Quick guide for negotiated procedures - Round 2 /subsequent round(s)

(negotiated procedures and competitive procedure with negotiation without publication)

Go to the first round of the procedure for guidance on how to submit the initial tender.

Getting started

The present guidelines apply to any subsequent round(s) of the negotiated procedures and competitive procedures with negotiation without publication in which the contracting authority has asked you to submit a revised tender through eSubmission (note that the contracting authority may decide not to request you to revise your tender or to request that your revised tender is submitted outside eSubmission). For more information on the submission of initial tenders in negotiated procedures, see the section on the first round of negotiated procedures.

As an economic operator, you can:

• Encode your response to a procedure launched by an EU institution or body
• Submit in a secure manner
• View or resume a saved draft
• Delete a draft submission
• Receive proof of submission (Submission Receipt)
• Withdraw a submission before the time limit for receipt of submissions
• Receive proof of withdrawal (Withdrawal Receipt)

Make sure you read the System Requirements.

You can find them on the front page of the eSubmission application and in the attachments section on the Parties page.

How do I get technical help?

If you need help, you can contact our support team, from 08:00 until 20:00 CET/CEST.

    ec-funding-tender-service-desk@ec.europa.eu

  +32 (0) 229 71063

 The support team operates in English only.

If the contracting authority decides to invite you to submit a revised tender, you will receive:

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

The invitation email and notification  will be sent to:

• the email address of the Contact Person indicated in the last tender submission (Primary Coordinator Contact (PCoCo));

• the email addresses of all persons who have the role of Coordinator Contacts (CoCo) when the invitation is sent, i.e. they have received the CoCo role in one of the following ways and the role has not been removed via the “Manage roles” functionality in the meantime:
  • any Contact Person indicated in previous tender submissions but not the last one;
  • any contact whose EU Login account was used to submit the initial tender as well as any revised tender;
  • any contact added using ‘Manage roles’.

The notifications can be accessed through the area My notifications of the Funding & Tenders Portal.

View Invitation(s)

In the invitation email, you will receive a link which will take you to the My 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, F&T Portal will automatically create it for you.   See detailed explanation  here .

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

  The invitation to submit a revised tender for a subsequent round(s) will be a separate invitation under the My Invitation(s) section. It will not be part of the invitation sent for the initial round or a subsequent round(s) (if any) for the procedure. This invitation will have its own details and documents (if any) as well as a new submission link under the invitation Action menu. The documents of the previous invitations are not included in the new invitation - they can still be consulted in the previous invitations.

In the My Invitation(s) section you will be able to see the invitation details and documents.

 Click on the ' See details ' link 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.

My 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 Action menu 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 view 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 Action menu 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. 

To submit a revised tender for a subsequent round, the PCoCo/CoCo needs first to acknowledge the receipt of the invitation:

• Find the procedure in My Invitation(s) in the Funding & Tenders Portal.
• In the Action menu 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 My Invitation(s) and find the procedure.

• From the Action menu 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.

Parties

In this step only the  Contact Person section is editable .

The user starting the tender in eSubmission can indicate as Contact Person himself/herself (the name is already prefilled) or another person. If the latter 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.

The Contact Person receives the role PCoCo  in the Funding & Tenders Portal and the user submitting the tender (if different from the Contact Person) - the role CoCo . 

Click Next to move to the next step.

Tender data

In this section you need to enter the amount of your tender ( only in case of the lowest cost and the lowest price award method ; using 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 linked to the EU login account of Primary Coordinator Contact ( PCoCo ) and all the Coordinator Contact(s) ( CoCo ) that are indicated for that tender. This e-mail notification contains a link to the  Funding & Tenders Portal  where the Submission Receipt can be found. 

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

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 revised tender in eSubmission receives the role Primary Coordinator Contact (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:

1.	Under the Action dropdown on the right of the submission of the initial tender, click on the  Manage Roles option.
2.	Click on Edit Roles button.
3.	To add a new CoCo click on Add Roles button.
4.	To delete a CoCo, click on the delete icon next to their name.

  CoCo’s added as described above after the contracting authority has sent an invitation for a subsequent negotiation round will not be able to submit a tender in that round. 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 tender.

My notifications

The PCoCo/CoCo can access this page by clicking on the bell icon at the top right of the screen after having logged in to the Funding & Tenders Portal.

On this page the PCoCo/CoCo can find the following notifications:

• Invitation to submit a (revised) tender
• Reminder about the approaching submission deadline for a procedure
• Usage of the organisation's PIC for a submission
• Submission Receipt (proof of submission of a tender)
• Withdrawal Receipt (proof of withdrawal of a tender)
  
• Documents are updated for a procedure
• The restricted Q&A are published
• An announcement is published by the contracting authority
• Procedure details are updated (tender deadline, title, description, etc.)

In the Preferences tab under  Manage all notifications  (at the bottom of the notifications list) PCoCo/CoCo can choose the frequency of Funding & Tenders Portal email notifications. Independently of your choice all your notifications are always available in the section My notifications .

My Formal Notification(s) 

This section, in the navigation menu  on the left, is currently not used for procurement procedures.

  You can find the quick guide for negotiated procedures and other procurement procedures in all the EU official languages in our Quick guides eSubmission section.