Our proposed workflow for managing an Open Procedure on the software is a one-stage questionnaire process. 

• This is where you send all bidders (who respond to your advertised opportunity) the full Invitation to Tender documents on one questionnaire. This means you have no separate selection stage.

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 a template for your Tender Questionnaire
4. Link your Tender Questionnaire to your Requirement and set-up the rules
5. Test your Tender Questionnaire
6. Publish your Tender Questionnaire and Notice(s)
7. Accept User Account Requests from new suppliers
8. Respond to Clarification Questions raised by participating suppliers
9. Evaluate suppliers responses once the bid opening date has passed
10. Moderate the evaluation scores
11. Award your Supplier(s)
12. Upload signed documentation

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

Sourcing > Requirements

• 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 a template for your Tender Questionnaire.

Sourcing > RFX Tender Templates

• 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 one Tender Questionnaire, which includes both SQ and Invitation to Tender questions. See here for guidance on creating a template.
  • Pull in sections from the SQ template and edit as needed.
  • 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 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 Tender Questionnaire 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 Tender Questionnaire on the Requirement from your template. See here for guidance on creating a questionnaire on a Requirement.
• Set up the rules for your Tender Questionnaire and save it as a Draft.
  • Make sure to name your Tender Questionnaire clearly as Invitation to Tender
  • Set the 'Supplier Participation' as Public
  • Set the 'Qualification will result in' as Approved for contract as a whole
  • Link your Tender documents.
  • Set your evaluators.
  • 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 Questionnaire

• Test your Questionnaire 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 Tender Questionnaire and Notice(s) 

• Publish your Tender Questionnaire once you've finished setting it up and are happy with the format.
• Once your Tender Questionnaire is 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 

Supplier Management > Clarification Q&A

• 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 suppliers responses once the bid opening date has passed

Supplier Management > Evaluate & Review

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

10. Moderate the evaluation scores

Supplier Management > Qualify

• 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.

11. Award your Supplier(s)

Supplier Management > Qualify

• 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.

12. 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