Managing and Awarding a Sourcing Event (IT)
Once a Sourcing Event is published and open for bidding, vendors have until the allotted time per the Due date to provide electronic responses to the solicitation. These responses are concealed from the Sourcing Project Owner and all other users listed in the Team section until envelopes are opened after the Due date passes. During the time that a Sourcing Event is open, vendors can ask questions via email or through event Messages. The Sourcing Project Owner can respond, if needed, by creating Addendums or even extending the timing of the Sourcing Event. Although awarding the solicitation to the winning bidder does not happen within the Sourcing Tool, there are several steps supporting this process that do. This includes conducting Requests for Clarification, Request for Best and Final Offer (BAFO), and gaining NCDIT’s approval of the Award Recommendation.
For more detailed step-by-step information regarding this topic in a printable format, see the following job aid.
Even though the Sourcing Project Owner will not be able to see the vendors’ actual responses until after the Sourcing Event’s Due date, Sourcing Project Owners can check the Suppliers section at any time to see which vendors have responded. During the Sourcing Event, if vendors have any questions, they will submit them via email or in the Event Messages section.
Sourcing Project Owners can provide answers to vendor questions – or make any other necessary updates to the Sourcing Event – by posting an Addendum in the Sourcing Event before the Due date of the Sourcing Event.
Sourcing Project Owners have the ability to extend the Due date and time on a published Sourcing Event if necessary.
When the Sourcing Event reaches the response Due date, the event status becomes Pending Selection. At this point, the Sourcing Project Owner can open the Envelopes to review the responses.
While reviewing the vendor responses, it may be necessary to seek clarification with certain vendors. NCDIT has provided templates for these requests for clarification that are available in the NCDIT Sourcing Library. Sending the requests for clarification to applicable vendors will be handled via the Sourcing Event’s Messages section.
At times during the IT procurement process, it may be necessary to request an exception from NCDIT. Three types of exceptions can be requested at this point: Standards Exception Request (Hosting), Standards Exception Request (NCID), and Security Exception Request. Procurement Exception Requests (Form A) can be submitted during Phase 04. Standards and Security Requests can be submitted during Phase 07.
After posting the solicitation and conducting the Sourcing Event, the tasks in Phases 05 – 07 in conjunction with the “IT Procurement Process Playbook” will outline the steps towards arriving at an Award Recommendation. The Submit Award Recommendation and Leading Vendor Proposal(s) to NCDIT for Review task at the end of Phase 07 will give the Agency some initial feedback from NCDIT.
Following any final negotiations per Phase 08, proceed to Phase 09 to complete the Gain Statewide IT Procurement Office and OSBM (if applicable) Approval of Final Award Recommendation task.
Once the solicitation has been officially awarded per the process outlined by NCDIT, and the Sourcing Project Owner is certain that no more communication with the responding vendors will be necessary, the status of both the Sourcing Event and Sourcing Project should be marked Complete for clarification purposes.
Ariba Sourcing Events can accept a maximum of 100 supplier responses, and although reaching that threshold is extremely rare for solicitations created by state of North Carolina users, a plan is in place if an event is nearing that threshold. The Sourcing Project Owner will begin to see alerts within their Sourcing Event and may receive an additional communication from the NC eProcurement team that their event is nearing 100 suppliers. At this point the Sourcing Project Owner and the NC eProcurement team will monitor the number of responses as the Due date approaches and if it seems possible that over 100 suppliers will respond, they will work together to create an Overflow Event in the same Sourcing Project to allow more than 100 suppliers to respond to the solicitation.