Surrogate Bidding page

You can place bids on behalf of bidders on the Surrogate Bidding page. Surrogate bids can be placed before and after the event is published. You can place surrogate bids online using Sourcing Optimizer, or offline using downloaded templates.

If the file you are downloading exceeds Excel row limitations — approximately 1,000,000 rows — it is automatically converted to a comma-separated values (CSV) file. If you open a CSV file that exceeds Excel limitations in Excel, the data beyond the limits will not display. Use a different program to open the file. In addition to Excel files, you can also upload CSV files.

By default, surrogate bids are subject to the same validation standards that bidder-submitted bids are. This enables you to accurately test the bidder flow for potential errors and submit bid sheets on behalf of bidders knowing that relevant issues will be flagged. However, if required, you can bypass bid validation for surrogate bids.

Bid validation checks partial bids, bid increases, zero bids, bid change limits, bid decrements, bid withdrawals, minimum bid values, and maximum bid values.

Surrogate Bidding page
Figure 1. Surrogate Bidding page
  1. Bidders overview: This area lists the bidding organizations for the event. You can place surrogate bids online from this area. You can also place surrogate bids offline for individual bidders from this area. To search bidders, use the Enter search term field.
  2. Upload area: In this area you can download an Excel file containing the latest bidder data from all bidders, upload an Excel file containing the surrogate bids, and view the upload history.
  3. Bid validation: Enable or disable bid validation for surrogate bids. Bid validation is enabled by default; it ensures that bids you submit on behalf of bidders are validated as if they were submitted by the bidders themselves. Set the Bid validation toggle switch to OFF to bypass validation.
  4. Starting bids feedback: Enable or disable starting bids feedback for bidders. Starting bids feedback is disabled by default. Set the Starting bids feedback toggle switch to ON to allow bidders to see feedback on bid data entered before the event is published.