Since each IPS consists of a set of similar products, you can create a desired IPS by combining existing products from the Product Catalog or by creating personalized products that are missing from the catalog. You can find instructions for creating non-existent products in the “Creating a product” section. These are the steps for creating an IPS using existing or previously created products in the platform:
- From the Product Catalog, select the desired main category from the dropdown menu and its respective subcategories, or type the name in the search bar.
Once you have located the final category, click on “Select” to view all available products within it. Please note that the number of products in the category will be indicated next to the category’s name.
Once all available products are displayed, you can further refine the results by selecting specific attributes in the form of filters. You will see a list of these attributes on the left side of the products.
After you have made your selection of products by checking the small boxes in the upper right corner of each product card, you will be able to create a fixed IPS consisting only of the selected products.
To create a flexible IPS, after selecting a specific category, you will see filters with attributes listed on the left side of the product cards, which you should fill in according to your preferences. After filtering the products by selecting attributes, click the “Create Flexible IPS” button without checking the small boxes in the upper right corner of the product cards, which is only necessary when creating a fixed IPS. All products that meet the criteria will be included in the IPS, and in the future, this list will be updated depending on new products added to the catalog.
After pressing the “Create Flexible IPS” or “Create Fixed IPS” button, a window will open where you can name the IPS and create its variants. When creating each IPS, you have the option to choose whether it should be hidden from the IPS Library. Hiding an IPS from the IPS Library can be done at any time by entering the desired IPS and activating the “Hide from IPS Library” setting.
The variants of each IPS are used in conducting trades, as well as for receiving offers from sellers in the buyers’ catalog. For greater convenience, you can set a different name for each IPS variant. The purpose of the variants is to describe how you buy the specific IPS. They contain information such as unit of measurement, expiration date, delivery time in days, incoterm, annual turnover, delivery address, payment terms, type of bidding, and currency. The annual turnover for an IPS corresponds to the approximate amount of the company’s expenditure for a given IPS variant and the information is not obligatory to be filled.
The choice of delivery address and payment terms can be selected from those previously entered in Settings -> Payment Terms -> Delivery Addresses (For more information, refer to the “Company Management” section). You can adjust the visibility of the IPS depending on whether you want access to it to be Private or Public. If the visibility of the IPS is set to Public, IPS variants will be visible in your catalog to all sellers, who will be able to make offers for them and their respective quantities. When selecting the “Private access” setting, the IPS and its variants are not visible in the seller’s catalog and do not allow for bidding on them.
The type of bidding for a public variant can be “Open”, “Semi-Open”, or “Closed”. An open type of bidding allows all sellers to have visibility to competitive sellers and their offers submitted in the catalog for IPS variants. With semi-open bidding, sellers see competitive prices but not the names of competitors. Closed bidding allows only sellers invited by the buyer to make offers for IPS variants.
After filling in the information in the IPS variant, press “Save as Draft” or “Save”. “Save as Draft” is a useful option in cases where you do not have the necessary time or information to fill in the required data for the IPS variant and decide to continue at a later time.
