Our proposed workflow for managing a Restricted Procedure on the software is a two-stage questionnaire process:

1. First stage - Selection process questionnaire used to establish capability, experience and suitability of bidders.
2. Second stage - Invitation to Tender questionnaire that the shortlisted suppliers are then invited to tender.

The following steps outline this:

1. Create and set-up a Requirement for the Tender
2. [If applicable] Create and publish a Research Questionnaire (if you wish to gather information from colleagues and/or early market engagement)
3. Create templates for your two Tender Questionnaires 
4. Link your two Questionnaires to your Requirement and set-up the rules 
5. Test your Tender Questionnaires 
6. Publish your two Questionnaires and Notice(s) 
7. Accept User Account Requests from new suppliers 
8. Respond to Clarification Questions raised by participating suppliers 
9. Evaluate and Qualify supplier responses for the First Stage SQ questionnaire
10. Evaluate supplier responses for the Second Stage ITT questionnaire once the bid opening date has passed
11. Moderate the evaluation scores
12. Award your Supplier(s) 
13. Upload signed documentation  

1. Create and set-up a Requirement for the Tender

• Create a Requirement. See here for guidance on creating a requirement.
• Input the details of the contract and set-up each tab of the Requirement (adding a long description, people, categories etc.) See here for guidance on inputting requirement details.

2. [If applicable] Create and publish a Research Questionnaire (if you wish to gather information from colleagues and/or early market engagement)

• Set your Requirement stage to Research.
• Create and publish a Research Questionnaire. See here for guidance on creating and publishing Research Questionnaires.
• Create and publish an Early Engagement Notice:
  • Find a Tender - Pipeline
  • Contracts Finder - Early Engagement
  • Public Site - Early Engagement
  • See here for guidance on creating and publishing Notices.

3. Create templates for your two Tender Questionnaires

• Set the Stage of the Requirement stage to Define. This indicates you're defining and creating your Questionnaire for the Tender.
• Create a template for your first stage Selection Questionnaire.  
  • You can pull in sections from the SQ template and edit as needed.

• Create a template for your second stage Invitation to Tender questionnaire. 
  • Pull in sections from example IT Templates, or create your sections and questions for the IT part of the Questionnaire. 
  • Add Scoring for your IT questions that are marked.
    • N.B. Weighting is applied separately and at section level, so if your quality questions have different weighting you'll need to create them as separate sections in order to automate the weighting.
• See here for guidance on creating a template 
• See here for guidance on how to pull in sections, create sections and questions, and adding scoring 
• [If Applicable] You can also create and publish the following notices:
  • Find a Tender - Prior Information Notice
  • Contracts Finder - Future Opportunity Notice
  • See here for guidance on creating and publishing Notices.

4. Link your two Questionnaires to your Requirement and set-up the rules

• Set the stage of the Requirement to Tender and specify the closing date of the questionnaire.
• Upload your Tender Documents into the Document Library of the Requirement.
• Create your two stage questionnaires on your Requirement from your templates. 
• Set up the rules for your two Tender Questionnaires:
  • First Stage - Selection Questionnaire
    • Make sure to name your questionnaire clearly as Selection Questionnaire
    • Set the 'Supplier Participation' as Public
    • Set the 'Qualification will result in' as Another Questionnaire
  • Second Stage - Invitation to Tender
    • Make sure to name your questionnaire clearly as Invitation to Tender
    • Set the 'Qualifying Questionnaire' as your Selection Questionnaire
    • Set the 'Supplier Participation' as either Public (so qualified suppliers must register interest and then fill in) or Invitation Only (so qualified suppliers are invited and respond directly from My Questionnaires)
    • Set the 'Qualification will result in' as Approved for contract as a whole
    • Set the Weighting for the questionnaire
      • N.B: Only set the Weighting after you've tested your Questionnaire (step 5) and are certain you won't need to edit your Questionnaire, as once Weighting is set it will be locked from editing.
  • See here for more guidance on setting up a Tender Questionnaire.
• Create your Tender Notices and save these as Drafts:
  • Find a Tender - Opportunity (if above threshold)
  • Contract Finder - Live Opportunity
  • Public Site - if you are using the Public site to advertise your opportunities
  • See here for guidance on creating and publishing Notices..

5. Test your Tender Questionnaires

• Test your Questionnaires before publishing to check the structure/format, scoring and test Weighting.
  • N.B: Once a questionnaire is published you can no longer edit it, so we highly recommend testing it first. 
• See here for guidance on how to test a questionnaire.

6. Publish your two Questionnaires and Notice(s) 

• Publish your two Tender Questionnaires once you've finished setting up and are happy with the format for both.
• Once your Tender Questionnaires are open, publish your Tender Notices.

7. Accept User Account Requests from new suppliers 

• New suppliers without logins will need to request accounts in order to participate in the Tender. 
• See here for guidance on how to accept these user account requests.

8. Respond to Clarification Questions raised by participating suppliers 

• Participating suppliers may raise Clarification Questions about the Tender. You can also create your own Clarification Q&As to broadcast additional information. 
• See here for guidance on how to answer Clarification Questions, or to add your own.

9. Evaluate and Qualify supplier responses for the First Stage SQ questionnaire

• Evaluate supplier responses to the first stage Selection Questionnaire as they come in. See here for guidance on how to evaluate responses
• Qualify suppliers if they have passed the first stage questionnaire to allow them to start responding to the second stage questionnaire. 
  • If you set the 'Supplier Participation' as Invitation Only, ensure you send the supplier an Invite in order to allow them to participate
  • If you set the 'Supplier Participation' as Public, ensure you send the supplier an e-mail to notify them that they can now access the second stage questionnaire
• Disqualify the suppliers that haven't passed the first questionnaire. 
• See here for guidance on qualifying/disqualifying suppliers.

10. Evaluate supplier responses for the Second Stage ITT questionnaire once the bid opening date has passed

• Set the stage of the Requirement to Evaluation
• Evaluate supplier responses to the Tender Questionnaire. See here for guidance on how to evaluate responses

11. Moderate the evaluation scores

• Moderate the evaluation of each supplier response by entering evaluation notes and amending the final scores if needed.
• Download the Evaluator Scores Report to compare scores across all suppliers.
• [If Applicable] Save your moderation and leave these until your standstill period has passed.
• See here for guidance on moderation.

12. Award your Supplier(s)

• Set the Stage of the Requirement to Award
• Qualify the successful supplier(s), and if you've set up a category(s) make them 'Live'.
• Disqualify the unsuccessful suppliers.
• See here for guidance on qualifying/disqualifying suppliers.
• Create and Publish Award Notices on:
  • Find a Tender - Award
  • Contracts Finder - Awarded Opportunity
  • Public Site - Awarded Opportunity (if you are using the Public site to show your awarded contracts)
  • See here for guidance on how creating and publishing Notices.

13. Upload signed documentation 

• Use Nudge to send successful suppliers contracts to sign
• Upload all signed documentation and contract awards into the Document Library of the requirement