Go.

        • To apply an application form, search on the form name.

     6. When the results display, click the quick select icon, or click the radio button and then Go. You are returned to the Manage Abstract and Forms page

2. Enter data into the Abstract or form

   1. Click the Enter Data icon to access the page where you will enter your Abstract or Form data.

   2. On the Header: Abstract Details/Header: Form Details page (if the negotiation is in draft status), or on the Form Details (Abstract)/Form Details (form name) page (if the negotiation is published, complete the fields of the form.

      Required fields are marked with an asterisk. Some fields may already be populated (for example, if the negotiation number and negotiation name were included in the default Abstract, they will already be populated). These are system generated fields and were included by the Sourcing Super User when the Abstract or Form was created. In some fields, you may need to enter a value, for other fields, you can select from a drop down menu or a pop-up calendar.

      Once you have entered data for any required Abstract or Form fields, and all optional fields as are applicable, use the instructions in the following step to publish your Abstract or Form.

   3. Click Apply to save your work. The Abstract or Form is validated for errors.

3. Publish the Abstract or form.

   From the page where you entered your Abstract or Form details (as described in the previous step).

   • Click Publish Abstract to publish your completed Abstract. The Abstract is immediately available on the external website.

     Note that if you select Include PDF, once the negotiation is published, suppliers can download a .pdf version of the negotiation Abstract from the external website.

   • Click Generate XML to publish your form information. Save the generated XML file locally and then send it to the administrator of the external web site for publication.

Note: PDF files for large and very large negotiations cannot be associated with the External Abstract page.

Publish Bid Tabulation/Award Decisions to external websites using Abstracts

Buying organizations can keep the bid tabulation specific to a negotiation server and provide URL access to this content. This URL can be published via Abstracts. The steps to follow in order to publish award decisions to external websites are:

1. Login and use the Sourcing Super User responsibility.

2. Navigate to Administration > Abstract and Forms > Manage Sections and Fields.

3. Create a field with the name as Bid tabulation or any appropriate name and specify the value type as URL.

4. Add this field to the Abstract. This can be added to any form as well.

5. Make the abstract or form active and click Apply,

6. Create a negotiation document and add the form or abstract to the negotiation.

7. Click the Enter Data icon and provide values for the URL fields. This is the URL the buying organization will use to publish the bid tabulation.

8. If you specify an external URL, the address should always be prefixed with 'http://'.

9. If the user specifies an internal URL, either the complete address is to be provided or the following can be used: '/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?OAFunc=PON_ABSTRACT_PAGE'. If the 'http://' is not prefixed, the system prefixes 'http://<hostname>:<portname>' by default.

10. After entering all the relevant details, click View Data to verify the information.