Publishing a Sourcing Event (IT)
A Sourcing Event is the vendor-facing part of a Sourcing Project. The Sourcing Project Owner can establish the bidding dates and time, as well as compile all information the vendors will need to develop their response, as guided by a template established by NCDIT. Once the Sourcing Event is in a Published status, it will be automatically posted to the Public eVP, and interested vendors can click the Intends to Participate button to receive an email with a link to respond electronically through their Ariba accounts. Before the Sourcing Event can be Published, the Sourcing Project Owner will have to complete a few Tasks.
For more detailed step-by-step information regarding this topic in a printable format, see the following job aid.
The IT Procurement Intake Form is generally completed by an Agency Business user and contains summary information about an IT business need. This information will help Agency Procurement and NCDIT collaboratively determine the appropriate sourcing approach to address the IT business need. Sourcing Project Owners will submit the completed IT Procurement Intake Form to NCDIT for approval in the first task of Phase 01.
Once Phase 02 is completed or determined to be unnecessary for a Sourcing Project, the Sourcing Project Owner can proceed to Phase 03 to populate the Solicitation Document and initiate the Sourcing Event. The Sourcing Event is the interactive part of the Sourcing Project where vendors can provide their responses. Prior to sending the Sourcing Event to the Agency CIO and NCDIT for approval, Sourcing Project Owners will only adjust the Event duration (Due Date) and Questions, requirements, and attachments (Content) sections before saving. The information included in the Solicitation Document is complementary to that in the Content section of the Sourcing Event.
The first of the two sections to edit is the Event duration. This is where the Sourcing Project Owner will establish the Due date outlining when bidding ends.
The Questions, requirements, and attachments, or Content section of the Sourcing Event is where the Sourcing Project Owner can share all information about the products or services they wish to receive bids on, and it serves as the framework for vendors to provide a response. NCDIT has created a template in this section that complements the default structure of the various RFx Solicitation Document templates available in the Sourcing Library.
Before sending the Solicitation Document and Sourcing Event to NCDIT for approval, the documents must first be approved by the Agency CIO group in Phase 03. If no users were automatically added to this group, at least one user must be added manually by the Sourcing Project Owner via the Team section. Once the previous Upload Draft Solicitation Document and Complete Sourcing Event Duration and Content Sections task has been Set to complete, this task will automatically submit itself.
After receiving approval from the Agency CIO, the Sourcing Project Owner should consider if the solicitation requires a Procurement Exception Request (Form A). If so, the Sourcing Project Owner will need to work with the applicable Agency Business user to complete and upload a Procurement Exception Request (Form A) that NCDIT will consider in conjunction with sending the draft IT Solicitation Document and Sourcing Event for approval. If no Procurement Exception is required, the Sourcing Project Owner can skip this task.
When both tasks are complete in Phase 03, the Sourcing Project Owner can proceed to Phase 04 to submit the Solicitation Document and Sourcing Event for approval by NCDIT. Unless the Agency CIO suggested any updates during Phase 03, the documents should be ready for approval.
After receiving approval from NCDIT to post the solicitation, the Sourcing Project Owner should finalize their Solicitation Document, return to the Sourcing Event to update any dates that may have changed during the approval process, then go to the Questions, requirements, and attachments (Content) section to attach the final version of the Solicitation Document to subsection 3.1, and make any other necessary updates.
If the Sourcing Project Owner selected a Solicitation Vehicle of IT: RFQ or IT: SOW to conduct a private solicitation with a limited set of vendors, they will directly invite the identified vendor(s). The solicitation will not post to Public eVP, and only the directly invited vendor(s) will be able to respond.
When all sections have been finalized, the Sourcing Project Owner can Publish the Sourcing Event to send it to Public eVP so that vendors can begin to respond.