Buyer Messaging, Contact Consent, and Requesting an RFQ Award

What you will achieve

• Recognize every banner and block on the quote page and know what triggers it.
• Know exactly when and how buyer contact details become visible to you.
• Use the message thread and the Award request button at the right moment.

Step-by-step

1. If a SolarMarket agent submitted this quote on your behalf and it is still within the review window, a yellow banner titled "Agent-Prepared Quote" appears at the very top, with a live countdown ("Window closes: Xm Ys remaining") and a "Withdraw & Edit" button — clicking it (after a confirm dialog) returns the quote to draft so you can edit and resubmit it yourself.
2. If that review window has already closed, the same situation instead shows a blue info banner: "Agent-Prepared Quote — this quote was submitted on your behalf by a SolarMarket agent. The review window has closed." with no withdraw option.
3. Below any banner, the header row shows your shop name, address, and phone/email on the left; on the right, "Quote #{id}", the date it was created, and the lead time in days.
4. Next is the "Bill To" section on the left: the buyer's name (or a generic label if contact has not been revealed) and their district.
5. Directly under the buyer name, the contact block only shows real details if your shop is verified: if verified and the buyer has consented to share contact, you see "Customer contact" with the phone number as a clickable tel: link, a "Call" button, and a "Copy" button (clicking Copy puts the number on your clipboard and the button label briefly changes to "Copied").
6. If your shop is not verified, you instead see a lock icon with the text "Buyer contact is only visible to verified shops." and a "Complete verification →" link.
7. On the right side of the same row: Site Type, RFQ Type, and the RFQ number, each as a small labeled line.
8. If the quote is locked (submitted and frozen, or already accepted into an order), a green banner appears next: "Quote accepted — Order created" with a "View Order" button if an order exists, or "Quote submitted and locked" if it is issued but not yet accepted — either way it explains that the terms are frozen so the buyer always sees the same numbers.
9. If this quote was agent-assisted, a separate blue banner reads "Sent on your behalf by agent" with a note that it was auto-prepared from your approved offer and, once submitted, is locked unless you create a new quote.
10. Below the banners, the line items table lists each item, quantity, rate, tax percentage, and amount, in that column order.
11. To the right beneath the table, a totals block stacks: Sub Total, Tax (VAT), then only the charges that actually apply — Shipping, Installation, Labour Charges, Other Charges, Commission — each shown only if greater than zero, then Discount (with the percentage shown in brackets if the discount was percent-mode), and finally "Final Total" in bold.
12. Underneath the totals, an actions row shows your quote's status badge on the left (for example "Submitted" or "Accepted") and a row of buttons on the right: "Back to RFQ" always appears; "View Order" appears once the quote is locked and an order exists; "Edit Quote" appears only while the quote is still editable (not locked, not yet submitted); and a green "Request award" button with a trophy icon appears once the quote is submitted but not yet locked, awarded, or pending — clicking it opens the "Request award" modal.
13. If you just submitted the quote and messaging is open, a green banner appears: "Quotation submitted successfully — you can now message the buyer for clarifications."
14. Below that is the message thread: each message shows who sent it ("You", "Buyer", or "System") with a timestamp, the message text, and any attachments as a small paperclip icon with a clickable filename.
15. If messaging is currently allowed, a composer sits at the bottom: a textarea placeholder reads "Type your message… (Shift+Enter for new line)" next to an outlined "Send" button with a paper-plane icon — pressing Enter sends the message (Shift+Enter adds a new line instead), the box grows automatically as you type, and the Send button stays disabled while the box is empty.
16. If messaging is not allowed, a small note explains why: either "Messaging is disabled once the deal is ordered/awarded. Please proceed via the order." or "Submit your quote first to start messaging the buyer."
17. The "Request award" modal, once opened, shows the title "Request award" and the text "This will notify the buyer that you are ready to proceed." with a "Cancel" button and a green "OK" button that takes you back to the RFQ detail page.
18. Why shop verification specifically gates the Bill To contact reveal: it is the same trust boundary the platform enforces everywhere a buyer and seller can transact — an unverified shop cannot receive contact details even from a buyer who has already consented to share them, because verification is what confirms there is a real, accountable business on the other end of that phone number. That is why the lock icon and the "Complete verification →" link appear instead of a workaround.
19. The real cost of skipping "Request award": without it, there is no formal signal in the system telling the buyer you are ready to close. The deal can sit indefinitely in the message thread — replies going back and forth with no clear next step — because messaging is built for clarification, not for closing. The trophy-icon button exists specifically to end that ambiguity.

Seller checklist

• Shop verification is complete so the Bill To contact block is not blocked on your side.
• Buyer messages in the thread are answered promptly, with attachments used when useful.
• The green "Request award" button is used once you are confident, rather than repeating the same quote details in chat.

Frequently Asked Questions