Overview

When an organisation applies NDA Gated Access to a project in Felix, every vendor invited to an RFQ on that project sees an NDA acknowledgement page instead of the RFQ, until someone at the vendor company electronically acknowledges the NDA. This article covers the vendor-side and guest-side experience of that acknowledgement page. For the organisation-side setup, see How to Set Up and Manage NDA Gated Access on a Sourcing Project

The acknowledgement is an electronic acceptance captured inside Felix, and it creates a legally binding record for the whole vendor company: the person who acknowledges the NDA should be someone authorised to sign on behalf of the business.

 

Prerequisites & Permissions

• No additional permission is required: Both registered vendor users and guests invited by single-use link can acknowledge the NDA. Felix deliberately allows guests to acknowledge the NDA so access to the RFQ is not delayed when a guest user is invited to the RFQ by an Organisation.
• One acknowledgement covers the whole vendor company: Once one person at the vendor company acknowledges the NDA, every User on the vendor account reaches the RFQ directly without seeing the acknowledgement page again.
• The acknowledgement covers the whole project, not one RFQ: Acknowledging the NDA unlocks every gated RFQ on that project for the vendor company.
  • Each Project requires its own NDA when the feature is enabled. A single NDA does not cover all Projects with an Organisation.
• A custom NDA request also applies to the whole vendor company. If anyone at the vendor company clicks Request custom NDA, every colleague and guest at that vendor company is blocked from the project's RFQs until the client Organisation resolves the request.
• Signer details are mandatory: a full name, job title, and company name.

 

NOTE: The organisation name shown on the NDA acknowledgement page is the client organisation that issued the RFQ, or the project name, if the client organisation has custom project branding. A client organisation can also switch the NDA requirement off for one specific RFQ while leaving it on for the rest of the project, so a vendor invited to two RFQs on the same project may reach one directly and still meet the acknowledgement page on the other.

Step 1: Read the NDA

1. Open the RFQ from the invitation email. If the project is NDA gated and nobody at the vendor company has acknowledged the NDA yet, the NDA acknowledgement page opens instead of the RFQ. Registered vendor users see the standard vendor navigation menu; guests arriving via a single-use link see the guest navigation menu.
2. Read the NDA in the embedded PDF viewer on the page.
3. To read the NDA outside the browser, or send it to a colleague or legal adviser for review, click Download agreement.

 

Step 2: Confirm Signer Details

1. In the Confirm your details section, complete all three fields: Full name (minimum 5 characters), Job title (minimum 2 characters), Company (minimum 3 characters).
2. Each field is validated when focus leaves the field. A value below the minimum length shows an inline error that clears once the minimum is met. Leading and trailing spaces are trimmed from all three values.

 

 

Acknowledging the Statements and Unlocking the RFQ

1. Under Acknowledge each statement, tick every acknowledgement checkbox.
2. The Agree and proceed button stays disabled until every statement is ticked and all three signer detail fields pass validation.
3. Click Agree and proceed. The button shows a loading state while Felix generates the acknowledgement certificate.
4. On success, Felix opens the RFQ brief directly, now unlocked for every colleague and guest at the vendor company. If the request fails, the button re-enables and an inline error appears. Retry the acknowledgement.

 

NOTE: Felix records the signer's name, job title, company, email, IP address, browser user agent, and the exact acknowledgement date and time, together with the specific NDA document displayed. This record is created even if the confirmation email or certificate generation subsequently fails.

 

Retrieving the Acknowledgement Certificate

1. After a successful acknowledgement, Felix emails the User who acknowledged the NDA a confirmation message with two attachments: the original NDA PDF and a stamped acknowledgement certificate PDF. The email subject identifies the relevant project.
2. The certificate records the acknowledgement reference, signer's name, job title, company and email, the original NDA filename together with a cryptographic hash of that file, every acknowledgement statement marked as accepted, and the acknowledgement timestamp, IP address, and browser user agent. For a logged-in vendor user, the certificate also records the supplier company name and supplier identifier; both fields are omitted for a guest.
3. To retrieve the NDA and certificate later from inside Felix, open the gated RFQ and select the Documents tab. An information banner reads “Your company has agreed to an NDA for this project”, with inline Download NDA and Download acknowledgement links and the exact agreement date and time shown alongside them.

 

NOTE: The Download NDA and Download acknowledgement links appear only while NDA gating is active for the project and only after someone at the vendor company has acknowledged in Felix. A vendor company authorised by the organisation against an offline NDA has no in-platform certificate, so no Download acknowledgement link appears.

 

Requesting a Custom NDA Instead of Accepting

Use Request custom NDA when the vendor company cannot accept the NDA as written and needs to negotiate different terms with the client organisation directly.

1. On the NDA acknowledgement page, click Request custom NDA. A confirmation modal opens, naming the RFQ owner at the client organisation (first name, last name, email) and warning that every user and guest at the vendor company will be blocked from the project's RFQs until the matter is resolved outside Felix.
2. To abandon the request, click Back, the modal's close icon, or outside the modal: nothing is recorded.
3. To proceed, click Request custom NDA in the confirmation modal. Felix records the request, emails the RFQ owner, and redirects to the Access is on hold page.
4. The Access is on hold page names the requester: for a registered vendor user, their first and last name; for a guest, Guest user ({email address}). Registered vendor users see a primary button returning to the RFQ list; guests have no primary button and can simply close the tab.
5. Every other User and Guest on the Vendor account who opens any gated RFQ on that project now also reaches the Access is on hold page, showing the same requester's name, until the client organisation resolves the matter.

 

The Request custom NDA confirmation modal	The Access is on hold page in both the vendor user variant (with Return to my RFQ list button)

 

 

Reverse a Custom NDA Request

Use Revert custom NDA request if you change your mind and decide to accept the NDA as written.

1. On the Access is on hold page, click Revert custom NDA request. Felix returns to the NDA acknowledgement page, where the form can be completed normally.
2. Completing the form and clicking Agree and proceed unlocks the RFQ and clears the block for the vendor company. Until Agree and proceed completes successfully, the Vendor account's NDA status for that project remains a custom NDA request: clicking Revert custom NDA request alone does not restore access.
3. Clicking Request custom NDA again reopens the Step 5 confirmation modal. Confirming a second time emails the RFQ owner again, redirects to Access is on hold, updates that page to name the most recent requester, and updates the organisation's NDA agreements report with the new requester's details and timestamp.

 

Forwarding the NDA to Someone Else

Use Forward on when the right person to accept the NDA is a colleague, manager, or external adviser rather than the current recipient. A forwarded recipient can be an existing vendor user on the account, or an entirely new person who becomes a guest on the account.

1. On the NDA acknowledgement page, click the Forward on text link. The forward modal opens.
2. Enter up to five email addresses. The field prevents adding more than five.
3. Two kinds of inline feedback can appear: a warning alert when an entered email's domain does not match any existing non-deleted vendor user on the account (informational: the forward can still be submitted), and a danger alert when an entered address is not a valid email format (blocks submission until corrected).
4. Click Forward NDA. On success, a success toast appears and the modal closes; the NDA acknowledgement page remains open. If the request fails, an error message reads There was a problem with this request. Please try again or contact support if problems persist.
5. Felix then sends: an email to each forwarded recipient asking them to action the NDA (an existing vendor user gets a login link; a new guest gets a single-use token link, both routed via a View NDA link to the NDA acknowledgement page); a confirmation email to the person who forwarded the NDA; and, only if the forward added at least one new guest, a notification email to vendor users on the account who hold the manage-users permission, listing the added guest(s).
6. A forwarded recipient who opens the NDA acknowledgement page from their email sees an information alert identifying the NDA as forwarded to them, and can then acknowledge, request a custom NDA, or forward it onward themselves, in exactly the same way as the original recipient.

 

Emails When the NDA Is No Longer Needed or Is Resolved

1. If the client organisation switches the NDA requirement off (for the specific RFQ, the whole project, or the whole organisation) while the NDA is still unactioned, everyone in the forward chain receives an email confirming the NDA is no longer required. No such email is sent if the NDA has already been acknowledged, had a custom NDA requested, or been authorised.
2. If a colleague at the vendor company acknowledges the NDA, or the client organisation authorises the vendor company against an offline NDA, the person who forwarded the NDA receives a resolution confirmation email. Other forwarded recipients don't receive that email, but will find the RFQ unlocked if they click View NDA in their earlier email.

 

NOTE: Felix does not prevent the same person being forwarded the same NDA more than once. A guest forwarded a second time receives a fresh single-use token link

 

Troubleshooting

Issue	Likely cause	Resolution
The NDA acknowledgement page appears instead of the RFQ	The client organisation has applied NDA gated access and nobody at the vendor company has acknowledged yet	Complete the NDA acknowledgement form, or click Forward on to send it to a colleague authorised to accept
The Agree and proceed button stays greyed out	One or more acknowledgement checkboxes are unticked, or a signer detail field is empty or below its minimum length	Tick every statement; check Full name (5+ characters), Job title (2+), Company (3+)
An inline error appears under a signer detail field even though it looks filled in	The value is shorter than the field's minimum length, or consists only of spaces (which Felix trims)	Enter the signer's full legal name, complete job title, and registered company name rather than initials or abbreviations
The Access is on hold page appears and the RFQ cannot be reached	Someone at the vendor company clicked Request custom NDA, blocking the whole vendor company	Contact the RFQ owner named in the original request to negotiate the custom NDA, or click Revert custom NDA request and accept the NDA as written
Revert custom NDA request was clicked but the RFQ is still blocked	Reverting only returns to the acknowledgement page; the block clears only once Agree and proceed completes successfully	Complete the acknowledgement form and click Agree and proceed
Clicking Forward NDA does nothing	At least one entered email address is not a valid format, shown by a danger alert in the modal	Correct the invalid address, then click Forward NDA again
A warning appears in the forward modal about an email domain	The domain doesn't match any existing vendor user on the account, so that person will be added as a guest	Confirm the address is correct: the forward can still be submitted, and the recipient gets a single-use token link
No confirmation email arrived after acknowledging	Certificate generation and email delivery run separately from the acknowledgement record, so an email failure doesn't undo the acknowledgement	Open the gated RFQ's Documents tab and use Download NDA / Download acknowledgement; contact Felix Support if still unavailable
The Download acknowledgement link is missing from the Documents tab	The client organisation authorised the vendor company against an NDA signed outside Felix, or NDA gating is no longer active	Request a copy of the countersigned NDA from the client organisation directly
The RFQ was reachable yesterday but now shows the acknowledgement page again	The client organisation switched the NDA requirement back on for that RFQ, or replaced the NDA document	Complete the acknowledgement form again against the current NDA document
A colleague acknowledged but the RFQ is still gated for this user	The two people are on different vendor accounts in Felix, so the acknowledgement doesn't carry across	Confirm both belong to the same vendor account; if not, each account needs its own acknowledgement

 

Related Resources

• How to Set Up and Manage NDA Gated Access on a Sourcing Project