Felix Release Notes

Stay up to date with the latest releases and features from Felix.

November 2023

22 November, 2023

Option to enforce a sign-off template at vendor invite

Available for: Vendor Management

In large organisations with decentralised users and divisions, clients often have multiple sign-off templates to route compliance questionnaire approvals upon submission. Historically, Felix has allowed the flexibility for users to assign sign-off templates after the invite phase, however for some clients this can slow down the approval process.

If the sign-off template is not selected at the invite stage, then subject matter experts are not notified that they have a task to action, which can lead to a blocker in the approval process.

We’ve now introduced an additional option per panel to enforce a user to select a sign-off template when inviting a vendor. The default option will be ‘off’ for panels and can be turned on per panel.

This will help organisations ensure that delays are minimised in the onboarding process where sign offs are well templatised and need tighter control.

Enforce a sign-off template per panel

November 1, 2023

AI-powered compliance document recognition

Available for: Vendor Management

As part of the onboarding process, vendors are required to upload compliance documents into Felix, and then manually enter information from those compliance documents into required fields.

This task was cumbersome and subject to human error, with mistakes meaning there's time and effort involved in having the correct information resubmitted.

We've implemented AI-technology in Felix to process the most commonly uploaded insurances, extract the relevant data, and pre-populate these details in Felix.

This results in:

Reduced duplication of effort: Vendors save time not having to re-enter information already supplied in an uploaded document.
Increased data accuracy: Pre-populated information reduces the risk of errors in compliance information entered in Felix, which leads to less back and forth with vendors to have information corrected and resubmitted.
Faster vendor onboarding: Reducing manual input of compliance information means vendor onboarding times are decreased.

See how it works:

Learn more in our Help articles:

October 2023

October 26, 2023

Vendors can clearly understand what's needed when asked for quote updates

Available for: Sourcing

When you allow a vendor to make changes to a submitted RFQ response, we’ve made some changes to allow them to clearly see what information needs to be resubmitted:

Optional note to vendor: Enterprise organisation users can now optionally add a note to the vendor giving guidance on what needs an update.
Improved email communications: Vendors receive an email informing them that updates can be made to one of their quotes. This email now allows enterprise organisations to include a message to the vendor to provide more context around what needs to be updated, and vendors can see this in the email before logging into Felix.
Visual indication to vendors: Vendors will now see an alert on their Response tab, including the optional note from the enterprise organisation user. This is intended to make it clearer that the vendor has an opportunity to update their quote when in the platform.

October 10, 2023

Enhancements to Addendum functionality

Available for: Sourcing

Previously, vendors were given a checkbox to find and check on the addendum page. This was often missed leading to organisations not knowing if RFQ recipients had seen important changes.

We’ve now made enhancements to the Addendum feature within Felix to improve responses and action from vendors:

Addendum specific email notification: Vendors now receive an addendum specific email from Felix when there’s an Addendum to review - this email links directly to the Addendum page in Felix to make viewing it easy. No longer is this email lumped with 'RFQ Communications' emails.
Action bar with acknowledgement/buttons: We’ve added buttons to the bottom of the Addendum page in Felix so that it’s clear the vendor needs to take action:
- Acknowledgement button: Vendors need to acknowledge that they have received an Addendum. So that this step isn’t missed, we’ve added a new Acknowledge button.
- Create RFI button: In the instance that vendors want to request more information, this button is now easy to find by being on the Addendum page.

For more information, refer to our Help Page that guides vendors how to send RFQ messages.

September 2023

September 26, 2023

Directly access evaluations performed on an RFQ, from the RFQ

Available for: Sourcing

You can now access evaluations from within an RFQ. This will allow you to easily make the connection between an RFQ and the evaluations that have been performed, as you will no longer need to exit the RFQ to access the evaluations listing.

When you have at least one quote in the RFQ, within the vendor tab go to Manage Evaluations to see a new dropdown that allows you to View Evaluations. This will take you to the evaluation assignments listing, pre-filtered for that RFQ.

View Evaluations within an RFQ

Further to this, when viewing all evaluations in the Evaluations Listing you will now notice that you can filter evaluations for a particular RFQ.

Filter evaluations for a specific RFQ

See our Help Centre for more information:

August 2023

August 29, 2023

Payment details: Validation of BSB number

Available for: Vendor Management

To improve the accuracy of information submitted for payment details, we are now validating BSB numbers for Australian and New Zealand vendors to ensure the right number of digits is entered with no special characters.

For our enterprise customers, this will assist with extracting accurate payment detail information through the in-app CSV reports or via the API.

We have also performed a clean-up of existing BSB numbers in Felix, removing any spaces or special characters that were incorrectly stored.

August 25, 2023

Usability improvements to Procurement Schedule: Title Column

Available for: Procurement Schedule

We've made some small improvements to the Title Column in Procurement Schedule to help usability:

Spacing: We've made some adjustments to allow for more room for headings
Positioning and size options: The Title Column is now locked into the most left position in the table, and can only be L or XL size, to provide more space for Package Group titles
Avoiding duplicates: We've removed 'Title Column' as an option when creating a new field so that it can't be duplicated.

August 24, 2023

RFx: Greater control over document organisation through Document Groups

Available for: Sourcing customers testing RFx (Alpha Release)

We’re currently in user testing for a feature that allows Sourcing customers to quickly create requests in Felix for the most common type of RFx events, where no approval workflows are required. We’ve named this RFx (Alpha Release).  

As we continue to add functionality to this feature, we’ve now added Documents Groups configuration to RFx templates so that you can provide tailored sets of document groups for different sourcing use cases. Document groups are a great way to remind users of the various documents that need to be included, and in what order. And on the vendor side, they have an ordered way to be presented documents to read through.

RFx templates can now be setup to present the default document groups from your organisation, a custom set of groups, or a single group for the simplest sourcing events.

When building your RFx event, you can also add and delete Document Groups (and their documents), so you can adjust from the template behaviour as needed for any unique cases.

Organise and categorise files by using Document Groups

August 15, 2023

Monitor Felix usage more effectively

Available for: account administrators

Keep track of active and inactive Felix users in the User Management CSV export. We've added a new Status column that details who are Active, Inactive, or Deleted so that you can manage your user base.

August 14, 2023

See what's next for Felix in our customer-facing roadmap

Available for: all enterprise users

Ever wondered what we’re working on to continually enhance and evolve Felix?

You can now learn about what’s next for Felix with the launch of our customer-facing roadmap.

We’re excited to bring this to you - where you will not only see what’s being worked on and what stage initiatives are at, but most importantly vote and provide feedback on ideas that we are exploring, and make your own suggestions as to what you would like to see in Felix.

Together, we can shape a better platform to support your vendor management and procurement processes, helping you derive even more value from Felix.

Access our customer-facing roadmap through Felix to see what's next, submit your own ideas and submit feedback

Make sure you check it out now! To learn how to access the roadmap, provide feedback and submit your own ideas, refer to our Help Page. We look forward to building an even better Felix with you!

July 2023

July 26, 2023

Enter contract date information later in the process for RFA and Awards

Available for: Sourcing

You can now postpone the entry of a contract start date and end date till you Award a vendor.

Previously, Felix required that you provide these dates at the Recommendation for Award (RFA) stage, however we have heard from you that this isn't always known at the time of an RFA.

Now, once you have an approved RFA, have finalised the contract, and are ready to complete the Award - you can then enter the contract start and end dates.

July 4, 2023

Clearly see expired or invalid vendor ABNs in your Vendor List

Available for: Vendor Management

When viewing your Vendor List, vendors operating with expired or invalid Australian Business Number (ABN) will be flagged as red in the Business Number column. Flagged vendors may need to update or re-apply for an ABN so that they remain compliant to operate as a business in Australia, which is critical information for you to know prior to engaging in business with them.

Vendors with expired or invalid ABNs are now flagged in the Vendor List

June 2023

June 14, 2023

Improved experience when connecting DMS integrations to projects

Available for: Sourcing

Sourcing customers who use InEight Document or Aconex can connect their DMS to Felix projects in the Integrations tab.

When doing this, we heard that clicking Test Connection before clicking Save was a confusing experience, so we improved this workflow. You can now simply click Connect to establish a connection.

Click Connect to establish a connection with your DMS, without the need to test the connection first

June 7, 2023

ABN verification reduces risk of incorrect details when onboarding

Available for: Vendor Management

We've introduced new technology that allows vendors to enter their Australian Business Number (ABN) to pull business details directly from the Australian Business Register (ABR) when onboarding in Felix.

This will reduce the risk of having manual errors and incorrect vendor details in Felix, as their business information (such as legal entity name, entity type and ABN status) will be correct as per ABR records.

Not only will it save vendors time as they aren't completing these details manually, it will also save you time having to review and check this information as business details will be accurately pulled from the ABR.

Vendors enter their ABN to have business details automatically pulled from the ABR

May 2023

May 26, 2023

Delete manually updated RFQ responses

Available for: Sourcing

If you have updated an RFQ response on behalf of a vendor, you can now delete this response if it’s no longer required. This means that responses can now be resumed and/or resubmitted if there was an error or the vendor’s circumstances have changed.  

Learn how to delete a response.

Delete manual RFQ responses if there is an error, if a vendor wants to quote themselves, or if circumstances have changed.

May 25, 2023

Have more visibility into the reasoning behind scores when comparing RFQ evaluations

Available for: Sourcing

We heard from users that more context was needed, in a more readily available and quickly digestible format, when comparing vendor RFQ evaluations.

Now, when reviewing responses to RFQ evaluations in the handy Compare Vendors table, you can easily drill down to see the reasoning behind scores that have been provided by evaluators, and where vendors stood out or fell down on a question-by-question basis..

You can expand the table to see more information, or view as a collapsed table for a quick summary.

When the table is expanded:

Icons indicate if there’s more information provided as comments or attachments, which you can click on to see more details.
The scoring scale for a question is shown, along with any custom definitions for that scale
- For example: This now means, that right there in the vendor side by side comparison, that a score of “20%” is explained as 1 out of a scale of 5, and that “1” means “no documentation provided” per your custom scale.

Learn how to view assigned and completed evaluations.

Expand the 'Compare Vendors' table to have more context when reviewing responses to RFQ evaluations

April 2023

April 20, 2023

Upload or revise files at the same time when sending an Addendum

Available for: Sourcing

When creating an Addendum, you’ve always been able to upload new files and update existing files at the same time, however this action wasn’t clear in Felix.

We’ve made enhancements to the Addendum screen (in the Communications tab) that spells out this process more clearly.

Clearly see where you can upload and revise files when creating an Addendum

April 11, 2023

Seamlessly import documents from InEight Document and Aconex into RFx feature

Available for: Sourcing customers testing RFx (Alpha release)

The InEight Document and Aconex integration that currently exists in our Sourcing module is now available in RFx (Alpha release) so that customers can test importing documents, drawings, photos and other project files directly into the request that they are creating for their RFx events.

To use this, the InEight Document or Aconex integration will need to be enabled for your project as per the current process for the Sourcing module.

Import files directly from InEight Document and Aconex into your RFx event request

Help us build a better experience in Felix
If you want to be part of our user research with our Product Team to help us test new and exciting features, sign up here.

March 2023

March 17, 2023

Sealed Bidding to help ensure probity in your sourcing process - now at the project level.

Available for: Sourcing

Sealed Bidding is the ability to keep RFQ responses hidden from stakeholders until the RFQ has closed.

You can already use Sealed Bidding for the whole organisation in Felix, but we understand that not all projects want to be governed that way, so flexibility at the project level was desired.

Sealed Bidding can now be configured per project. This means all responses for RFQs assigned to a configured project will remain confidential until the RFQ is closed, bringing you some of the probity controls your organisation and clients expect.

Turn on Sealed Bidding for your project.

Turn on Sealed Bidding in your project settings

March 9, 2023

Enhancements to Pricing Schedule

Available for: Sourcing

Automatic scrolling when adding adjustments: When adding adjustments in the Pricing Schedule comparison, you will be automatically taken to the new section that you've just added, saving you time instead of scrolling down to the bottom of the schedule. This is very handy for long schedules.
Page spacing improvements: We've added more spacing to the bottom of the Pricing Schedule, making it easier for you to interact with the last few rows on the schedule.

March 6, 2023

Avoid duplication of column names in Procurement Schedule

Available for: Procurement Schedule

Some of you may have noticed that if you named two columns to the same, then working out which one to show/hide in the hidden fields function was near impossible. Fields are now organised better in the show/hide list and we added functionality to stop duplicate column names.

An example of the functionality added to stop duplicate column names in Procurement Schedule

March 2, 2023

Improved context and navigation for your vendor RFQ interactions

Available for: Sourcing

On the interactions page for a vendor profile, for RFQ interactions, we have added the RFQ title (in addition to the RFQ number) for additional context and converted the text to a hyperlink for easier navigation to the RFQ in Felix.

March 1, 2023

Enhancements to the document title for InEight Document or Aconex files

Available for: Sourcing

If you're using the InEight Document or Aconex integration to import documents into your RFQ, we've updated the document title format to provide additional details. You and your vendors will not only see the document name, but also the document number, revision number and document status when importing and downloading the documents in Felix. This will help you ensure that the right documents are imported to Felix, while vendors will clearly understand which document revision they are using, reducing confusion and risk for incorrect updates.

Before:

Now:

More flexibility in building RFQ and RFA approval questionnaires

Available for: Sourcing

We know we have a lot to do in this space and see lots of requests for additional formatting in RFQ and RFA questionnaires.

For now, we have added a new function where you can add a section to questionnaires (for RFQ and RFA) with simply text. We allow rich text editing (fonts, bullets, numbered bullets) and the use of hyperlinks. Questionnaire users will not be required to respond to this section when using the form. This will help in cases that you want to provide more guidance to users or approvers, potentially including external reference information like procedures.

Reach out to your Customer Success Manager to discuss changes to your RFQ or RFA questionnaires.

February 2023

February 28, 2023

RFx feature now includes Quote Requirements

Available for: Sourcing customers testing RFx (Alpha release)

As we continue to add functionality to the new RFx feature, we have now added the ability to add Quote Requirements to RFx templates. This allows you to ask vendors standardised questions and get Yes, No or N/A responses. Unlike our existing RFQ feature, users can add, edit and delete questions themselves. We are considering application of the "Apply to" functionality you may use on the existing RFQ feature, however are taking some time to rethink and redesign this functionality to make it better.

Help us build a better experience in Felix
If you want to be part of our user research with our Product Team to help us test new and exciting features, sign up here.

February 27, 2023

Commencing the path to more keyboard accessibility for Pricing Schedule and Procurement Schedule

Available for: Sourcing (Pricing Schedule) and Procurement Schedule

We recently released some improvements to allow the use of Enter, Escape, Arrow and Tab keys to navigate and edit schedules in Felix. We still have a lot more to do in this space, but understand how important enhancements like this are to power users used to spreadsheet applications, plus those desiring more accessibility options in general.

January 2023

January 25, 2023

Better recognise what row you're working in

Available for: Procurement Schedule and Sourcing (Pricing Schedule)

When clicking on a cell in Procurement Schedule or in Pricing Schedule (Sourcing module), the whole row is now highlighted so you can keep track of what row you’re working in.  You will also notice rows are highlighted as you hover and moving your mouse cursor across the schedule.

An example of highlighted rows in Procurement Schedule

January 24, 2023

Keep track of RFQ responses by manually updating on behalf of a vendor

Available for: Sourcing

We’ve heard from you that understanding the latest quote coverage for your procurement packages is a key driver of success for your project procurement. Having this information in one place, and always up to date is important so that you can adjust the sourcing tactics as needed with your team.

However, bidders are all different in how they are setup to tender. They don't always get around to loading their response in Felix and therefore, would appreciate some flexibility in how they can respond to your needs.

We’ve now added functionality that allows you to update an RFQ response on behalf of a vendor.

You can upload attachments and comments for quotes received offline so that a vendor’s response is seen as Manually Quoted in Felix. You can do the same when a vendor declined the opportunity so that a vendor’s status appears as Manually Declined, so that you know not to follow up with that vendor.

The end result? You can now keep the whole team aligned in Felix with a single source of truth on quote coverage, even for offline responses.

Refer to the Help Guide for more details, including how you can also put a Manually Quoted vendor forward for a Recommendation for Award.

Manually respond to an RFQ on behalf of a vendor

January 17, 2023

Clearly observe row numbers in larger schedules

Available for: Procurement Schedule and Sourcing

For those Procurement Schedule and Pricing Schedule users with a keen eye, you may have noticed the row numbers were cut off when more than three characters long. We've now fixed that.

December 2022

December 12, 2022

Seamlessly import project files from InEight Document into Felix

Available for: Sourcing

Have confidence in knowing your vendors have the most up-to-date tender information by integrating Felix and InEight Document.

Felix’s direct integration with InEight Document allows you to seamlessly and securely import documents, drawings, photos and other project files that support your RFQ.

Felix checks InEight Document daily for any amendments made to documents attached to an RFQ. You can choose to sync these revisions to Felix and send to vendors, eliminating the need to manually update documents twice between the two platforms.

To learn more:

What is the InEight Document integration?
Connecting Felix and InEight Document
Importing from InEight Document
Checking for InEight Document updates
Releasing InEight Document revisions

Felix directly connects to InEight Document, allowing you to easily import files directly into your RFQ

Be notified of suspicious activity around vendor payment details

Available for: Vendor Management

It's rare that a vendor will update both their password and payment details within a short period of time - we would consider this suspicious activity. To help monitor this behaviour, we've introduced a notification to alert organisations of this unusual activity coming from vendors, so you can take any necessary follow-up action.

New notification that warns organisations of suspicious activity

November 2022

November 3, 2022

Easily change the validation of compliance documents

Available for: Vendor Management

Mistakes can happen, and human error means that sometimes compliance documents can be validated or declined by accident. Rather than having to reach out to the vendor to resubmit documentation, you can now update the validation of a compliance document yourself within Felix. Simply open the compliance document and click the pencil icon in the Outcome field to change the status to ‘validated’, ‘pending’ or ‘declined’.

Change the status of compliance documents in the Outcome field

October 2022

October 28, 2022

Easily read the value of compliance documents with new formatting

Available for: Vendor Management

When observing the value of compliance documents within a vendor profile, we've added currency formatting so that these monetary values can be more easily understood.

See new currency formatting under Value column

October 27, 2022

New fields added to the Contracts CSV Report

Available for: Contract Management

We heard that you often distribute the contracts CSV report to other stakeholders and have further details captured in Felix you'd like to surface. We have therefore added the Internal Notes and Scope of Work fields to the CSV export.

See fields for Internal Notes and Scope of Works added to the CSV report

October 14, 2022

Provide more assurance in delivering value from your contracts

Available for: Contract Management

You and your team put in a ton of work to draft and negotiate your contracts. Delivering on the value post-execution requires a timely focus on deliverables, notices and other tasks. We understand that missing even one action can sometimes have significant downside for your business.

We've added functionality to the Contract Management module that allows you to bring key dates to life, and connect reminders for your team to take action.

Make key dates more accessible and bring them to life out of the contract document

Don't miss critical dates or deadlines. Store and keep track of key dates in one summary view for your team and stakeholders to access quickly, without always having to start with searching the large contract document.

Existing key dates are carried across from the Summary tab, and you can add your own

Organise your team and reduce risk by setting reminders

Stay on top of important contract management deliverables and tasks by setting email reminders for team members.

You can set reminders on, before, or after a key date specified in the key dates view - or simply set one for a specific date. And you can assign to team members other than the Contract Owner.

Utilising reminders based off key dates in Felix starts to bring your static contract document "off the shelf" and to life for your team.

Set reminders for a specific date, or connect them to a Key Date

October 13, 2022

Do more in one place with Pricing Schedule

Available for: Sourcing

We've added more power to the Pricing Schedule, allowing you to keep even more of your end-to-end RFP process in one place.

Below is a summary of what's changed, however you can read the detailed information about the enhancements here.

With the Pricing Schedule, you can now:

Better organise and analyse pricing responses: Organise line-items into sections for easier review, with subtotals that provide an overview of pricing for each section.
Take the guess work out of line-item responses: Visual cues on each line-item make it easy to identify what has been included in the quote, excluded or not priced.
Normalise vendor pricing responses in Felix – including non-cost factors: Perform powerful quote normalisation directly in Felix and ensure you're comparing apples to apples.
Include offline responses in your analysis: Have Felix as your source-of-truth for all responses received all the information you need for comparison and analysis in one place.
Simplify what you see on screen in your Pricing Schedule comparisons: A new vendor filter allows you to choose which vendors you want to see, and to drill down for a more narrowed focus.

October 7, 2022

Easily add all documents to the Packages tab when creating an RFQ

Available for: Sourcing

To speed up the process of creating an RFQ, once you've uploaded all the documents into your RFQ (step 2) and proceed to the packages tab (step 3), these documents will be pre-selected as the default option to include as an attachment. This also ensures any important documents are not left off the RFQ.

If a document isn't needed, it's easy to deselect before continuing with the RFQ creation process.

Files uploaded into Documents are included as attachments in the RFQ

October 5, 2022

Help internal teams understand why a vendor was invited

Available for: Vendor Management

When inviting a vendor to Felix, you can now capture vendor invite justification, so that approvers can understand the reason why a vendor is being invited, helping organisations to better manage their vendor base.

You can now:

Select between a simple comment or a file upload: if your organisation requires paperwork justifying why a vendor is being invited to Felix, ensure all relevant information remains in one place by uploading files into your vendor invite, helping to improve internal efficiencies.
Make justification comments optional or required: decide whether justification comments are required for every invitation to ensure a standardised approach or make them optional to give your users more flexibility.
Attach vendor tags: attach vendor tags ahead of the vendor creation process in Felix so that approvers can see how the vendor being invited aligns with what’s important to your organisation and save time having to do this later down the track.

Add further justification so that vendors can understand why that vendor is being invited to Felix

Learn more about how to invite a new vendor or how to invite a marketplace vendor.

September 2022

September 15, 2022

Simplifying the RFQ response process for vendors

Available for: Vendors

We've made several enhancements to the way that vendors respond to RFQs in Felix, providing a more intuitive process for vendors, and ideally in turn, more RFQ responses for organisations.

Below is a summary of what's changed, however you can read the detailed information about the enhancements here.

What's changed for vendors?

An improved RFQ response experience: the Response tab (previously the Items/Packages tab) has been renamed and its contents re-organised to make it easier to find and fill out what’s needed to quote on an RFQ.
Confirmation of quote submission: as vendors would like more certainty of their quote submission, we’ve changed the experience to make this clearer, and added an optional email confirmation for your offline records.
Navigation that better mimics the RFQ response process: tabs have been re-ordered to better reflect the workflow that’s followed when responding to an RFQ.
Documents now only on the Documents tab: documents were cluttering the Response tab, so we’ve moved them on the Documents tab. But don’t worry, we will first direct you to this tab when you first open an RFQ.

What's changed for organisations?

While these changes have no direct impact on the format of information your organisation receives in response to an RFQ, we think it’s useful to know what has changed for your vendors, in case you get any comments or questions.

Two ways you can create column groups

Available for: Procurement Schedule

No need to scroll to the end of the Procurement Schedule to click the '+' button and add column groups. Simply click the '+' button located in your column group header to reveal another option that allows you to perform this action.

Look for the '+' button in the column group header to create a new column group

September 14, 2022

Make sense of zip file downloads with new naming

Available for: Sourcing

When pressing the Download All button to obtain documents that a vendor responded with in an RFQ, Felix generates a zip file. We’ve added the vendor into the name of the zip file, so that you can easily distinguish between the zip files if downloading all documents from multiple vendors.

For example:

Before: RFQ1234.zip

Now: RFQ1234_RED_EARTHWORKS_LTD.zip

September 13, 2022

Enter accurate contract values for better reporting

Available for: Contract Management

We understand many customers issue $0 contracts such as Frame Agreements and don't wish to complicate reporting with a forced $1 value. So we now allow $0 contract values in the contract repository.

September 9, 2022

Enhancements to drop down lists in Procurement Schedule

Available for: Procurement Schedule

When using drop-down field types in the Procurement Schedule, you told us that in some instances the drop-down lists weren’t showing all the options that you can choose from. For example, when searching for a package status or a package category. This behaviour was due to paginated options in the drop-downs.

We’ve made an improvement here to show all available options on click, so you don’t need to guess what options are available and can navigate the schedule a lot faster.