1

DB Alliance: Supplier User Documentation

Contents About DemandBridge ................................................................................................................................... 2

ABOUT DB ALLIANCE ................................................................................................................................ 2

Logging In ..................................................................................................................................................... 3

Navigating DB Alliance ................................................................................................................................. 4

Updating Your Company Profile .................................................................................................................. 4

MY COMPANY ........................................................................................................................................... 5

Business Information ........................................................................................................................... 5

Locations .............................................................................................................................................. 6

Specialties ............................................................................................................................................ 7

Equipment ............................................................................................................................................ 7

MANAGING USER ACCOUNTS .................................................................................................................. 8

NOTIFICATION ROUTING .......................................................................................................................... 9

Notification Recipients ....................................................................................................................... 10

Your Location Criteria ........................................................................................................................ 11

Distributor Location Criteria .............................................................................................................. 11

Email Category Criteria ...................................................................................................................... 12

Rule Evaluation .................................................................................................................................. 12

CERTIFICATIONS ..................................................................................................................................... 12

DISTRIBUTORS ....................................................................................................................................... 13

The DB Alliance Dashboard ....................................................................................................................... 14

DASHBOARD COLUMNS......................................................................................................................... 15

Optional Columns ............................................................................................................................... 15

ADDITIONAL SEARCH AND FILTRATION TOOLS .................................................................................... 16

Responding to Requests For Quote (RFQs) .............................................................................................. 17

RFQ DETAIL ............................................................................................................................................. 18

ENTERING BIDS ...................................................................................................................................... 19

ADDING QUANTITIES .............................................................................................................................. 22

SPEC “OPTIONS” .................................................................................................................................... 22

ADDITIONAL CHARGES........................................................................................................................... 23

2

MULTI-LINE RFQS ................................................................................................................................... 24

RFQ Attachments and Comments ............................................................................................................. 24

ATTACHMENTS ....................................................................................................................................... 24

COMMENTS ............................................................................................................................................ 26

Re-Quotes ................................................................................................................................................... 27

Pricing Revisions ........................................................................................................................................ 28

Quick Estimation ........................................................................................................................................ 31

Quotes Won and Lost ................................................................................................................................. 33

Purchase Orders ........................................................................................................................................ 35

SHIPPING DATA ...................................................................................................................................... 37

Reporting .................................................................................................................................................... 38

Premium Features ..................................................................................................................................... 39

QUOTE UPLOADER ................................................................................................................................. 39

Feature Availability ............................................................................................................................. 39

Configuration ...................................................................................................................................... 40

Uploading a Quote/Upload History ................................................................................................... 43

Support and Documentation ..................................................................................................................... 49

About DemandBridge For years, the industry has known DemandBridge for its complete set of end-to-end solutions—that is,

technology that connects a distributor's accounting, operations and inventory systems, as well as an industry

leading eCommerce portal and integrated sourcing tool for on-demand marketing, promotion and print

services. That technology is used by some of the industry's largest distributors and agencies, thousands of

loyal brands, and millions of registered users. The collective spend under management makes our tool set one

of the biggest Marketing Execution Platforms available in the market.

In October 2017, DemandBridge announced the acquisition of e-Quantum, Inc.—a company known for its own

Distributor Management System and eCommerce offerings, especially among small-to-midsize distributors. In

January 2018, DemandBridge acquired Kramer-Smilko, Inc., another company known for Distributor

Management solutions. With these additions, the new, independent company brings more than 90 years of

combined experience within and beyond the print services industry and serves over 600 distributor customers.

ABOUT DB ALLIANCE Our web-based procurement solution has become the preferred method of quoting and awarding print and

marketing projects among some of our largest distributor partners in the market. Since its inception, we've

incorporated feedback from print industry veterans to add new features and make the product more intuitive,

and we're not slowing down any time soon. As customer service representatives are being tasked with more

business, many of the enhancements we've implemented have been geared towards efficiency of use and

eliminating redundancies across systems. This is where the relationship with DB Distributor offers a truly

differentiated experience…key data regarding customers, items, suppliers, and orders sync seamlessly

between the two products—negating the need for third party systems of record and costly integrations, and

3

ultimately helping distributors in their efforts to become complete digital organizations. Looking ahead, we're

excited to scale the product to accommodate a quickly expanding network of distributor and supplier partners,

and to build a true sourcing ecosystem that benefits all and helps grow your business and partner

relationships.

In this documentation, you will learn how to:

• Login to and navigate within DB Alliance

• Manage your company’s profile, user accounts, and notification routing preferences

• Respond to a request for quote (RFQ) and track purchase orders

• Gain insight into jobs won and lost through built-in reporting

Logging In Upon receiving an invitation to join the DB Alliance network, you’ll receive an email from

dbahelp@demandbridge.com containing login credentials, and a link to the site.

The DB Alliance supplier portal is located at https://supplier.dba.demandbridge.com.

If you have not received your login credentials or have forgotten them, you may retrieve or reset them by

clicking the “User ID” and “Password” links on the login page and following the on-screen instructions.

To retrieve your DB Alliance username, you will be asked to enter your email address. If the email address

entered is associated with an active user account, an email containing the respective user ID(s) will be sent to

that address. Clicking the “Password” link will prompt you for a DB Alliance user ID. Upon entering a valid

username, an email containing a link to reset the password will be sent to the address associated with the

entered user ID. Please note that repeated attempts to login with an invalid password will result in your

account being locked.

If you do not have login credentials, another user from your organization with access to the system may create

an account for you within your company’s instance of DB Alliance. In the event, that you need further

assistance, or your password has been locked, you can reach the DemandBridge support team via email at

dbahelp@demandbridge.com.

4

Navigating DB Alliance Once you’ve successfully logged into DB Alliance, you’ll see your job status dashboard and several navigation

options. Use the main links in the left pane to move throughout the site and logout. For your convenience,

auxiliary navigation options for user documentation and support exist in the page footer. Clicking on the Recent

Jobs link will display your five most-recently accessed RFQs for quick reference.

Updating Your Company Profile To get started, the first thing you’ll want to do to maximize the number of opportunities for which your company

will be considered is to update your company’s supplier profile. It is in your company’s interest to have as

detailed a profile as possible, complete with general information about your organization, location addresses,

product specialties, equipment capabilities, noteworthy certifications, and notification routing preferences.

We’ll walk you through each of these aspects of your profile below. Once you’re finished, your profile will be

visible to CSRs for consideration as they determine which suppliers to include in a RFQ, and for general

reference in a display like the one below:

5

MY COMPANY

Business Information

The fields in this section are used to convey core information about your company to customer service

representatives initiating requests for quote (RFQs). Taking a moment to update these fields, including the way

in which your company name appears, the regions in which you operate or are capable of serving, your

website, and mission statement could very well make the difference between you being invited to bid on a job

or not.

6

Locations This is where you can communicate to your distributor partners information about your various plant locations.

You may setup as many or as few locations as you wish, though we do suggest establishing at least one

location.

In the event that your company has multiple locations, at least one location must be flagged as your “Primary

Mailing Location”. By default, this designation will be assigned to the first location added to your company

profile, however, you can double-click a row or click the “edit” icon to make a subsequently added location your

Primary Mailing Location.

7

In addition, when editing a location, you may assign a “default contact” to that location by choosing from

among the list of DB Alliance users that have been set up for your company. This will help guide customer

service representatives toward the appropriate point of contact based on the plant that is producing a job.

Specialties This is where you can indicate which product types your company specializes in. You can select one or many

options from the list of DB Alliance product types.

Equipment CSRs are often interested in which types of equipment their supplier partners have on hand, particularly for

cases in which the item specs their customers have requested are outside the norm. With DB Alliance, you can

list out all the equipment capabilities that set your company apart by choosing from our list of suggested

equipment types, specifying the equipment name, and providing a description.

We’ll offer hints as to the types of information about your equipment users are looking for below the

“Description” field to help guide you as you complete this section.

8

MANAGING USER ACCOUNTS If additional representatives from your company beyond those initially granted access to DB Alliance need the

ability to respond to RFQs or monitor job statuses, you can create limitless user accounts and edit existing

users via Profile > Users.

By default, the first user created for your company will have the contact status, “Primary.” We’ll cover this in

more detail later, but this setting is very important. In short, this user functions as a default contact to ensure

that in the absence of specific preferences, at a minimum, someone from your organization will receive

important RFQ and purchase order correspondence. Regardless of contact status, all active users may login to

the system, view and respond to RFQs, and update the company profile. However, unless otherwise specified

via notification routing rules, those users will not receive job-related email notifications. You can update which

user from your organization has this designation at any time by double-clicking a user in the list or clicking

“edit” next to their name.

9

If an employee leaves the company or moves onto a different role, you can deactivate their account from the

user list to prevent them from logging in moving forward. Users may be reactivated at any time. Inactive users

may be shown (in grey) in the user table by disabling the “Hide Inactive” checkbox filter. For historical

purposes, users are not “deleted” from the system.

NOTIFICATION ROUTING This component of your supplier profile is one of the most critical. The individuals within your organization who

receive RFQ and PO correspondence are managed by "Routing Rules". Within a routing rule, you may specify

one or many desired recipients to receive notifications based on criteria such as the distributor or specific

distributor location from whom a RFQ initiated, the plant location that will be producing the job, or the email

type (e.g. Bids vs. Purchase Orders). You can create as many different rules as your business dictates, and

make them as simple or as complex as necessary with the addition of these criteria.

10

To create a rule, click “Add New Rule” at the top of the Routing Rules table, and enter a brief description into

the “Rule Name” field. New rules will automatically be activated, but may be disabled by clicking the lightbulb

icon in the “Active” column. DB Alliance will only consider active rules when determining who should receive

notifications.

Notification Recipients The first and most important aspect of creating a rule is to define the intended recipients of notifications for

jobs that meet the rule criteria. You can specify multiple recipients by entering the email addresses of the

individuals from your organization who are responsible for acting on jobs that meet the criteria below. Email

recipients are not required to have a DB Alliance user account to be added to a routing rule. As such, please

review rules often to ensure email addresses don’t contain typos and that recipients are current. Contacts can

be added or deleted at any time by single clicking a rule and clicking the “+ Add” and “x” buttons respectively.

Rule Type

There are two types of rules: “Email Only”, which is the default and most commonly used option for cases in

which the preference is for notifications to be delivered via email to one or more recipients, and “Email and

FTP” for users who wish to receive notifications in both HTML format via email, and XML format via FTP.

*Please note, FTP routing only applies to Purchase Order type transmissions. Other notifications such as

requests for quotes are only deliverable via email.* When the Email and FTP type is selected, FTP Address,

Username, Password, and Subfolder fields will appear. In order to save a rule of this type, valid FTP credentials

must be entered. Once an address, username, and password have been entered, a connection to the specified

URI will be tested, and feedback confirming whether the credentials are valid, or a connection was

unsuccessful will be displayed. You may also test that the URI is reachable using the Test FTP button.

11

Your Location Criteria When responding to a RFQ, you can indicate to CSRs which of your locations will be producing the item once

you’ve been awarded the job. In turn, if there are specific contacts at a plant that should receive RFQ-related

correspondence, this section allows you to establish email routing preferences based on those plant locations.

Only your locations that have been setup in DB Alliance are eligible for consideration in routing rules. Unless

otherwise specified, rules will be applicable for all your locations. (If you only have one location, disregard this

section. Adding location criteria when you don’t have more than one location will result in the rule only being

evaluated when a CSR expressly routes a job to that single location.)

Distributor Location Criteria Here, you may define rules based on the distributor partners (and their specific locations) with whom you do

business through DB Alliance. The “Distributor” dropdown will be populated with the names of the distributors

with whom you have a relationship established. Upon selecting a distributor, the “Location” dropdown will be

populated with the list of their locations they’ve defined, if applicable. One or multiple distributors and/or

distributor locations may be added to a rule. By default, rules will be applicable for all the distributors to whom

you are associated.

12

Email Category Criteria There are two main types of job related correspondence sent out of DB Alliance: requests for quote or “Bids”,

and “Purchase Orders.” By applying email category criteria to a rule, you can effectively route notifications to

the appropriate team members without burdening them with emails that aren’t relevant to them—bid requests

can be sent to estimating teams, and purchase orders can be sent to production teams/facilities. Rules will

automatically be applied to notifications from both categories unless someone from your organization actively

specifies otherwise in a rule.

Rule Evaluation Notification routing rules are evaluated in the order in which they appear in the Routing Rules table, or from

top to bottom. That effectively means that the system will look for matching criteria to determine which contact

emails should be sent to starting at the top of the list, and will stop evaluating rules once matches are found.

To prioritize rules in the list, simply click, drag, and drop rules in the desired order.

The Default Rule

The "Default Rule" is designed as a fail-safe or fallback rule so that in the absence of matches on location,

distributor, or email category criteria in the rules above, at a minimum, notifications will flow through to the

contact(s) specified in this rule. If no contact is defined in Default Rule, emails will be sent to your company's

primary contact. Please note that due to the nature of this rule, specific supplier and distributor location

criteria and email category criteria may not be applied, and the Default Rule may not be renamed, deactivated,

or deleted. *The Default Rule is configured as the “Email Only” rule type. FTP information may not be saved to

this rule.*

As a matter of best practices, we recommend keeping the Default Rule at the very bottom of the Routing Rules

table. The default behavior when adding new rules is such that they are automatically placed above the default

rule to increase the likelihood that they are taken into consideration.

CERTIFICATIONS In this section of your profile, you can share noteworthy distinctions that set your company apart from your

competitors. Simply click the checkboxes that correspond to the certifications you’ve achieved, and double-

click the row or click the “edit” icon to add supporting details and documentation.

13

If you have achieved a certification, award, or honors that you don’t see in the list that you feel would be

relevant to your distributor partners, check the “Other” option at the bottom of the page, and add more

information as necessary.

Please note that at this time, only one document may be uploaded per certification option.

DISTRIBUTORS This tab allows you to see, at a glance, the list of distributors (and their locations) with whom you have a

relationship established within DB Alliance. Selecting a distributor in the “Distributors” table prompts a display

of their respective locations in the “Distributor Locations” table below. In each instance, you have the ability to

select a “Primary Contact Assignment” from among your list of DB Alliance users. Please note that use of

14

“primary contact” in this context is different from the DB Alliance user with the “primary” contact status. This

optional feature is intended merely to remind your distributor partners of their points of contact or account

representatives within your organization. Specifying a contact assignment within this section has no

implications whatsoever on notification routing.

The DB Alliance Dashboard Now that you’ve completed your supplier profile, let’s move onto the DB Alliance dashboard. The dashboard

functions as a sort of “homepage” within DB Alliance…it is the first thing you’ll see when logging in, and the

page to which you’ll be directed after performing various actions. The dashboard provides a high-level view of

job statuses, and can be customized and filtered to offer more granular views of data as needed.

There are six tabs that offer filtered views of the jobs on the display: “All”, “Open Quotes”, “Submitted Quotes”,

“Quotes Won”, “Quotes Lost”, and “Purchase Orders”.

• The “All” tab contains a cumulative list of RFQs in which a distributor has invited you to participate.

• “Open Quotes” displays all RFQs that are in the "Open" status and have at least one item for which bids

have not yet been entered.

• “Submitted Quotes” includes all RFQs that are in the "Open" status and have at least one item for which

bids have been entered by.

• “Quotes Won” contains all RFQs that have been partially or totally awarded to your company.

• “Quotes Lost” displays all RFQs that have been partially or totally awarded to another company.

15

• “Purchase Orders” includes RFQs in the “PO” status that have been partially or totally awarded to your

company.

DASHBOARD COLUMNS The default view of the dashboard contains lots of valuable information about the jobs you’ve been asked to

bid on. See below summary of information displayed:

• RFQ #: The unique job identifier generated by DB Alliance to refer to a job

• Customer: The name of your distributor customer from whom the job originated

• Status: The current DB Alliance job status—noteworthy statuses include:

o Open: The job contains items that have not yet been awarded to a supplier

o Awarded: The job has been Awarded but the Purchase Order has not yet been sent

o PO: A purchase order has been created for item(s) within the RFQ

o Re-Quote: The CSR is in the process of modifying specs or quantities for one or more items in the

RFQ: Bids may not be entered for items in the process of being re-quoted.

• Project Name: The name assigned to the RFQ by the CSR who initiated the job

• Quoted/Awarded: The color-coded progress bars within these columns represent the progression of RFQ

line items as they are quoted and awarded. Orange indicates completion whereas grey suggests action has

yet to be taken. Progress bars that are partially orange indicate that items within the job are in various

stages of the quoting or awarding processes.

• Created On: The date that the CSR created the RFQ

• Created By: The name of the CSR who created the RFQ followed by the name of your distributor customer

where they are employed

• Actions: Visual indicators of action taken/required

Edit Shipping Details: When clicked, prompts you to enter your Job Number and Ship Date for items

that were awarded to your company.

Edit Shipping Details: Icon changes from grayscale to color-coded once Job Number or Ship Date has

been entered for at least one RFQ line item.

Indicates that you have confirmed receipt of a purchase order.

Optional Columns These columns are hidden from the default view, but may be shown by hovering over any column heading,

clicking the arrow, and selecting the respective checkbox option (see below screenshot). If a CSR has specified

either of these values, that information will also be communicated via RFQ email notifications as well as within

the view of a job.

• Bids Due: The date by which the CSR has requested that bids be entered

• Project In-Hands Date: The date by which the customer for whom the job is being produced has requested

to have the finished product(s)

16

You may tailor the DB Alliance dashboard to your unique preferences by sorting columns in ascending or

descending order, dragging and dropping column headers to customize their display order, and showing/hiding

columns based upon their relevance to you. By deselecting columns of lesser importance, you reduce the

likelihood of having to scroll to see important job information.

ADDITIONAL SEARCH AND FILTRATION TOOLS Beyond interacting with the dashboard tabs and columns, you can drill down into more specific views of RFQ

information through use of the tools directly above the dashboard. The dropdown widget will be populated with

the names of all the CSRs (and their respective distributor) who have sent RFQs to your company. Selecting a

user here will enable you to quickly locate jobs from a particular DB Alliance user. By default, jobs from all

CSRs will be included. Only one CSR may be selected at a time. If you do a lot of business with a particular CSR

and wish to keep your dashboard filtered to only display his or her jobs, your preference will be retained after

logging out and back in.

17

The textbox to the right of the user dropdown is a general search tool where you can enter keywords or phrases

to help locate a RFQ. As you begin typing, matches on RFQ #, Customer, Status, Project Name, and Created By

will be returned. Keyword searches will be performed in conjunction with filters on CSR that have been applied.

Be mindful that keyword filters will remain in place until they are cleared.

Even more robust filtration options are available via the “Advanced Search” link above the dashboard. This

feature enables you to view jobs that might be able to be produced in combination. You can build simple or

complex searches based on criteria such as ranges of flat or finish size, color options, item quantity, and

distributor. For instance, if you were interested in all jobs that are 8.5 x 11, 4/4 for a specific distributor, you

can apply those search terms by selecting the appropriate category and using the green (+) icon to add them to

the filter. As parameters are applied to a filter, they will appear below the dropdowns and input fields. Simply

click the “x” icon next to unwanted criteria to remove them from your search.

Responding to Requests For Quote (RFQs) When one of your distributor customers creates a job and includes you on the RFQ, you will receive an email

notification containing a brief summary of the job and the items within, similar to the one below.

18

To view the job specs and enter your bids, you can access the job via the “click here” link, which will take you

to the DB Alliance login page, or if you’re already logged in, directly into the job. You may also click a job from

your dashboard to open it. Below is an example of a typical RFQ.

RFQ DETAIL At the top of the page, you’ll see a summary of the job, including who it came from, when bids are due, when

the project needs to be in the customer’s hands, etc.

19

The majority of the screen is dedicated to the display of item specs. The spec fields you see will vary based

upon the product type selected. If the CSR has specified specs, the values they entered will appear to the right

of their respective label. Specs are organized and grouped by “component”, (e.g. interior “page” specs vs.

“cover” specs).

ENTERING BIDS Below the display of item specs are the fields in which you’ll be prompted to enter “Quote Details”, including

your internal quote number, pricing information, and special charges, if applicable. You also have the option to

select an “Assigned Location”, or whichever plant location would be producing the job. In the screenshot

below, Quote # and Price are required fields. Please note, “Price” refers to your total extended price. You may

also enter pricing in terms of the unit of measure (UOM). Regardless of the field in which you enter your pricing,

the other field will be calculated and updated accordingly.

20

Within a single item, there may be requests for bids on multiple quantities. If that it the case, a separate line

will be created in the Job Item Prices grid for each quantity option requested by the CSR.

Pricing must be entered for all quantities requested by the CSR before you may submit. If you are unable or do

not wish to bid on an item or a specific quantity variation, in lieu of pricing, you can click the “No Bid”

checkbox. If you choose this option, you must enter a message in the “Notes” field to communicate your

decision to the CSR. There is also an option to “No-Bid” entire jobs at once if the jobs are not a good fit for your

company. This option is available at the bottom of the “Open Quotes” tab of your dashboard, where you can

select multiple jobs (via CTRL + click), and clicking the “No-Bid Selected Job(s)” button, and entering a

comment.

21

Once all field requirements have been met, you can submit pricing to the CSR by clicking “Submit Pricing For

This Item”, at which point you’ll be prompted to confirm your decision before ultimately submitting your bid.

22

After your bid has been submitted, an automatic, system-generated notification will be sent to the CSR who

initiated the job alerting them that you’ve entered pricing. You’ll also notice your dashboard’s status indicators

will have updated to reflect the fact that the job has been quoted.

ADDING QUANTITIES Beyond entering bids for the quantities expressly requested, you can add bids to a RFQ for additional

quantities. In many instances, CSRs may ask that you advise them if there are discounts available for ordering

in a larger quantity than they had formally requested. If such is the case, or you wish to offer volume discounts

that weren’t necessarily solicited, you can enter your own Quantity options and corresponding prices by

entering values into those respective fields and clicking “Add Quantity”. Quantities entered by users from your

company will appear in the Job Item Prices grid in blue. You may remove these quantities if you have not yet

submitted your bid for the item by clicking the red “x” button next to your entry. (Quantities requested by the

CSR may not be deleted.)

SPEC “OPTIONS” In addition to bidding on specific quantities within a line item, you may be asked for pricing on certain spec

variations (e.g. 60# stock vs 120# stock). While CSRs most commonly use this feature for a single product

spec, they may sometimes request bids for variations of multiple specs within a single item. (e.g. 60# stock vs

120# stock AND Cover Color 4/0 vs 5/0). In turn, DB Alliance determines all the possible permutations of

those spec variants, and presents them to you as “Options”. If one or more spec variants were entered, the

Options requested will be made clear to you in the item spec display, where you can select Options from the

pane on the right to see the potential combinations highlighted. In many instances CSRs may only ever be

interested in pricing for one or two of the system-generated Options, and may indicate as such via the “Notes”

field when quoting the item. In those cases, simply use the “No Bid” feature to avoid having to enter bids on

any undesired or irrelevant Options.

23

For all spec options, as well as for each quantity variation of the spec Options, you will be prompted to enter

bids in the Job Item Prices grid. The option number (e.g. Option 1) corresponds to the combination of specs

highlighted in the display above.

Per the above screenshot, you have the ability to export the bids you’ve entered into an Excel spreadsheet for

ease of viewing. This is particularly useful for reviewing your bids at a glance prior to submitting in cases when

quotes were requested for many quantity and spec variations.

ADDITIONAL CHARGES For each item in a RFQ, just below the Job Item Prices grid, you can append additional charges to your bid.

Simply enter a description of the charge, an amount, specify whether the charge is to be applied in terms of a

dollar amount or a percentage, and select “Flat Charge” or “Per Unit”, and be sure to click “Add Charge”. (Note:

default selections are $ and “Flat Charge”.) Any charges you’ve added will appear in the grid below, where you

can click into the fields to edit values/selections, or remove any unwanted or erroneous charges by clicking the

“x” icon.

24

MULTI-LINE RFQS By default, upon opening a RFQ, the specs for the first item in the job will be displayed. If the RFQ contains

multiple items, you can select subsequent items from the list on the left to view their specs and enter bids.

Once you’ve entered a bid for one item, you’ll automatically be prompted to enter bids for any remaining items

in the job for which you have yet to do so until all items in the job have been quoted or declined.

RFQ Attachments and Comments

ATTACHMENTS When viewing a RFQ, you’ll notice there are two tabs called “Attachments” and “Comments” to the right of the

“Quote Details” tab. Please note, these tabs are specific to the selected RFQ line item, so if the job contains

multiple items, you must be sure to first select the item you’d like to add attachments or comments to, then

open these tabs. You may take advantage of these features when entering your bids, or any time afterwards.

25

Under attachments, you’ll see the following options:

• Add Attachment: Here, you can upload one or more files relevant to the item being quoted such as proofs

or price sheets. Uploading a file will result in a line being added to the grid below, where you can specify

comments about the attachment and see information about the file. There are no restrictions on file type

or size. Once an attachment has been uploaded, it can be downloaded by clicking the green arrow, and

removed by clicking the red “x”.

Attachments that you’ve added to an item will only ever be visible to users within your company and users

within the distributor from which the job originated. Other suppliers who may have been asked to bid on

the same item will not see your attachments.

• Add Link: This option allows you to add links, such as those to a shared file destination as an alternative

(or accompaniment) to uploading a file. This is particularly beneficial when multiple [large] files have been

requested, or if you and the CSR have a shared collaboration space that you’d like to easily access from

within the RFQ. Adding a URL will result in it being added to the Attachments grid, where you can click the

green arrow to open the link or click “x” to remove it.

CSRs have similar options available to them within DB Alliance, where they can choose to make

attachments visible to any or all of the suppliers solicited on an item. If a CSR has made an attachment

visible to your company, an indicator will appear next to the RFQ in files were added.

In addition, CSR-added attachments will appear alongside files and links you’ve added within the

Attachments tab of the RFQ detail page. These are distinguishable from attachments you’ve added as they

are grouped based upon the user or organization that added them. Take note of the “On Behalf Of”

headers and column, and “Uploaded By” columns for clarity regarding file origin.

26

COMMENTS This feature enables users to keep important RFQ-related correspondence within DB Alliance, and reduces the

need for external email traffic. Comments function very similarly to attachments. While there are several places

in which you may be prompted to enter notes, such as the Job Item Prices grid under the Quote Details tab

where you can enter notes on different quantity or spec Options, you can also add item-level “Comments”.

Simply click the Comments tab, enter a message, and click send. Doing this will result in your comment being

added to the grid below, where you can view the comment, its author, and the date and time the comment was

added.

Like attachments, if a CSR has sent a comment to your company, an indicator containing the number of

comments that your DB Alliance user has not yet seen will appear on your dashboard, as well as within your

view a job. These comment counters will remain in place until you have clicked the Comments tab within the

RFQ where comments were added, and will increment and decrement as comments are added and read.

As with attachments, all comments related to an item appear in one place, but you can differentiate comments

added by different individuals using the “Author” column.

27

Comments made by your organization will only be visible to users within your company and users within the

distributor from which the job originated.

Re-Quotes As mentioned in an earlier section, there may be cases in which CSRs receive updated requirements from their

customers regarding item specs or quantities, resulting in the need for revised bids. When the CSR is in the

process of re-quoting the job, it will appear in the “Re-Quote” status on your dashboard, during which time no

bids may be submitted. Once a CSR has finished the process of re-quoting a particular line item, you will

receive a modified version of the RFQ notification with an updated subject line alerting you to the fact that the

job has been modified, and requesting that you re-enter pricing.

For items that have been re-quoted, within your view of the job, you’ll see a tabbed display of the item specs

from the various revisions. Note, the revision number will appear alongside the RFQ line item number in

parentheses.

The current “active” revision will be displayed by default, and its tab will be highlighted in orange. When

viewing the active revision, you’ll see the current specs that have been requested, as well as the spec values

from prior revisions displayed in strikethrough.

You can click each tab to view the specs that corresponded to that version of the item. In the below example,

the user has selected Rev. 1, as evidenced by the black tab styling. While viewing a previous (inactive) revision,

you’ll see the specs that were quoted in that version highlighted, compared to the specs associated with the

current revision in strikethrough.

28

CSRs may revert earlier revisions back to the “active” version, so the most recent revision will not always be

the one for which you’ll be prompted to enter pricing. For RFQs in which there are multiple spec revisions, look

for the orange tab styling to see which is active. The active revision will always be displayed by default when

you open the job, and is the only revision for which bids may be entered.

Pricing Revisions After someone from your company has responded to a RFQ with an initial bid, and before the CSR has awarded

the line item, you have an opportunity to submit a “Pricing Revision”. Whether a mistake was made in the

initial bid, you wish to offer more competitive pricing, or requirements have changed that warrant a price

increase, you have the flexibility to update your bid using this feature.

Jobs that contain items that are eligible for pricing revisions may be found from your dashboard via the

“Submitted Quotes” tab, where the “Awarded” column is at least partially grey. To initiate a pricing revision,

simply open one of these jobs, and you’ll notice a button to “Create Pricing Revision” within the Quote Details

tab. Clicking this button will result in the appearance of the “Pricing Revisions” grid. Within that grid, you’ll see

the “active” revision highlighted by default, and any prices or additional charges that correspond to that bid in

the Job Item Prices and Additional Charge grids below. For the first pricing revision you initiate, the active

revision will always be your original bid.

29

Above the Active Revision, you’ll see a “Draft” revision. Clicking this revision will enable edits to the fields in the

grids below, where you can update prices, add quantities, remove quantities that you added previously, select

“No Bid”, and add, edit, or remove additional charges, just as you would when entering a bid for the first time.

Please note that you will be required to enter “Revision Comments” to describe what has changed from the

original bid.

30

Once you have submitted a pricing revision, an email notification will be sent to the CSR alerting them to your

revised bid, at which point they will be prompted to review your changes. Upon viewing the job, the pricing

revision will appear as “pending” alongside the active revision. Users from your company may cancel pricing

revisions in the “draft” and “pending” statuses at any time by clicking the red “x”.

It is important to note that a CSR must “accept” your pricing revision to officially overwrite the original bid and

make it the “active” revision. If and when the CSR takes action on your pricing revision, you will receive an

email notification. If the CSR “accepts” or revised pricing, the previously active revision will be overwritten, and

31

the new bid will be marked “active”. This does not mean you have been awarded the job, but rather, this will be

pricing the CSR considers and proposes to their customer.

If your revised pricing has been rejected by the CSR, you will receive an email containing feedback about their

decision not to overwrite your previous bid, and the Pricing Revisions grid within the RFQ will be updated

accordingly. Simply hover over the columns in this grid to view the comments in more detail. You are free to

submit additional revisions until the item has been awarded.

Please note that pricing revisions are specific to each line item. In jobs with multiple RFQ line items, you must

select each item for which you’d like to create a pricing revision. You may continue to create pricing revisions

for a line item until it has been awarded.

Quick Estimation We’ve covered a lot of information so far about how to respond to requests for quote, however, there’s another

way representatives from your company who may not have access to DB Alliance can enter pricing. When a

CSR creates a RFQ, the email notification that is sent contains “Quick Estimate” links for each line item you’ve

been asked to bid on.

32

Clicking this link will direct to a page containing a very high-level view of the item and spec data, where users

may enter a quote number, prices, additional charges, and add quantities. It is important to note that this page

does not offer some of the more robust features available within the traditional view of a RFQ such as

Attachments and Comments. The intended use case behind this feature is for cases in which you receive a

RFQ but are unable to respond, or wish to forward the request to a member of your company who doesn’t have

a DB Alliance user account, you can ensure your company is still considered for the opportunity.

This page can also be reached by opening the job from your dashboard, and clicking the “Quick Estimate View”

button under the Quote Details tab.

33

From that view, you’ll have see an option to “Send Quick Estimate Link”, where you can enter the name and

email address of the person you’d like to look at the RFQ, a message, and determine whether or not that

person may submit pricing directly to the CSR, or may simply enter bids for your review.

The ability for users who submit “quick estimates” directly to CSRs as opposed to entering bids which then in

turn must be formally submitted by someone with a DB Alliance user account is driven by a permission within

your company profile under the “Users” section.

This permission has been enabled by default for new suppliers, but if you’ve been on the DB Alliance platform

for a while, you may want to take a moment to review this setting for your company to avoid a situation in

which a user has entered pricing under the assumption that their bids have been sent to the CSR, when in fact

they have yet to be formally submitted. If this permission is disabled, if and when your colleague has finished

their estimation, an email notification will be sent to you indicating that they’ve entered a bid, otherwise, the

email will be sent to the CSR informing them of your company’s response.

Quotes Won and Lost After you’ve gone through the process of bidding on an item, if the CSR chooses to award the job to your

company, the job will appear under both the “All” and “Quotes Won” tabs of your dashboard. Similarly, if the

job was awarded to another supplier, it will appear on both the “All” and “Quotes Lost” tabs of your dashboard.

Within the view of a job, you’ll see some additional indicators of the item’s awarded status. If the item was

won, the item number and awarded bid will be highlighted in green, and the message “Your bid for this item

has been accepted!” will appear in green at the bottom of the page.

34

Conversely, for items not awarded to your company, the item number and the message “Your bid for this item

has not been accepted.” at the bottom of the page will appear in red.

35

Purchase Orders Once your bid for a job has been awarded, the CSR will generate a purchase order, or PO. Once this has been

done, the job will appear in the “PO” status on your dashboard, and will appear under both the “All” and

“Purchase Order” tabs. In addition, you will receive an email notification alerting you to the fact that you’ve

officially won this job, which will include all relevant spec, pricing and shipping details for each item in the job

that was awarded to your company. (Please note that appearance and messaging of this notification may vary

depending on the distributor from whom the job originated.)

36

Once you receive a purchase order, you will be prompted to take action to confirm you’ve won the job. This can

be done in three easy ways:

• When you receive the PO email, use the “Click Here” link to confirm the job. If you are already logged into

DB Alliance, this link will take you directly to the RFQ.

• From the dashboard, click on the job and click the button to “View Purchase Order”.

• If you have not confirmed that you’ve won a job, you will receive one reminder notification asking that you

do so twenty-four hours later after the PO was initially sent. This reminder email will also contain the “Click

Here” link.

37

It is possible for the CSR to make modifications to select aspects of the PO after it has been sent.

Modifications may include changes to item specs, cost, or shipping information. If a PO has been modified, you

will receive a modified version of the PO email notification with an updated subject line and a message in the

body of the email alerting you to the fact that the job has been modified.

Note, there may be instances in which a bid has been awarded, but the job never comes to fruition. In those

cases, the job will remain in the Awarded status.

SHIPPING DATA As mentioned previously, you will be prompted to add a job number and ship date to each item that for which

you’ve received a purchased order in tandem with confirming the job. Entering your shipping data is one of the

last job-related task you’ll be asked to complete in DB Alliance. This can be done right from your dashboard in

one of two ways. The first is by clicking the “Edit Shipping Details” icon in the Actions column, and manually

entering values into these fields for each item in the job that you were awarded. Upon doing so, an email will

be sent to the CSR who created the job informing them of your updates.

The second option is by clicking the “Upload Shipping Data” button in the above screenshot. Doing so will open

a popup window where you can download a .CSV template, in which you can define job numbers and ship

dates for multiple items across jobs at once.

38

After you’ve downloaded the template, you can enter as many rows as you’d like. See below sample of how you

might enter shipping data, particularly the formatting of the RFQ Line Item numbers. These must be entered in

the format <Distributor prefix> <RFQ number>-<line item identifier>.

Once you’re done, save the file as a .CSV, and upload it via the popup. After your upload processes, the

Shipping Details will be uploaded to your dashboard as well as the CSR’s dashboard via the Edit Shipping

Details icon.

Reporting For your convenience, DB Alliance comes equipped with a supplier “Win/Loss” report. This is accessible from

the “Reporting” link in the left navigation pane on your dashboard.

39

On the Reporting page, you’ll see a high-level summary of items won and lost year-to-date (YTD). You have the

option to customize the report using suggested date filters, or applying your own custom date range. Doing so

will cause the values below to update accordingly.

In addition to being able to tailor the report based on selected date ranges, you can expand the “hamburger”

menu on the left to see additional filters, including Distributor, Distributor Location, CSC, and Product. You can

apply multiple parameters within a single category, and may combine criteria from across categories for as

broad or as specific a report as you like. Once you’ve applied the desired filters, clicking the “View Details”

links below Items Won and Items Lost initiates an export of a CSV file containing the following information for

items quoted within the selected date range: Distributor Name, Distributor Location, CSC, RFQ Line Item #,

Supplier Quote Number, Product, Cost, RFQ Created, and [Date] PO Submitted.

Premium Features Certain features may only be available on a subscription basis. This section will cover those features and offer

guidance on how your company can take advantage of them if you aren’t already doing so.

QUOTE UPLOADER We understand that the overhead activities associated with quoting a job from entering specs into an

estimating system, generating pricing and proofs, and communicating prices back to your distributor partners

can be very time consuming. While DB Alliance offers an easy-to-use interface for viewing RFQs and entering

prices, we wanted to offer a solution that would add further value to suppliers by reducing the amount of time

necessary to respond to quote requests, and freeing up resources to spend more time serving customers. We

believe that distributors and their customers stand to benefit from this feature as well as a result of increased

efficiencies and faster turnaround times.

With our Quote Uploader feature, suppliers can upload output from their estimating and production

management systems directly into DB Alliance to instantly populate RFQs and respond back to their distributor

partners without having to manually re-key information. The feature was designed with the myriad estimating

systems that exist in our industry in mind, in that each supplier can map their system’s unique format to DB

Alliance’s required fields for responding to a RFQ. Many configuration options are available that provide an

opportunity for integration with a wide range of estimating systems.

While the Quote Uploader presents an efficient solution for entering prices into DB Alliance, we envision it as a

complement to the existing suite of features used to respond to a typical RFQ. For example, suppliers can login

to DB Alliance after receiving a quote request to view specifications and attachments or ask clarifying

questions, then upload pricing at their leisure. After prices have been uploaded, suppliers can supplement

those quotes with special charges, proofs, revised bids, and more by logging into the full RFQ.

Feature Availability This feature is currently only available to suppliers who have an active subscription to the DB Alliance sourcing

exchange. If your company is eligible to use this feature, you will see the “Quote Uploader” link on the

navigation menu to the left of your dashboard. (If your company is not associated to a distributor that is

40

participating in the DB Alliance sourcing exchange, you will not see this navigation option.)

Upon clicking the Quote Uploader navigation link, if your company has an active subscription to the DB Alliance

sourcing exchange, you may begin configuring your company’s settings. If you do not yet have a valid

subscription, you will be prompted to join the exchange in order to gain access to this feature.

Configuration Because each supplier’s estimating system and the contents of their output may vary, we realized that a “one

size fits all” approach would not be possible. For instance, what one supplier refers to as “Quantity” may be

called “Qty” by another supplier. To that end, with our solution, each company can perform a one-time mapping

of their unique data points from their estimating system to the fields required by DB Alliance to submit a RFQ.

Once you have configured your preferences, you can begin uploading files into DB Alliance. It is important to

note that these settings are specific to your company as a whole, and while this step is required to begin using

the Quote Uploader, configuration preferences can be updated at any time.

Select Submission Preferences

The first setting you’ll be asked to configure is whether you wish for responses to RFQs that you’re attempting

to bid on using this tool to be automatically submitted upon uploading a file, or if you’d prefer to review the

contents of your upload before submitting pricing. The two options are “Automatic Submission” and “Manual

Submission,” the latter of which is selected by default.

The intention behind the Automatic Submission option is to offer the utmost efficiency by requiring the fewest

“clicks” to respond to a RFQ. Upon uploading a file, the system will evaluate the contents, and instantly submit

a response to the CSR for rows in which a valid DB Alliance RFQ Line Item Number, Quantity, Price, and your

internal Quote Number are found. For suppliers who would prefer to confirm the contents of the file they’ve

uploaded from their estimating system before formally responding with pricing to the CSR, we recommend the

Manual Submission option. In this workflow, quotes can be applied (i.e. saved to the database for submission

from within the RFQ), submitted, or deleted at your leisure.

41

Map Your Data Format

Before prices can be uploaded using this tool, a sample file generated from your company’s estimating system

must be uploaded. This will provide the basis for validating the format of future quote files. Please note, only

one format may be defined for your company at a time. To upload a file, simply drag and drop it into the upload

widget or click “Browse” to select a file from a directory. Once a valid file has been uploaded, the name of the

file will appear below the uploader to help you remember which file you’ve uploaded. An important thing to

note is that sample files MUST be uploaded in .CSV format, as other formats (including .XLSX files) will be

rejected.

After you have completed that step, you will be prompted to define some information about the file and to

associate its columns to the fields necessary for responding to a RFQ in DB Alliance. The dropdowns under

“Column Mappings” will populate with the column names from your sample file, allowing you to choose which

columns correspond to the required data fields. To proceed, a column mapping must be defined for each data

field, with the exception of “Notes” which is optional. Only columns that are mapped to a required field will be

evaluated, so if your file contains a greater number of columns, data in unmapped columns will be ignored.

42

Beyond supporting the mapping of variable column names to the required data fields, the Quote Uploader also

supports files both with and without header rows. By default, “Map with Header Row in .CSV” will be checked,

but if your sample file does not have a header row, simply uncheck the checkbox next to this option. If your

sample file does contain a header row, its column headers will appear in the “Column Mappings” dropdowns,

allowing you to select which column best matches the fields needed to submit your response.

If a header row does not exist, the column numbers and the first value found in each column will be displayed

in the dropdowns.

43

In addition, both files in which the RFQ Line Item Number used to uniquely identify items in a job is provided in

full (e.g. “XY 123456-1”, “XY 123456-2”), as well as those where it is parsed into separate columns containing

RFQ Number (“XY 123456”) and Line Item Number (“1,” “2”) are supported. A valid RFQ Line Item Number is

critical to identifying which item you’re attempting to bid on, so when validating the contents of uploaded files,

it is important to know how this information is being provided. It is assumed that the complete RFQ Line Item

Number will be provided in one column as it is presented to suppliers within the RFQ summary, so that option

is checked by default. If your estimating system splits the RFQ number and line item number into separate

columns, check the radio button next to that option instead.

Update Mapping

While only one mapping file may exist for a company at a time, it can be updated based on your company’s

needs. This will allow suppliers to utilize this feature if they adopt a new estimating system, or perhaps have

multiple estimating systems for different types of products, each with its own unique output. So, for instance, if

the bulk of your business is comprised of Forms, but perhaps you’re occasionally invited to bid on Envelope

opportunities, you can update your sample file from one based on your Forms estimating system to one that

mirrors output from your Envelope estimating system—and revert back if needed.

Uploading a Quote/Upload History After you’ve completed the configuration step, you may begin responding to RFQs by uploading quote files that

match the formatting of your sample file. When clicking the Quote Uploader navigation option, you will be

directed to the Upload History tab, unless your configuration preferences are incomplete, in which case you will

be directed to the Configuration tab. From Upload History, you can drag and drop or select a file from your

computer to import.

44

Quote Upload Summary

Once a valid file has been uploaded, you will be directed to the Quote Upload Summary. This will display a

summary of all matching items and their respective quantities found based on the RFQ Line Item Numbers

provided in the file. Each item summary will begin with a solid bar containing the full RFQ Line Item number,

and includes job-level data such as the distributor and CSR from which the RFQ originated, the product type,

and the statuses of the item its parent job. Information that was output from your estimating system such as

the price for each quantity, your internal quote number, and any notes or comments will be displayed in green.

It is important to note that uploading a file does not necessarily mean that your quote will be formally

“submitted”. The upload summary is merely a visual confirmation of the contents of the file that was uploaded,

and any system feedback from the time of the upload. For companies with the “Manual Submission”

configuration option enabled, further action is required beyond this point to communicate your quotes back to

the CSR. Importing a file will only result in prices being submitted upon upload when your company has the

“Automatic Submission” option enabled.

Within the upload summary, you can “Submit”, “Apply”, or “Delete” valid quotes that were processed from the

uploaded file. “Submitting” quotes will save the uploaded information to the database, trigger notifications to

45

the CSRs who initiated the quote requests informing them that you’ve responded to their RFQs, and update the

quote status for the respective items. Once a quote has been submitted. No further action is required.

“Applying” quotes will save uploaded information to the database, but someone will then have to then formally

“submit” the quotes from within the RFQ to complete your response. Quotes may be submitted and applied

either at the line item level, or at the upload level. If submitting or applying at the upload level via the “Submit

All” and “Apply All” buttons, the number of eligible items for which those actions will occur will be displayed in

parentheses. (Items that have already been submitted or applied, as well as items with errors are ineligible.)

“Deleting” an item will remove it and any of its quantities and prices from the upload summary altogether.

Within this summary view, you can click the RFQ Line Item Number in the header bars or “Go to RFQ” to see

the original RFQ, including specifications, comments, attachments from the CSR. This will provide you with

access to the full suite of features available to suppliers to augment your bid, including the ability to add

special charges, uploading proofs, submitting revised bids, and more.

Once action has been taken to submit, apply, or delete quotes for a line item, the Quote Upload Summary will

be updated to reflect the action taken.

In addition, a message will be added to the RFQ detail page to indicate that the bid for the item was submitted

via Quote Uploader, along with a link back to the Upload Summary from which the action was taken.

46

Validation and Errors

The same rules and validation that are in place when responding to a RFQ manually are in effect when

attempting to respond via the Quote Uploader. In other words, circumstances that would typically preclude a

user from bidding on an item from within the RFQ, such as the item already having been awarded or cancelled

by the CSR, the item actively being re-quoted, or lack of required information, will prevent you from submitting

a price by upload. If the system finds valid DB Alliance RFQ Line Item Numbers in your file, but deems them

ineligible for quote submission for some reason, the item summary header will appear in orange, and an

explanation of the error(s) and as suggestions for next steps (if applicable) will be displayed. Options to

“submit”, “apply”, and “delete” quotes will not be available for items containing errors. To that end, the

numbers of items in the “Submit All” and “Apply All” action buttons at the top of the Quote Upload Summary

exclude items that are ineligible for those actions due to some error.

Of the required fields, RFQ Line Item Number, Quantity, and Price are critical to core functionality, and rows

without values in those columns will be rejected as invalid. As is the case when manually responding to a RFQ,

“Price” values must not contain special characters, including the “$” symbol. Rows containing that character in

the Price column will also be rejected as invalid.

While Quote Number is indeed required, rows in which there is no value in that column will not be rejected

outright, but instead be processed and eligible to be applied, but not submitted. This will allow users to rectify

this omission from within the RFQ.

47

One feature that is supported when responding to quotes manually that is not currently available for

responding via the Quote Uploader is the ability to provide quotes for multiple spec variations of an item. CSRs

can request quotes on multiple quantity breaks of a single item (quotes may be uploaded for multiple

quantities), as well as different combinations of specifications for an item (e.g. 60# vs. 80# stock). If a CSR

requested prices on more than one spec option for an item that you’re attempting to bid on using the Quote

Uploader, you will be directed to submit your quote for that item from within the RFQ.

Additional Features

CSRs often request bids on multiple quantity options. If this is the case for an item you are quoting, simply

create a separate row in your upload file for every quantity for which bids were solicited, and ensure the RFQ

Line Item Number for each row matches that of the item. In addition to providing quotes on quantities

expressly requested by a CSR, much like the way that you can “Add Quantities” beyond those that the CSR

formally requested when submitting a quote from within a RFQ, you can add a row to your spreadsheet with a

48

value in the Quantity column that wasn’t solicited.

In the above example, the CSR requested pricing on 500, 1000, and 2500 pieces. The bid for 5000 pieces

was not solicited. The quantity of 5000 is highlighted in green like the Price, Notes, and Quote Number values

because it was entered by the supplier.

Another feature that is available if you choose to submit your quote via upload is the option to “No Bid”. For

cases in which multiple quantities were requested by the CSR, omitting a row from your file that corresponds to

one of those quantities will result in “No Bid” being submitted as your response for that quantity along with the

note “Pricing not included in upload for this quantity”. Note, this feature is only applicable when a valid quote

has been provided for at least one quantity option of a given line item.

Lastly, the Quote Uploader allows you to respond to multiple RFQs at once, including those from different

CSRs, or even different distributors.

Quote Upload History

A cumulative list of all files that have been uploaded for your company is available on the same page used to

upload new quotes. Information provided here includes the date and time the files were processed, the file

49

name, the number of items found in each file, and the number of items submitted, applied, and deleted.

Clicking a row in this table will take you to the complete summary view of the upload.

Support and Documentation If you have questions, product feedback, or need assistance using DB Alliance, you may submit an inquiry to

our DemandBridge Support team by clicking the “Help” navigation link on your dashboard, or “Contact” in the

site footer. Inquiries will be sent into our support queue powered by Jira Service Desk, and addressed in the

order in which they were received.

If you have questions about a specific RFQ, we suggest that you reach out to the CSR or another contact at the

distributor from which the job originated.

The most recent version of our DB Alliance documentation will be available via the Documentation link in the

site footer pictured in the screenshot below.

Thank you for using DB Alliance!

50