Introduction

The Advanced Job Offers is a new XTRF solution - an integration with an external Job Offers app that will help you automate the vendor selection process. Within this app, you can create your own strategies for selecting the best vendor and implement them, so they require no or minimum of your attention.

The Job Offers app is integrated with the XTRF Platform. It sources data from XTRF and triggers new job prospects on the Home Portal. It also uses the XTRF Chat engine for smooth communication with vendors and managers. The Job Offers app can be configured by the Admin user through the Chat Admin workspace panel or by the workspace Managers through a direct link.

The Advanced Job Offers solution works for both Classic and Smart Projects but requires XTRF Chat to operate properly.

Glossary

Within the Advanced Job Offers concept, several new terms are introduced:

Job Prospecting → the process of finding a vendor for a job that involves sending offers to vendors, collecting their responses, and recommending the best vendor offer.
Cascade → a single step of the job prospecting process, defined by several criteria such as vendor filtering and sorting criteria, the maximum number of vendors, negotiation strategy, time delay, etc.
Job Prospecting Strategy → a definition (template) of how the job prospecting should be prepared and executed for one or multiple cascades. It determines the filtering and sorting criteria and, therefore, the vendors that should receive job offers first.
Contract Proposal → the result of successful contract negotiation (with agreed scope, deadline, and fee to be paid to the vendor).
Contract Proposal Ranking Strategy → a set of criteria defining how the contract proposals collected in a specific cascade should be compared and ranked.

How does the Advanced Job Offers solution work?

The Advanced Job Offers is an instrument that needs to be set up once and then works without much effort or attention from your side. To get the most out of it, you need to set up several job prospecting strategies for the jobs you have on the Home Portal. Those strategies will define to which vendors and in what order the app will send the job offers. To learn how to add job prospecting strategies, see the Set up a Job Prospecting Strategy for Advanced Job Offers guide.

Each job prospecting strategy consists of a sequence of steps called the Cascades. According to each cascade, the app creates a pool of vendors to whom the job offers will be sent. If a vendor is found during the first cascade, the next ones will not be triggered. Therefore, you should prioritize your cascades from the optimal to the acceptable one, for example:

Select from the preferred group of vendors - the optimal one.
Select from a wider pool of potential vendors that fit certain criteria - the good one.
Select from the vendors that fit only a few criteria - the acceptable one.

There is no limit on the number of cascades and their order. The only limitation is the overall Prospecting Expiry Time pre-defined in the General Settings card of the job prospecting strategy.

IMPORTANT!

To be selectable for the Advanced Job Offers prospecting, the vendors must have assigned in the XTRF price profile:

the proper language pair
the right job type and specialization
a default contact person.

How to use the Advanced Job Offers solution?

I. Send advanced job offers to potential vendors

Once you set a Job prospecting strategy, you can use it to find the best vendor for the job. This process can be triggered in the XTRF Home Portal either manually by the project manager or automatically through the properly adjusted process templates or workflow definitions. For details, see the Send advanced job offers manually and Automate sending job offers guides.

II. Verify the Job Prospecting details (for manual offer sending)

If you have selected the manual offer sending, the Job Offers app doesn’t yet reach out to vendors after you click the Send Advanced Job Offers button. Instead, it transfers you to the Job Prospecting Wizard, where the app takes the pre-defined strategy, fills it out with the details from the job, and adds the profiles of the potential vendors that match the pre-defined criteria.

This step allows you to verify the current Job Prospecting conditions before any external parties are notified.

Job Prospecting Wizard

Job Prospecting Wizard consists of three steps:

Set Up Job Prospecting. Check the job details, select the Job Prospecting Strategy and Vendor Assignment rules, and click the Continue button.

Preview Vendors List. Here you can see how many vendors fit the criteria of each cascade. You can narrow down the requirements if the list is too big or loosen them if too few vendors fit. Also, here you can check the negotiation strategies and contract proposal ranking. If you decide to switch to another job prospecting strategy, click the Back button and select another strategy in the previous step.
In the Expiry time card, you can check and change the prospecting expiry time, i.e., decide when the job offers sent in the next step will no longer be active.
If everything is correct, click the Send Job Offers button.

Send Job Offers. In this step, you actually send the advanced job offers out.

After the first cascade of job offers is sent, the Show Job Prospecting Status button appears. Click it to open the Job Prospecting page, where you can check the vendors’ responses or cancel the prospecting (see the Monitor your Job Prospects and Cancel the Job Prospecting sections below).

After you start the prospecting manually or automatically, the job status on the Home Portal switches to Offers Sent.

III. Collect vendor responses (automated)

Once you send job offers to vendors, collecting responses is handled entirely by the Job Offers app.

Vendors can receive job offers in the XTRF Chat and on the Vendor Portal.

Via XTRF Chat

The Job Offers app is an integral part of the XTRF Chat:

The list of active job offers exists as a separate, extendable tab in the XTRF Chat main window.
Each job offer gets a separate chat room.
Past job offers chat rooms are removed from the Ongoing tab.
The vendor receives a chat message every time a job offer is presented
Job offer negotiations are handled in chat rooms as well.

When the vendor receives a job offer via XTRF Chat, they can choose one of the four options.

Accept. If the vendor accepts the offer, the Job Offers app saves it as a Contract Proposal from the vendor.
Reject.
Open Job in Vendor Portal. The vendor will be directed to the Vendor Portal, where they can see further job details and accept or reject the offer.
Negotiate (available if negotiations are enabled). It allows the vendor to propose different deadlines and fees in further messages.

At the end of this step, the Job Offers app saves vendor responses as Contract Proposals with different terms.

Via Vendor Portal

The advanced job offers are displayed along with regular offers in the Job Offers module.

After opening the job offer, the vendor can accept or reject the offer on the Vendor Portal or negotiate it in XTRF Chat. After clicking the Negotiate button, the vendor will be directed to the XTRF Chat, where the negotiations will be performed as pictured above.

IV. Compare contract proposals

If no contract proposal has been collected in the current cascade, the next cascade starts after the time scheduled in the Job Prospecting Strategy.

After all cascades are concluded (or if the manager cuts the process earlier), the Job Prospecting is over. Now it’s time to compare contract proposals.

The Job Offers app ensures that:

All sent job offers are invalidated.
Vendors who haven’t responded are informed about the invalidation of the Job Offers via chat message.
Collected contract proposals are automatically compared and ranked for each cascade based on the Contract Proposal Ranking Strategy selected for each cascade.
The project manager is informed about the result of the job prospecting.

For example, if the app collected no contract proposal in Cascade 1, but some contract proposals were collected in Cascade 2 and Cascade 3, then the best contract proposal from Cascade 2 is considered the best contract proposal of the whole job prospecting.

V. Pick a vendor

When the comparing and ranking process is finished, the manager is notified about the results in XTRF Chat and can click the link to the Job Prospecting status page to view the full statistics. The system recommends the best fit for the job based on the deadline, fee, and response time.

If the job prospecting strategy had been pre-configured to assign the recommended vendor automatically, the Job Offers app would request the vendor selection from XTRF TMS. For negotiated offers, the Job Deadline and Total Cost in XTRF will be updated accordingly. Otherwise, the manager can manually select the vendor by clicking the Select Vendor now button and then the Assign Vendor button next to the most suitable offer.

The Assign Vendor button is marked red next to the vendors with the best offer.
After selecting the vendor, their name appears in the top right-hand corner.
You can change the selected vendor by clicking the Reassign Vendor button next to another vendor.

Monitor your Job Prospects

To keep abreast of the job prospecting processes, use the Job Prospecting Dashboard. This interface shows all of your job prospects with their statuses. Use the filters on top of the list to locate the job prospects with a given status or specific jobs. To learn how to access the Job Prospecting Dashboard, see the Access the Job Prospecting Dashboard guide.

Cancel the Job Prospecting

At any stage, the project manager can cancel the whole process in the Job Prospecting Dashboard.

To do so, click on a Job Prospect on the browsing list to enter the status page, and then click on Cancel Prospecting.

As a result:

All job offers sent from all cascades are closed (invalidated).
The project manager and vendors are informed about the cancellation via chat message.
In XTRF TMS, the job status is reverted to Open.

1 Introduction
2 Glossary
3 How does the Advanced Job Offers solution work?
4 How to use the Advanced Job Offers solution?