What the Activity tab is
Every significant step in the life of a demand is recorded in date order on the Activity tab inside the demand. This is not a chat area; it is the demand's event log — the answer to who did what, and when, sits here. The log is read-only: new events are appended to it, and an existing entry can never be edited or deleted afterwards.
To reach the tab:
- Open My Demands from the left-hand menu.
- Open the demand you want to review.
- Switch to the Activity tab at the top. (The other tabs are Offers, Details, Messages and FAQ.)
What you see in the list
Events are grouped day by day, with the date shown at the head of each day. Each entry carries a short description of the event and how long ago it happened (for example 3 days ago). Where an action was taken by a company, that company's name appears inside the text; entries that concern the demand as a whole (for example Orders issued) carry no company name. For money-related events, the amount is highlighted separately beneath the entry.
The buttons above the list let you narrow the log: All, Offers, Award, Orders, Messages, Status. If the log is long, the list is shown eight entries at a time; to see the rest, simply press Show more.
If the log cannot be loaded for any reason, a Couldn't load. Please try again. warning appears together with a Retry button. This warning and an empty list are two different things: if you see the warning, the log is not empty — it simply could not be read at that moment.
The events that are recorded
The following event types are written to the log:
- Awarded to … — an offer accepted on a demand given to a single supplier
- … approved their slice — a supplier accepting their own slice on a split demand
- … declined their slice
- Declined line re-assigned: …
- Orders issued
- … confirmed the order
- … proposed an order change
- … rejected the order change
- Demand completed
Who can see what
In line with the sealed-bid principle, this log is filtered for each individual viewer:
- The buyer who opened the demand sees the log in full. The Activity tab is one of the tabs on the buyer's demand screen.
- A supplier is never given the log in full. A supplier can only reach entries relating to their own offer and their own order, plus entries showing the general status of the demand such as Demand completed; a competitor's offer, slice or order is never shown to them under any circumstances. The Orders issued entry does reach suppliers as well, but the number of separate orders issued is stripped out of the record — meaning a supplier cannot learn how many competitors won work. The entry showing that a declined line was re-assigned to another supplier is not shown to suppliers at all.
- Nobody who is not a party to the demand can access this log. On the supplier side, access depends on an order of their own having been created on that demand.
The list may be empty on a new demand
If no step worth recording has taken place yet, the tab reads No activity yet. This is not a fault. The log fills up on its own as the demand progresses — as offers are evaluated and work is awarded, and as orders are issued and confirmed. The same applies to the filters: on a demand that has not turned into an order, for example, the Orders filter will look empty.
Why it helps you in a dispute
In a trading relationship, most arguments revolve around questions such as "when did we agree to this", "who proposed the change" and "was the order confirmed". Correspondence is scattered and emails get lost; the Activity log, by contrast, sits on a single timeline and cannot be altered after the fact.
In a dispute, you can verify the following here:
- The date on which an offer was accepted, and which company the work was awarded to.
- When orders were issued, and when the other side confirmed the order.
- If an order change was proposed, who made it and when, and whether it was then accepted or rejected.
- On a split demand, which supplier approved their own slice and which one declined it.
For this reason, looking at the Activity tab before you start a conversation with a supplier lets you base the discussion on the record rather than on memory.