Manage invitations and submissions in Funding & Tenders Portal

In negotiated procedures or competitive procedures with negotiation without publication only the invited candidates may submit a tender.

If you are invited to submit a tender you will receive:

• an invitation email
• a notification in the F&T portal
  

In the invitation email, you will receive a link which will take you to the Invitation(s) section in the F&T portal - you need to sign in with your EU Login. If you do not have an EU Login account yet linked to the email address that was used by the contracting authority for the invitation, F&T Portal will automatically create it for you. See detailed explanation here .

View Invitation(s)

From the navigation menu on the left you will find the invitations(s) under Invitations section. A search field is also available on the right above the list of invitations.

Click on Select Organisation from the menu button (three dots) for the invitation received - you need to select the organisation indicated in the invitation mail as "Participant".

 A pop-up window will appear where you will have two options:

• • My organisations - you can select an organisation among those for which you have a role: role for the organisation (e.g. self-registrant, LEAR, LSIGN) or for a project (submisison/invitation/contract/grant) . If your organisation is not yet registered, then you need first to register it in the Participant Register to obtain a PIC (Participant Identification Code). Read more here. After your organisation is registered, you can select the newly created PIC.
    

• • Other organisation - you can search the organisations registered in the F&T portal by entering either the organisation name or PIC number.
    

Only after you have selected your organisation, you will be able to see the invitation details and documents.

Clicking on the procedure reference number will take you to the procedure details page.

Under the Details section you will be able to:

• • View the procedure details
    Under the General information section, you can view the information related to the procedure.

• • Access the restricted procurement documents
    Under the Restricted documents section, you can consult the documents of the procedure.  
     
    
    If there are several versions of a document, you will see the  latest version on the screen. To view an older version, click on the dropdown menu and select the version you want to see. You can also consult the available translations (if any).  
  • 
•  
  • Access the Restricted Questions & answers (Q&A) section.  
    From this section you can ask a question concerning the procedure.   
     
    
    If the contracting authority provides the answer privately, it will appear under the 'My Q&A' section. If the answer is provided to all candidates invited to the procedure, it will appear under the Restricted Q&A  section. For more information see How to create and submit a question on the Funding and Tenders portal.

The submission can only be done from ‘My Invitation(s)’ section. Tender(s) cannot be submitted from the procedure details page.

Invitation(s) section

For each invitation you can see the procedure reference number, the invitation status (received, acknowledged), the deadline, the lot (if applicable), the procedure title, the procedure type and the step. The menu button (three dots) of the invitation/submission allows you to perform different actions depending on the status of the invitation/submission.

For invitations in Received status:  

• Acknowledge Receipt: click here in order to confirm that you have received the invitation to submit a tender. You will be taken to the eSubmission portal where you can submit your tender.
• Manage Roles:  you will be able to view and manage the access to your invitation (add/remove persons who will also be able to access the invitation and submit a tender).
• See Details: you will be able to see the details regarding the procedure (see above).

For invitations in Acknowledged status: 

• Start New Submission: click to submit a new tender.
• Manage Roles: you will be able to view and manage the access to your invitation (add/remove persons who will also be able to view the invitation and submit a tender).
• See Details: you will be able to see the details regarding the procedure (see above).
  

If you have started preparing a submission or already submitted one, you will see the link Submission(s).

The menu button (three dots) on the right of each submission allows you to perform different actions depending on the submission status.

For submissions in Draft status:

• Edit: eSubmission opens the screen you were in when you left the application. You can now edit your submission in eSubmission.
• View: eSubmission opens the screen you were in when you left the application the application. It is not possible to edit the submission as you are viewing it in read-only mode. 
• Delete: the draft submission will be deleted from the Funding & Tenders Portal.

For submissions in Submitted status:

• View Receipt: the submission receipt is displayed.
• Withdraw (available only before the deadline for submission):  provide the reason to withdraw the submission and confirm by clicking on the Withdraw button. Once you have withdrawn a submission, you cannot view, edit or submit it again.

For submissions in Withdrawn status:

• View Withdrawal Receipt: the withdrawal receipt is displayed.

For submissions in Deleted status:

• The  Action menu is not available for the tenders with the status Deleted. Once a draft tender has been deleted, it cannot be retrieved by the tenderer.   
  
  

How to prepare your tender in eSubmission

To be able to submit a tender, you need first to acknowledge the receipt of the invitation to tender:

• Find the procedure in Invitation(s) in the Funding & Tenders Portal.

• In the menu button (three dots) of the procedure, click on Acknowledge Receipt in order to confirm that you have received the invitation. The status of the invitation will become Acknowledged.

After acknowledging the receipt of the invitation, you will be automatically redirected to eSubmission, where you can start the submission of your tender by clicking on New submission. 

If you prefer to start your submission later:

• Log on to the Funding & Tenders Portal.
  

• Go to Invitation(s) and find the procedure.

• From the menu button (three dots) of the procedure, click on Start New Submission. You will then be redirected to eSubmission.

In eSubmission click on New submission to start a new submission or Resume draft to resume a draft submission started earlier. 

Navigating in eSubmission 

When you start your submission you will see a progress line on top of the screen. This line shows all the steps you have to go through before submitting your tender. You can also see which step you are currently in. At any time during the submission process you can see which documents have been uploaded  by clicking on the Submission documents button on the left side of the screen.

Nothing is submitted to the contracting authority until you have clicked the Submit button at the end of the submission process.

Ways to submit

When you start a new submission, you will be asked to indicate:

• how you will submit your tender: Sole submission or Joint submission,
• if the submission will involve subcontracting,
• in what language the submission will be made.

After you have made your choice, click on the button Next at the bottom of the page.

Parties

In this section you must identify the organisations participating in your submission (participants). Click on New party and select the type of participant: main participant (in case of sole submission), group leader or group member (in case of joint submission) and subcontractor (if applicable). All participants, except subcontractors, must be identified with a PIC – Participant Identification Code. 

The PIC number of Main participant or Group leader should be the same as the PIC linked to the invitation for this negotiated procedure on F&T Portal under 'Invitations'.

To choose the correct PIC and check if an entity already has a PIC (i.e. is already registered in the Participant Register), use the Search organisation field. There are two search options: My organisations or Other organisations.

My Organisations :  Click on the drop down to display the list of organisations which the logged-on user has used in previous submissions or for which s(he) been assigned a role (e.g. self-registrant, LEAR or account administrator). These are the same organisations which users can see under “My organisations” tab on the left menu in F&T Portal after logging with their EU Login account.

Other Organisations: You can search the organisations registered registered in the Participant Register by entering the organisation name or PIC (Participant Identification Code).

If the search shows no results, the organisation must register to obtain a PIC. After your organisation is registered, you can go back to eSubmission and select the newly created PIC using one of the two search options.

The data associated with the PIC in the Participant Register will appear on the screen and you will be asked to provide the following mandatory data/documents:

• for the Main participant or Group leader:
• Contact Person (name and e-mail address)
• IBAN/Bank account number
  If the bank account has IBAN code, you should tick the the "IBAN" checkbox and eSubmission  will verify if the IBAN bank account is valid.
  
• for all participants: Declaration on Honour (duly completed and signed) in the Attachments section.

In the Contact Person section, the user can indicate himself/herself (the name is already prefilled) or another person as the contact person for the tender. The Contact Person receives the role Primary Coordinator Contact (PCoCo) in the Funding & Tenders Portal and the user submitting the tender (if different from the Contact Person) - the role Coordinator Contact (CoCo). 

If the PCoCo does not have an EU Login account, a temporary EU Login account will be automatically created based on the Contact Person email address and the person will be invited by email to complete the EU Login registration. The invitation will be an automatic system message with no reference to the procedure.

In the Attachments section of each participant you can upload the participant’s documents relating to exclusion and selection criteria. Check the tender specifications to identify which documents for which participant must be included in the submission.

Click  Done when you are ready. 

Once you have passed the “Ways to submit” step, it is no longer possible to change the structure from Joint submission to Sole submission or vice versa. In case you want to modify the structure of your submission or change the Group leader, you need to create a new submission overwriting your draft submission (all previously entered data and uploaded documents will be deleted).

Click Next to move to the next step.

Lots

In a procedure with several lots, choose the lot(s) for which you would like to submit a tender and then click on the button Next .  

The identification of participants applies to the submission as a whole. Therefore, if the composition of the consortium is different per lot, you will need to make a separate submission per lot.

Tender data

In this section you need to enter the amount of your tender (only in case of the lowest cost or the lowest price award method - make sure you use the same format as in the example on the screen) and/or confirm if your tender complies or not with the minimum requirements specified in the procurement documents.

If you confirm that your tender does not comply with the minimum requirements you will be asked to provide an explanation in a dedicated text box. The confirmation of the compliance or non-compliance and the explanation in case of non-compliance will be reflected in the submission report.

After clicking on the Save button you can upload the financial tender and, if required by the contracting authority in the tender specifications, the technical tender. You can upload more than one file as technical/financial tender. 

Once you consider the tender data correct and the submission complete, click on Next. The button will be active only if all mandatory data and documents have been provided.

At this stage, your draft tender, including all your documents, is not submitted yet .

Submission report

The submission report is generated by the system and is part of the submission. The report lists all the documents included in the submission. eSubmission automatically generates and adds the submission report to your submission. You can consult the report on the screen or download it for your own records (before submitting the tender). You don’t need to sign and upload the signed report in eSubmission.

After viewing the submission report, if you consider the submission complete and ready for submission, click on Next to continue.

The submission report is not a proof of submission. You have  not submitted yet . Please proceed to the next step and  click on Submit to finalise the submission.

Submit your tender

When you are ready to submit your tender, click on Submit . The system will display a confirmation message.

Click Yes if you want to confirm: you will no longer be able to modify this submission.

Please note that the system will not allow you to submit if the time limit for receipt of submissions has been reached. An e-mail notification will be sent to the e-mail address of the PCoCo/CoCo. This e-mail notification contains a link to the Funding & Tenders Portal where the PCoCo/CoCo can find the Submission Receipt. Note that the owners of the PIC used in the submission will be informed.

The Submission Receipt constitutes proof of compliance with the time limit for receipt of submissions.

Manage roles in Funding & Tenders Portal

The EU Login account linked to the email address to which the invitation has been sent receives the role Primary Coordinator Contact (PCoCo) for the invitation. Via the 'Manage Roles' button (see below) the PCoCo can add other persons from their organisation as Coordinator Contact(s) (CoCo) for the invitation.

The Contact Person indicated in the submission of the tender receives the PCoCo for the submission and the invitation for subsequent round(s). The user submitting the tender (if different from the Contact Person in the submission) receives the role Coordinator Contact (CoCo) for the submission and the invitation for subsequent round(s), unless the role has been removed by the PCoCo/another CoCo of the submission in the period between the opening of the tender by the contracting authority and the receipt of the invitation for subsequent round(s).

All of the actions described above (see My Invitations section) can be performed by the PCoCo or CoCos of the respective item (invitation or submission). Please note that there can be only one PCoCo per invitation or submission.

To add/remove roles on a submission follow the steps below:

  CoCo’s added as described above after the contracting authority has sent an invitation to the tenderer to submit a revised tender through the Portal will not be able to submit the revised tender. Only PCoCo/CoCos who have received the invitation or CoCos who have been added through the “Manage roles”  action button on the invitation will be able to submit a revised tender (see the guidelines for round 2 / subsequent round(s)).