• Last edited on: 11 December 2024

View Sourcing Events

How to view and access to sourcing events according to the privacy type.

Coupa allows buyers to run different sourcing events to select suppliers. Each event will display information about the buyer company, commodity, start and end dates, and type of event. The awarded offer can be sent back to a requisition. 

For more information, see Sourcing and Sourcing Events Types for Suppliers. For a high level walkthrough of steps and references to participate in sourcing events, see A Suppliers Guide to Coupa Sourcing.

Access a sourcing event for the first time

To participate in a sourcing event, you can access the event through your email or log in in to your account in Coupa or the Coupa Supplier Portal (CSP)

Email

As a supplier you do not need to have a Coupa account or access to the CSP to take part in sourcing events. When the event is launched, an invitation mail is automatically sent to the participants.  The email contains a unique link to the event, which brings the supplier straight into the event OR asks the supplier to use the OTP identity authentication, according to your Sourcing OTP Settings.

You can access the sourcing events through the link in the invitation email you receive when a customer or buyer invites you to an event. According to the buying organization settings, the email link will:

  • Take you straight to the sourcing event OR
  • Ask for one-time token authentication, often referred to as “one-time passwords” (OTPs), to protect your information, to securely verify your identity and allow your access to the sourcing event.

Using One Time Passwords (OTP)

If you were invited to participate in a sourcing event, you will receive an invitation email, including all the important information about the event and a link to access it.

Each time you try to access the sourcing event using the link on the invitation email, an email with the OTP is sent, if the previous OTP has not expired yet.

After you click the link in the invitation email, you are asked to enter the OTP before you can access the sourcing event. The OTP expires after 15 minutes or as soon as you use it.

Expired OTPs

If you see a text notifying that your access has expired, click Send the one time password again to receive a new OTP to access the sourcing event.

Email with new OTP

You receive an email with a new OTP to finish the authentication process and access the sourcing event.

How to view sourcing events in Coupa

Your customer (buyer) can set up Coupa to require you to have an account and sign in to view sourcing events. In this case, you get an email the first time you are invited to an event. The email contains your username (your email) and a link to set up your password.

By selecting the link, you are redirected to the login page where you enter your user name (given in the invitation mail) and your new password.

If you sign in and you have been invited to or responded to multiple events, you can see a table with all the events you have access to.

When you click on an event link, you can see the event details for that event. For more information, see Participate in a Sourcing Event.

Above the table, you can see the invitation of the most recent event that you have been invited to.

Click View Event in the email to access the event. Access using login credentials is described in a later section. 

  • If the event has not yet started you will be taken to a page with a countdown timer indicating the time to opening. You will not get any notification when the event opens.
  • If the event has started you will be taken to a landing page that displays a list of all the events that you are invited to with the most recent notifications from the buyer teams at the top.

If you are invited to another event, your new invite email doesn't include a password setup link. If you forget the password, click the Forgot username of password? link in the login page to get a reset link.

How to view sourcing events in the CSP

As a supplier, you can see the sourcing events you have been invited to as well as public sourcing events by following the steps below:

  1. Log in to the CSP and select the Sourcing tab from the main navigation bar at the top of the screen.
  2. Select any of the options from the secondary navigation bar: 
    Note

    You can see these pages only if you have the Sourcing permission. For more information, see Manage Users.

    1. Select My Events to see private and hidden events that you have been invited to.
    2. Select Public Sourcing Events to view public sourcing events created by your customer(s) and all the other customers that use Coupa.

You can search for events by event name, commodity, and type in each of the resulting pages, as described below.

View private and hidden sourcing events

Once you have logged into the CSP, the My Events section under the Sourcing tab displays a window with the view of a table. The table under this window lists all sourcing events organized by your customer that you have been invited to.  

Note

If you have more than one customer in CSP, select the customer you are interested in from the dropdown menu on the top right side of the page. This will display the list of events organized by every individual customer.

 The table of sourcing events includes a row with events, and the headers described below for columns. 

Column header Description
Event # Unique identifier of the event within the CSP. 
Selecting this number redirects to the main page of the event, where you can find more information and select if you intent to participate or not, among other fields. 
Customer Customer, client, company or buyer is the name of the entity that created the sourcing event. 
Event name Name of the specific event as created by the Customer. 
The event name will also include weather the event privacy settings are (public, private or hidden).
Type Coupa offers three types of sourcing events: spot buy, RFx Events, and auction type events.
For more information, see Sourcing Events Types for Suppliers.
Start Begin date of the sourcing event. The earliest date suppliers can participate. 
End End date of the sourcing event. The last date suppliers can participate. 
Status For more information, see Sourcing Event Status for Suppliers
Commodity A commodity is a way to group items and services together by the customer, or suggested by Coupa. This field displays a high-level category of the the commodity that the buyer is looking to source. 

The columns on this table are slightly different from public events.

View public sourcing events

The Public Sourcing Events tab under Sourcing presents a page with all the events created by your customer(s) and all the other customers that use Coupa. Everyone can view the sourcing events and participate. 
 Below the Sourcing Events header, select the different tabs to filter events: 

  • All Public:  The table under this section will include all open and active events registered as Public by different providers.  As a supplier, you can participate in them. 
  • My Category: The table under this section will include all open and active events that belong to the same category of commodities as the one registered on your Business Profile
  • My Events: The table under this section will include all Public events you are participating in. 
  • Past Public Events: diplays a table which lists all past or closed Public events. The columns on this table are slightly different from private or hidden events:
Column header Description
Event Name Name of the specific event as created by the Customer. 
The event name will also include weather the event privacy settings are (public, private or hidden).
Company Customer, client, company or buyer is the name of the entity that created the sourcing event. 
Commodity A commodity is a way to group items and services together by the customer, or suggested by Coupa. This field displays a high-level category of the the commodity that the buyer is looking to source. 
Start Date Begin date of the sourcing event. The earliest date suppliers can participate. 
End Date End date of the sourcing event. The last date suppliers can participate. 
Type Coupa offers three types of sourcing events: spot buy, RFx Events, and auction type events.
For more information, see Sourcing Events Types for Suppliers.
State For more information, see Sourcing Event Status for Suppliers
Actions You can Request Participation to an event or notify the buyer that you will be participating. Click on the Info (info_icon.png) icon to learn more about an event. A modal opens with more information, and the option to copy the event link.

Both complete (not available) and active events are shown. Complete events are listed for your information, but they are not available for participation.

If you want to participate in an event, click on the relevant Request Participation link in the Actions column. The action name changes to Request Sent and if your request is approved, you receive an email invitation to the event and the action for the event changes to Request Approved

Note

Events are displayed in the languages that customers use to create them.

If there are no public events, you can see a relevant message instead of the events table.

Who can see or access a sourcing event 

As a supplier, you can have several users under your account and assign different roles and permissions to each one. For more information, see Manage Users.

Some examples of this for reference:
Suppose there is a supplier "AAA" on CSP which has following users:

1. sam@AAA.com (Admin role)
And an enterprise customer "BBB", who does not have the supplier "AAA" onboarded.

Case 1: 

If customer "BBB" invites sam@AAA.com to the sourcing event, then only Sam will get access to sourcing events and other 2 users will not.
In order to grant Mary and Ramesh access to sourcing events from "BBB", Sam (Admin) has to give access to the "BBB" customer.
As Admin, you can give access to a customer by going to Setup > Users > Edit user and then select the "BBB" checkmark from the Customers section.

Case 2: 

Suppose "BBB" invites ramesh@AAA.com to the sourcing event, by default only Ramesh will get access to particular customer. If the Admin (Sam) doesn't have enabled access to "BBB"for themselves, they will not see the event details, however as Admin they can still remove or edit Ramesh access to the customer. If they enable access for themselves, they can access and respond to event.

Note

When a supplier admin changes a user access to a customer, the customer and the previous user do not receive any notification.