NUPCO portal not working? Common NUPCO tender problems and their fixes

The NUPCO supplier portal runs on SAP NetWeaver Portal and SAP SRM, technology designed for the Internet Explorer era. Modern browsers changed things that technology relied on, so many failures are silent: the page opens and then nothing happens on a click. The good news is that each of these symptoms has a known cause and a specific fix, most of them done in minutes.

The tender will not open in Chrome, or the frame is blank

Symptom: you sign in and the tender list loads, but opening a tender does nothing, the frame goes blank, or the terms and conditions page refuses to render so you cannot accept it or submit.

Cause: since version 115, Chrome (and Edge since 118/119) isolates each subdomain in its own group, so the portal's frames stopped talking to each other. The technical name is origin-keyed agent clusters.

Fix: type chrome://flags/ in the address bar, search for Origin Agent, set Origin-keyed Agent Clusters by default to Disabled, and relaunch. If the flag is not there it has been removed from your version, and the alternative is a Windows registry policy named OriginAgentClusterDefaultEnabled with the value 0. The steps with screenshots and the registry policy are in Chrome won't open your NUPCO tender?.

Submit does nothing, or the submission never completes

Symptom: you fill the bid and click Submit and nothing happens, the file dialog never opens, or the login loops back to itself.

Cause: parts of the SAP SRM submission flow (file uploads, popups, the Submit action) rely on behavior only the Internet Explorer engine supports, which Microsoft retired in 2022.

Fix: use Internet Explorer mode in Microsoft Edge. In Settings, then Default browser, allow sites to be reloaded in Internet Explorer mode, add the portal address https://tenders.nupco.com/irj/portal, and restart Edge. An Internet Explorer icon appears in the address bar when the portal opens. Warning: a page added this way silently expires after 30 days, so set a reminder every 28 days to re-add it, or have your IT team push it through enterprise policy. The illustrated walkthrough is in Enable Internet Explorer mode for NUPCO submissions.

Documents will not download, or windows will not open

Symptom: the item list opens but the tender documents never download, only the first file downloads, or the terms window does not appear.

Cause and fix: the portal opens documents in popup windows and downloads several files at once, and the browser blocks both by default. In the site settings, allow pop-ups and multiple automatic downloads for the NUPCO portal address specifically, not for every site.

The login loops, or the session ends abruptly

Fix: clear the cookies for the NUPCO domain and sign in fresh; stale sessions cause silent failures more often than expected. Work in a single tab for the portal, and temporarily disable browser extensions, especially ad blockers and privacy extensions, since some break the SAP frame layout. If your credentials are right and the problem persists, contact NUPCO supplier support.

I uploaded the bid file and it shows zero items, or missing prices

Symptom: the upload succeeds but the portal says the file holds 0 items, or some items show no price even though they are filled in Excel.

Cause: the portal reads the workbook's cell table, not what Excel displays. A file re-created or re-saved by another program can look perfect in Excel and import empty, because the values were not written the way SAP expects them (shared text cells). The same goes for items without a Change Option of C: an item with no Change Option is invisible to the portal.

• Fill the very file you downloaded from the tender in place; do not create a new workbook, copy the columns into another template, or change their order or names.
• Write C in the Change Option column of every item you bid on and leave the other items untouched.
• Write values in the format the template itself uses (a price with four decimals such as 12.5000, a percentage such as 15.00, a date as DD.MM.YYYY).
• If the file is generated by software, make it software that patches the original file cell by cell rather than rebuilding it. That is exactly what ProcDuck does; see the response file in the manual.

The full column-by-column rules are in How to fill the NUPCO bid response file.

Attachments are rejected or not found

Cause and fix: the attachments list (a tab-delimited text file) names, for each item, its PDF files: the catalog, the SFDA certificates, the MDMA annex and the quotation, and the files must be uploaded beside it under exactly those names. Keep the names short, Latin letters and digits only, no spaces or symbols, and save the list as tab-delimited text (.txt), not as an Excel workbook.

Missed the deadline, or the time was off

NUPCO closing times are Riyadh time, and the portal accepts nothing after them and grants no extension for browser trouble. Submit at least a working day early, and if an upload is failing, use another Windows machine already set up with Internet Explorer mode rather than fixing your own in the last hour.

I cannot see tenders, or my account is still under review

Tenders become visible once a supplier's registration is approved on the portal. If your account is new and still under review, or a registration document has expired, contact NUPCO supplier support rather than waiting for closing day. While the account is pending you can still follow published tenders and their items in ProcDuck to prepare your bid ahead of time.

A checklist before every submission

• Browser set up (Edge in Internet Explorer mode for submitting, Chrome with the flag disabled for browsing) and pop-ups and downloads allowed for the portal.
• The Internet Explorer mode entry has not expired (30 days).
• The bid file is the tender's own file, filled in place, with Change Option C on every bid item.
• Attachment file names match the attachments list character for character.
• The item count the portal shows after the upload equals the number of items you priced.
• The submission confirmation number is saved, and there is time to spare before the Riyadh-time closing.