Creating a Sourcing Event

 

Available for	Roles	Organizational Administrator; Project Lead
	Permissions	Sourcing; Project
	Object Permissions	Create, Edit, Delete (Sourcing); View, Edit, Create, Delete (Project)

Purpose: This guide gives a walk through of how to create all the necessary components of a sourcing event within Levelpath.

What is a Sourcing Event?

The Sourcing Event is Levelpath’s first iteration of “Quick Sourcing” or a sourcing event by requesting information from proposed suppliers. This new module gives procurement and sourcing teams a fast and easy way to gather information from multiple suppliers. You will have access to view all supplier submissions and award the sourcing event all within Levelpath!

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How do I create a Sourcing Event?

Users can begin with a Blank event, Duplicate an existing event, start from a template, or Mark as not needed.

How do I create a Sourcing Template?

To create or edit a template, users should navigate to the Sourcing home page, then click “New Template”. 

This template can then be used when creating a Sourcing event, following the steps above. 

How do I Compose a Sourcing Event?

When in a Sourcing Project, the Project Lead will see step-by-step instructions for composing the event by selecting Event Configuration in the navigation bar of the Event details hub. 

From here, users can build their entire sourcing event — set the email subject and message, create the questions suppliers need to answer, and define the response deadline.

Users can also select suppliers and their contacts from your Supplier Repository. If a supplier is not yet in your repository, choose add a new supplier to add them in a pending state.

Once within Configure Event, users will find the following sections to build their bid: 

Step 1: Event Invitation 

This is where your team can format the email subject and message, and set supplier deadlines that will appear in the Supplier Hub. For a full example of what suppliers will see, refer to the Supplier Hub Walkthrough Guide.

You can also use the AI Assistant to help draft the email subject and message, and to set deadlines down to the exact minute - including a different time zone if needed.

Step 2: Supplier Instructions

Supplier Instructions allow you to provide additional guidance to suppliers directly in the Supplier Hub. This field supports rich text formatting, including bold, italics, bullet lists, as well as the ability to add links and images. Users can also quickly prompt the AI Assistant on the right side of the page to help generate a clear draft for this section.

Click Through Terms

Creators of sourcing events can also add Click-through terms that the supplier must accept before they are able to view the questionnaire. 

To create click-through terms, click “Include Click-through Terms”.  From there, an additional text box will appear to specify the details of the terms and conditions. 

Step 3: Supplier Questions

There are two ways to compose a Supplier Questions:

Option 1: Quick Bid with AI Assistant

Under Supplier Questionnaire, you will see two options: Quick Bid and Questionnaire Builder. Users can toggle between the two without losing responses. The option that is selected is the one that will go to suppliers.

To create a Quick Bid, type directly in the supplier questions box or use the AI Assistant. Type in the "What are you buying?" box, hit Generate Bid, and AI Assistant will help create a Quick sourcing event. Click the blue left-arrow text to add suggestions to the event.

To add AI Assistant's suggestions to the sourcing event, click the blue text with the left facing arrow. Once it is added to the sourcing event, it can still be edited.

Note: There is an RSVP Timeline on Sourcing Events. Setting an RSVP due date and a questions due date is optional. However, the final response due date is required — this is the date that supplier responses are due.

This is what the Sourcing Event invitation page looks like from the Supplier side:

Option 2: Questionnaire Builder

Switching from Quick Bid to Questionnaire Builder offers greater flexibility in gathering information and assessing supplier responses. Unlike Quick Sourcing, which is designed for simpler purchases, Questionnaire Builder enables you to build custom questionnaires, allowing for more detailed and tailored evaluations.

To build a questionnaire:

• Toggle to Questionnaire Builder, then click Go to questionnaire builder.

Start by clicking "Create a new questionnaire"

To add sections to a Questionnaire, click  "Add section". Users will then be prompted to create a name for your Questionnaire section.  

To add questions, select the section you want to add questions to. You can also create a subsection.

When adding a question, users can choose the Question Type:

• Long text – suppliers type their answer with no limit on characters.
• Short text - suppliers type their answer, but limited to short phrases (think: names, contact information).
• Multiple choice – suppliers select from answer options you define.
  • Users can enable ‘Allow multiple answers’ and ‘Add additional comments fields’ if desired.
• File upload – suppliers attach a document or file as their response.
  • Users can enable ‘Add additional comments fields’ if desired.

Provide the question text and any answer options (if applicable). 

Users can choose to make any question required.

Note: For Multiple Choice or File Upload questions, enabling Add additional comments fields adds an Additional comments field label in Levelpath, where your team enters the title for the supplier's comments box. Suppliers will see an extra text box with your custom label.

As users are creating the questionnaire, they will see the sections and subsections on the left hand side. 

Need to change the order of the sections? Users can click on the six dots to the left of the section name to drag and drop into a new order for a simplified user experience.

Conditional Questions

Multiple choice questions in the Questionnaire Builder support conditional logic. A conditional question is a child question that only appears to the supplier when a specific answer is selected on its parent question.

Key actions available in this step:

• Setting up a conditional: Both the parent question and the child question must already exist on the questionnaire before you can link them. Open the edit panel for the parent question and configure which answer value triggers the child question to appear.
• Visual tags: Parent questions and child questions each display a tag indicating the conditional relationship. Hover over the tag to see the linked question.
• Edit panel: The question edit panel opens as a side panel, giving more space to view and configure conditional logic.
• Nested conditionals: Conditionals can be chained to any depth — a child question can itself be the parent of another conditional question.
• Supplier experience: After the questionnaire is published, suppliers only see questions that are relevant to their answers. Conditionally hidden questions are skipped entirely.
• Question numbering: Original question numbering from configuration is preserved. If question 2.4 is conditionally skipped, the supplier sees 2.3 followed by 2.5 — numbers are not re-sequenced.
• Validation: Required questions that are conditionally hidden do not trigger a validation error. Required questions that are conditionally visible and answered will trigger a validation error if left blank.

Note: Conditional questions are available on live questionnaires in Sourcing in this release. Conditional configuration in Risk questionnaire templates is not yet available.

Option 3: Downloading and Uploading Questionnaires

At the top right corner of the Questionnaire Builder in any published sourcing event you can:

Download a questionnaire to export your current set of questions into a file.

Upload questionnaire to import questions in bulk using the provided template.

These tools help save time when configuring more complex questionnaires.

Note: As you build the Questionnaire, you can preview what the event will look like from the supplier side using the "Preview event" button at the bottom of the Configure Event page.

Step 4: Supporting Documents

This is where your team can upload supporting documents for suppliers to review outside of the question set. Most common file formats are supported, including PDF, DOCX, XLSX, and image files such as PNG and JPG.

Key actions available in this step:

• Supplier documents — files visible to suppliers in the Supplier Hub.
• Internal Sourcing Documents — navigate to "Docs" on the sidebar and upload under "Sourcing Documents". These are internal only and will not appear under "Project Documents".

Internal Sourcing Documents

Users can upload internal sourcing documents, and this helps users manage all sourcing documents internally and in one central location. The user can do this within a sourcing event by navigating to “Docs” on the sidebar and uploading an internal document (ex: Software MSA.pdf) under “Sourcing Documents” and when they toggle to “Project Documents” the internal document will not be there.

Step 5: Add Suppliers

Once all the appropriate fields have been filled out, the user is ready to select the suppliers from the drop down menu. Select all desired recipients of the sourcing event by selecting ‘Select suppliers’.   

 

Then select the supplier and add the appropriate contacts the user would like to send the sourcing event to.

Once each step is filled out, the user can send the information to the selected suppliers and contacts by clicking “Publish event" in the top right hand corner.

You have now mastered Creating a Sourcing Event within Levelpath! 🎉

If you have any more questions, please reach out to [e-mail].