.Original publication date: October, 2003
Softshare recently added a new restrict not statement to the NotSole global exclusion:
approved<>source and not company<2>would<2>become<1>
approved<>source
This new statement is intended to filter out bid opportunities that request that the bidder be an 'approved source,' since these types of opportunities are generally not well suited for smaller businesses. However, notice that the statement is flexible enough to not filter out the mention of 'approved source' if it is within the context of 'if your company would like to become an approved source,…'.
What is a global exclusion? A global exclusion is a series of restrict not statements designed to filter out certain types of bid opportunities—namely opportunities where specifications and drawings are not available (filtered out by NotSpecs exclusion) or where there is a sole source bidder (filtered out by the NotSole exclusion).
Most centers take advantage of these global exclusions by allowing Softshare to create a Global file that contains the exclusions relevant to your client base. Subsequently, when a global file is present, every profile that references the Global file adheres to these exclusions.
In your center's profiles, the reference to the Global file displays in the following format: source ~####/Global, where #### is your center's Softshare account number. The command “source” is used because the act of incorporating the Global file into one of your client profiles is called sourcing.
To see the amount of work that goes into a global exclusion statement, check out the inner workings of the NotSole exclusion.