How to Send RFQ Emails Faster – RFQ Email Automation – DLA/DIBBS

Overview

Learn how to send RFQ emails and solicitations to suppliers directly from the Loocey Bidding Board. This step-by-step tutorial walks through Loocey’s RFQ email process, from selecting suppliers and connecting your email account to choosing email templates and sending RFQ requests.

You’ll also see how to manage supplier quoting settings, monitor the email sending queue, refresh and manually update RFQ statuses, and find a specific solicitation by its request ID.

Step by step

The walkthrough covered in the video, written out so you can follow along inside Loocey.

1. Open your Bidding Board and select one or more RFQs you want to send to suppliers. Click the three-dots menu and select Bulk Email Sender.
2. The Bulk Email Sender lists the RFQs you selected and the suppliers who will receive the emails. Suppliers are selected by default based on the information in Loocey, and checked suppliers show the email address that will be used.
3. A supplier is unchecked for one of two reasons: it has no email address in Loocey, or its quoting status is set to a No option.
4. Quoting is set to Yes by default. For suppliers you don’t want to contact, for example because their prices are consistently too high, find them in the Suppliers list and change Quoting to a No option such as Skip or Too High. They will no longer be selected by default, even if they have an email address.
5. To connect an email account, open the email account drop-down and select Connect New Email. Loocey supports Microsoft Outlook and Google Gmail.
6. For Outlook, select Microsoft and click Connect. If you use an ad blocker, you may need to disable it so the authorization window can open. If you see a message that the Loocey application is pending approval or verification, follow the prompts and accept the requested permissions.
7. For Gmail, select Google and click Connect. If Google shows a temporary security warning, click Advanced, then continue to Loocey. Sign in to the Google account you want to connect and authorize the connection.
8. When you see the confirmation that your email account was connected, close the window and click the refresh icon next to the email account drop-down. Your new account appears in the list.
9. Administrators can connect emails in the Admin Panel and share them with users across the organization, which is useful for a shared RFQ mailbox. Individual users can connect their own email under Profile & Preferences, Connectors, and those connections are only available to that user.
10. A working connection shows as Connected, and a problem shows in red. If sending fails, click Refresh Token, and if the issue continues, click Reconnect. Use Delete to remove an account and Make Default to set your default account.
11. Back in the Bulk Email Sender, only checked suppliers will receive an email, so uncheck any supplier you don’t want to contact. To add more recipients, type an email address in the recipient field and press Enter.
12. You can also add CC recipients. The same CC recipients are added to every email, which makes it easy to keep someone on your team in the loop.
13. Each supplier receives a separate email, so you can change the subject line or content for one supplier without affecting the others.
14. Choose an email template from the template drop-down. The default template is filled in with the supplier and RFQ information. Click Edit to change the text or tags and click Save, or click Duplicate to copy a template.
15. Click Send. The confirmation shows how many emails are about to be sent. Change Solicitation Status After Sending is on by default and sets the status on your Bidding Board to Quote Request Sent. Turn it off or choose a different status if needed, then confirm.
16. Click the queue icon to open the pending jobs queue and see how many emails have been sent and how many remain. Click the refresh icon as emails finish to update their statuses, and again when the whole queue is done.
17. To update statuses manually, uncheck and recheck a row to open the action menu, then select Bulk Edit.
18. To find a specific solicitation, copy its request ID from the email subject line in your Sent folder. In Loocey, search for it in the Quote ID column: click Remove All, then turn on the Only ID toggle so Loocey searches only that column.
19. To set your From Name and Email Signature, click the profile menu in the upper right, select Profile & Preferences and open Email Settings. Your signature is added to every email you send through Loocey. If you leave the From Name blank, Loocey uses the name on your connected email account.

Where this fits

This tutorial covers the Suppliers & RFQ Emails part of Loocey DLA. Manage manufacturers and distributors and automate your quote-request process.

• Loocey DLA Getting Started guide — account setup and the full bidding workflow
• Saved-search recipes — the exact column, condition and value for 20 common DLA searches
• DLA / DIBBS glossary — what every field on a solicitation means
• All Loocey DLA video tutorials