This article shows you how to invite suppliers to a sourcing event in the Strategic Sourcing module: adding supplier companies and contacts, setting a primary contact, previewing and sending the invitation email, sending reminders, removing suppliers, and inviting suppliers for later rounds. An invitation is a personal, single-use access link that each supplier contact receives by email when the sourcing event is published.
Where do I add suppliers to a sourcing event?
Suppliers are added in the Suppliers step (step 6, "Build Invitation List") of the event creation wizard. The step has a Discover suppliers tab, where you browse and search your supplier base, and a Selected tab showing the companies currently on the invitation list with a count. The supplier grid shows Supplier Name, Industry, Location, Company Size (Small Business, Mid-size, Large Enterprise), Primary Contact, and the number of contacts. At least one supplier must be selected before you can publish the sourcing event.
How do I add companies and contacts?
To build the invitation list with companies and their contacts:
On the Discover suppliers tab, tick the checkbox of each supplier company you want to invite. The selection counter updates ("N selected").
For any company without contacts, select Add contact (or Manage contacts to edit existing ones). The grid warns with "No primary contact set" and "Contact required" where action is needed.
In the Add New Contact dialog, fill in First name, Last name, Email (name and email are required), and optionally Phone and Job Title.
Toggle Set as primary contact if this person should be the main recipient. The primary contact is used for login authentication, and setting a new one replaces the current primary contact.
Select Add Contact. Repeat for every contact who should receive the invitation. When the sourcing event is published, every contact of every selected company receives their own invitation email and personal link.
What does the invitation email contain?
The invitation email is sent automatically when the sourcing event is published (or at the scheduled publish time). Before publishing, you can review it with Preview Invitation in the Suppliers step. Each contact receives an email with the subject "You have been invited to respond to" followed by the event title in quotes. The email greets the contact by name, states the invitation, and contains a button plus a plain copy of the same link that opens the contact's personal invitation URL (an address ending in /invite/ followed by a unique token). The invitation link is single-use per contact, valid for 30 days from when it was created, and rate-limited against brute-force attempts. Opening the link starts a one-time password verification; no permanent password is created.
How do I send a reminder?
Reminders re-send the invitation to contacts who have not responded. To send one:
Open the sourcing event and go to Supplier Responses (the Supplier Status list).
Find the supplier and select Send Reminder from the row actions (also available as a quick action on the event Overview).
You see the confirmation "Reminder email sent successfully". The reminder email has the subject "Reminder: You have been invited to respond to" plus the event title and contains the same personal invitation link; if no valid invitation exists for the contact, a fresh one (valid 30 days) is created automatically.
Reminders are rate-limited to one per supplier contact per hour for the same sourcing event. If you retry sooner you see "A reminder was already sent recently. Please try again later.". You can also copy the invite link to your clipboard from the same menu and share it through your own channel.
How do I remove a supplier or revoke access?
Removing a supplier takes the company off the sourcing event. In Supplier Responses, open the row actions for the supplier and select Remove; in the wizard's Suppliers step you can also untick the company or use Clear selection while the event is still a draft. A removed supplier no longer appears in the participant list and loses the event in their portal. Separately, an individual invitation link can be Revoked; a supplier who opens a revoked link sees "This invite has been revoked. Please contact the buyer for a new invite." Sending that contact a new reminder is the fastest way to restore access with a fresh link. Expired links behave the same way, with an "invite has expired" message instead.
Can I invite suppliers after publishing or for later rounds?
Yes, supplier management stays available after the sourcing event is published. Open the event and choose Edit (or Manage Suppliers in the builder) to add supplier companies and contacts to a live event; newly added contacts receive their invitation emails for the current round. In a multi-round event, invitations are issued per round: when you use Advance Round, you select which suppliers advance, set the new submission deadline, and the advancing suppliers receive fresh invitation emails for the next round. Contacts holding a link from a previous round see an "Invite Link Outdated" notice with a Resend Email button that sends them their current-round link.