This article explains:

• Answering questions and publishing immediately.
• Answer questions and publish later.
• Only publish the question.
• Assign questions to colleagues.

Read here how you can activate the Question & Answer module.

Read here how you can import answers to questions from Excel.

Have you received a question from a buyer? Then read the Instruction Question & answer instruction (colleague with assigned question).

When questions have been asked by suppliers in your tender, you will receive a Daily digest notification of this in your email twice a day. This message contains an overview of all the questions that were asked in the previous 12 hours. suppliers receive a Daily digest with an overview of all published questions and answers.

Answering questions and publishing immediately

• In your tender, go to the Question & Answer tab. You can see an overview of all questions here.
• Click on the title of a question, the question will now open.
• Click the Compile Public Response button.
• A pop-up opens, here you can optionally adjust the text of the question.
• You can do this, for example, when a provider has mentioned their organization name in the question.
• Enter your answer in the Answer text field.
• You can copy the draft answers from colleagues here under Reply from colleagues when you have assigned these questions. Read below on Assigning questions to colleagues for more information.
• Click Preview & Send.
• You see an overview of the question and answer given.
• Click Publish to immediately publish the answer.
• The answered question has been given the status Published and is now visible to providers.

Answer questions and publish later.

• In your tender, go to the Question & Answer tab. You can see an overview of all questions here.
• Click on the title of a question, the question will now open.
• Click the Compile Public Response button.
• A pop-up opens, where you can adjust the text of the question if necessary. You can do this, for example, when a provider has mentioned their organization name in their question.
• Enter your answer in the Answer text field.
• You can copy the draft answers from colleagues here under Reply from colleagues when you have assigned these questions. Read below on Assigning questions to colleagues for more information.
• Click Preview & Send.
• You see an overview of the question and answer given.
• Click Save without publishing.
• The question now has the status Ready for publication. You can continue to answer other questions. The answer given is not yet visible to providers.
• Click the Ready to Publish tab. 
• Here you can see an overview of all questions with answers that you have prepared.
• Click Select page (and then all pages if necessary) and click Publish, to publish all questions and answers.
• The questions and answers have been published and have been moved to the Published Questions and Answers tab.

Only publish the question

You can choose to publish a question and then publish the answer at a later time. For example if you do not immediately have the answer ready and you want to prevent multiple providers from asking the same question.

• In your tender, go to the Question & Answer tab.
• Click on the title of the question, the question will now open.
• Select the question (or several questions) by placing a check in the check box after the question.
• At the bottom of the page, click Publish questions only.
• The question has been published and is given the question Only published status. Providers can see with this published question: Answer is expected soon.
• To answer this published question, click the question in the Published Questions and Answers tab and click the Customize button.

Assign questions to colleagues

In Negometrix3 you can assign questions to colleagues (for example internal clients or subject matter experts). They must be a participant in the tender for this.

• In your tender, go to the Question & Answer tab.
• Select the question (or several questions) by placing a check in the check box after the question
• Click Assign Questions at the bottom of the page.
• Select the desired colleague or colleagues and click Save.
• The names of the colleagues in question are now visible in the Assigned to column.

After linking a colleague, this person only sees the assigned questions in his or her personal account, unless this is set differently in their rights. Colleagues have the option to save their answers in draft and to share them with or without you.

Is a colleague's name orange? Then a draft answer is prepared without sharing it with you.
Is a colleague's name green? Then the answer is saved and shared with you.

You can read the answer and use it in drafting the public answer. The date and time indicate when the answer was shared with you.

You can also assign yourself as a buyer to questions to share draft answers with colleagues assigned to the same questions.

Import answers from Excel
Read more about importing answers in the Question & Answer module here.

Important
After an answer has been published, it is no longer possible to withdraw it. It is, however, possible to supplement the content.

• In Published Questions and Answers, click the question and then click Customize.
• Formulate your additional answer and click Publish.

Has a question been submitted by a supplier as an Individual Question? You recognize this by the purple icon. After opening the question you will also see the motivation of the provider. By answering the question, you can request the provider to ask the question again and not to mark it as individual, if desired.
The attachments that the provider has uploaded with a question are never visible to other providers in the tender.

Do you want to share a document together with your answer with the providers in your tender? Then you must upload it yourself under the Answer text field.

Documents uploaded in answers are not shared with all tthe suppliers.