Our proposed workflow for managing a Competitive Flexible Procedure (CFP) on the software is a two+stage questionnaire process:

1. First Stage Questionnaire
2. Additional Tender Stage(s) Questionnaire(s) 
3. Final stage - Final Tender questionnaire 

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 Questionnaires and Notice(s) 
• 7. Keep an eye on Account Requests from new suppliers 
• 8. Respond to Clarification Questions raised by participating suppliers 
• 9. Evaluate and Moderate supplier responses for the First Stage questionnaire
• 10. Evaluate supplier responses for the subsequent Stages questionnaire once the bid opening date has passed
• 11. Moderate the evaluation scores
• 12. Award your Supplier(s) once tender is complete
• 12. Make Contract Live 

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 - UK2 Preliminary Market Engagement Notice 
    • See here for guidance on creating and publishing Notices under the PA23 Act.
  • Public Site - Early Engagement

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 questionnaire.  
  • You can pull in sections from the SQ template and edit as needed.

• Create a template for your second+ stage questionnaires. 
  • 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 - UK3 Planned Procurement Notice
    • See here for guidance on creating and publishing Notices under the PA23 Act.

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 Questionnaire
    • Make sure to name your questionnaire clearly 
    • Set the Supplier Participation as Public
    • Set the Qualification will result in as Another Questionnaire
  • Second Stage + Questionnaire(s)
    • Make sure to name your questionnaire clearly as Invitation to Tender
    • Set the Qualifying Questionnaire as your previous round 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 Participate > [Requirement Name] > RFX tab).
    • Set the Qualification will result in as Approved for contract as a whole for the final stage Questionnaire; otherwise select Another Questionnaire if not the final
    • 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 - UK 4 Tender Notice
    • See here for guidance on creating and publishing Notices under the PA23 Act.
  • Public Site - Opportunity - if you are using the Public site to advertise your opportunities

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 Questionnaires and Notice(s) 

• Publish your Tender Notice(s)
• Publish your Tender Questionnaires once you've finished setting up and are happy with the format for both.

7. Keep an eye on Account Requests from new suppliers 

• New suppliers without logins will need to request accounts in order to participate in the Tender. 
  • If the supplier details match an existing organisation, it will go to the primary contact at that supplier organisation to approve - Key Users can accept if happy to do so.
  • If the supplier details don't match an existing organisation, the software will self-service the account request without a need for a Key User to approve (granted that the option Supplier is picked)
• 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 Moderate supplier responses for the First Stage questionnaire

• Evaluate supplier responses to the first stage Questionnaire as they come in. See here for guidance on how to evaluate responses
• Moderate supplier responses once initial evaluation has occurred via Supplier Management > Moderate (Qualify)
• Moderate 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
• Remove Moderation(Disqualify) from the suppliers that haven't passed the first questionnaire. 
• See here for guidance on moderating (qualifying)/disqualifying suppliers.

10. Evaluate supplier responses for the subsequent Stages 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) once tender is complete

Supplier Management > Moderate (Qualify)

• Set the Stage of the Requirement to Award
• Moderate (Qualify) the successful supplier(s), and if you've set up a category(s) make them 'Live' - if standstill applies, you will need to do this after the standstill period ends.
• Unmoderate (Disqualify) the unsuccessful suppliers.
• See here for guidance on moderating (qualifying/disqualifying suppliers. 
• Create and Publish Award Notices on:
  • Find a Tender - UK6 Contract Award Notice - to be published to commence the standstill period for Above Threshold
  • Find a Tender - UK7 Contract Details Notice - to be published after standstill period, and for both Above Threshold and Below Threshold contracts
  • See here for guidance on creating and publishing Notices under the PA23 Act.
  • Public Site - Awarded Opportunity (if you are using the Public site to show your awarded contracts)
    
• Upload Signed contract documentation
  • Use Nudge to send successful suppliers contracts to sign
  • Upload all signed documentation and contract awards into the Document Library of the requirement

12. Make Contract Live 

• Set the stage to Live to show that the contract is now in effect