CPQ can generate prices — but real-world deals rarely go straight from automated pricing to order. Fallout locations, ICB requests, supplier negotiations, and internal approvals all create exceptions that force users out of the platform: into email threads, spreadsheets, and manual follow-ups that fragment the quote, introduce errors, and kill auditability.

Every time a quote breaks out of CPQ to handle an exception, you lose time, lose visibility, and risk losing the deal.

Connectbase Bid Management automates and governs the activities, communications, and approvals required to move quotes from automated pricing to final, orderable outcomes — by embedding supplier engagement, negotiation, and internal workflows directly into CPQ.

The result is a seamless, end-to-end quoting workflow where no exception forces you outside the platform. Every fallout location, ICB request, supplier negotiation, and approval lives where it belongs: inside The Connected World, attached to the quote, with a complete audit trail.

CBM supports both CPQ-to-CPQ flows (where suppliers are also on The Connected World) and CPQ-to-non-customer flows (where suppliers respond via a secure email link, with no Connectbase account required).

Connectbase Bid Management is organized around four capability areas that together cover the full lifecycle of a complex quote.

Connectbase Bid Management is not just a feature set — it is the difference between a quoting process that breaks on hard deals and one that handles them with the same consistency as straightforward ones.

To learn how to configure My Partners so your bidding workflow runs without friction, watch the Interactive Demo: My Partners Setup for CBM.

Before sending a Supplier Pricing Request, take time to review your My Partners configuration. The quality of your setup directly affects how smoothly the CBM workflow runs — the right suppliers, the right contacts, and the right preferred supplier designations mean less manual effort every time you initiate a bid.

There are three areas to focus on:

The most impactful setup step for CBM is designating a default bid contact for each supplier. When set, this contact is automatically pre-selected when you create a Supplier Pricing Request in CBM — no manual lookup required.

The Preferred Supplier designation can be set for any supplier in My Partners — whether connected through the ecosystem or manually added. When a supplier is marked as preferred, they will be surfaced as a suggested supplier for fallout locations in countries they serve, reducing the manual effort of identifying the right partner each time a Supplier Pricing Request is needed.

If the supplier you want to bid with is not yet in My Partners, you can add them directly from the My Partners screen. Complete the Add Supplier form in full so CBM can correctly match the supplier to relevant locations and configurations when you initiate a bid.

The following My Partners fields directly influence how suppliers are matched, suggested, and included in the CBM workflow. Review these for all suppliers — not just manually added ones.

The workflow detailed in this section is the Direct Supplier Engagement flow. Users with the Allow CBM entitlement can initiate a Supplier Pricing Request directly from CPQ Step 3, engaging suppliers without any internal routing or approvals required. The form they complete — the Supplier Pricing Request — is sent directly to the supplier.

From CPQ Step 3 Results:

Connectbase provides ready-to-use default email templates for all CBM notifications — bid requests, response confirmations, and follow-ups. Administrators can customize these templates to reflect your company’s voice, include legal disclaimers, or add any context that helps suppliers respond accurately and quickly.

Once a Supplier Pricing Request has been sent, all CBM activity is managed from the Requests tab within WIP (Work in Progress). The previous Bid Manager left-hand menu item has been retired — WIP Requests is now the single location for viewing and managing all outstanding CBM requests.

Each request in the WIP Requests tab displays the following fields:

Click the info icon at the request level to view additional details about the request, including any notes provided by the requester. The following fields are shown:

Click the expand arrow on any request row to view all individual requirements. Requirements are grouped by supplier and sorted A to Z by supplier name by default. Each requirement row shows:

Click the info icon at the requirement level to view additional details about that specific requirement, including notes exchanged with the supplier. Not all fields are required to be provided by the supplier. The following fields are shown:

Once a Supplier Pricing Request is sent, the supplier receives an email with a secure link to the Supplier Response Portal. Suppliers do not need a Connectbase account to respond — the portal is fully accessible through the link in the email, keeping the process low-friction for any supplier regardless of whether they are on the platform.

Suppliers receive an email with a secure link to the Supplier Response Portal. From the portal, the supplier can submit pricing for each requirement listed in their request, including MRC, NRC, Currency, Disposition, and any additional details.

When a supplier submits pricing, their response maps back into two places:

The WIP Requests tab gives you real-time visibility into all outstanding supplier requests. Several features are available to help you quickly identify what needs attention without manually scanning every row.

Summary Filters

At the top of the Requests tab, summary counters give you an at-a-glance view of where your requests stand. Click any counter to filter the list to those requests instantly. Clicking the same filter again clears it.

Filter	What It Shows
My Requests	Total requests where you are the assignee and status is not CBM – Complete
My Requests > 30 Days	Your open requests where age exceeds 30 days — helping you prioritize requests that may be stalling
Waiting for Supplier	Requests that have one or more requirements with a status of Waiting for Supplier
Pricing Received	Requests where one or more requirements have a status of Pricing Received and are ready for your review

*WIP Requests tab — My Requests, Waiting for Supplier, and Pricing Received summary filters

When a supplier submits pricing, the requirement status moves to Pricing Received. You review the pricing in the WIP Requests tab, accept or reject it, and — if accepted — the supplier’s costs flow automatically into your CPQ quote. No rekeying. You then apply margin and continue through the standard quote workflow.

If the supplier’s pricing does not meet your requirements or falls outside acceptable parameters:

After rejecting, you can initiate a new Supplier Pricing Request to the same supplier or send a request to an alternative supplier. You can also return to standard CPQ pricing options for those requirements.

With pricing accepted and margin applied, continue through the CPQ workflow as normal:

All CBM activity — requests sent, responses received, pricing accepted, and comments exchanged — remains archived in the WIP Requests tab and the Audit Log for future reference.

If a supplier bids selectively (for example, only on certain requirements or only certain term lengths), you can accept only the lines that work for your quote and reject the rest. Lines you do not accept remain in the quote as unpriced requirements, which you can address by:

For assistance with CBM or any part of the Direct Supplier Engagement workflow:

CBM does not replace the standard CPQ quote flow — it extends it. When bid management is needed, CBM is conditionally invoked at CPQ Step 3, runs its own lifecycle of requests and supplier responses, and then hands control back to CPQ once all requirements are resolved. The quote never loses continuity, and nothing can advance to final stages until CBM is complete.

This section explains the end-to-end flow, the three tiers of status that govern it, and what each status means for your quote, your requests, and your individual pricing requirements.

The CBM workflow operates across three distinct levels. Each level has its own set of statuses that track progress independently, but they are interconnected — requirement-level outcomes roll up to drive request-level completion, which in turn gates quote-level advancement.

Every quote — whether it uses CBM or not — begins with the same five steps. CBM is not mandatory; it is only invoked when the quoting process surfaces a need for direct supplier pricing.

When bid management is required, the CPQ user initiates CBM from CPQ Step 3 and creates one or more Supplier Pricing Requests. This triggers the CBM request-level lifecycle.

Once a Supplier Pricing Request is sent, each individual requirement within that request moves through its own requirement-level lifecycle. These statuses track precisely where each line item stands with the supplier.