Publishing a Sourcing Event (IT)
A Sourcing Event is the vendor-facing part of a Sourcing Project. The Sourcing Agent can establish the bidding dates and time, as well as compile all information the vendors will need to respond, as guided by a template established by NCDIT. Once the Sourcing Event is in a ‘Published’ status, notification of it can be posted in IPS and interested vendors can follow a URL to respond electronically. Before it can be ‘Published,’ however, users 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 Agency Business about an IT business need, and the information collected will help Agency Procurement and NCDIT collaboratively determine the appropriate approach to the solicitation. Users will submit their completed version to NCDIT for approval in the first task.
If applicable, users should complete the two ‘Tasks’ in ‘Phase 02’, before proceeding 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 Event to the Agency CIO and NCDIT for approval, users will initiate only Section 1 (Rules) and Section 3 (Content) before saving. The information included in the Solicitation Document is complementary to that in the content of the Sourcing Event.
The first of the four sections to edit and set are the Event ‘Rules.’ Most importantly, the rules section allows the Sourcing Agent to establish the ‘Timing Rules’ outlining when the bidding starts and stops. Many of the fields within the six sub-sections on this page are pre-populated, and it is advised that users leave them as is.
The ‘Content’ section of the Event is where the user 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 NCDIT Sourcing Library Folder.
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 must be added manually via the ‘Team’ tab. An edited Solicitation Document and Event will serve as the triggers for the approval task, so both must be actioned upon as outlined above before the task can be submitted.
After receiving approval from the ‘Agency CIO,’ users should consider if the solicitation requires a Procurement Exception Request (Form A). If so it will need to be approved by NCDIT in conjunction with sending the overall Event for approval. The ‘Submit Procurement Exception Request to NCDIT (if applicable)’ task will guide this process. If no Procurement Exception is required, skip this section.
Once all tasks are complete in ‘Phase 03’, proceed to ‘Phase 04’ to submit the Solicitation Document and Sourcing Event for approval by NCDIT. Unless ‘Agency CIO’ suggested any updates, the documents should be ready for approval.
After receiving approval from NCDIT to post the solicitation, users should finalize their ‘Solicitation Document’ then return to Section 1 (Rules) of the ‘Sourcing Event’ to update any dates that may have changed during the approval process, and Section 3 (Content) to attach the final version of the ‘Solicitation Document’ to subsection 3.1 and make any other necessary updates.
Once the Rules and Content are finalized, users will be ready to go back to the section they previously skipped, Section 2 (Suppliers). In this section, users will generally ‘Create a Supplier Research Posting. When all required information has been added to this section, the user will click the yellow ‘Publish on Ariba Discovery’ button at the bottom of the page. Once the Sourcing Event is later published, a URL will be available, and the user can copy and paste that URL in the ‘NCEP URL’ field within the IPS posting. This URL will provide a landing page out of IPS for vendors wishing to respond to the solicitation Event.
Instead of posting notification of the Sourcing Event to the public via IPS, it may be necessary to directly invite a limited number of vendors for solicitations such as an RFQ or SOW. This can be done by clicking the ‘Proceed To Invite Participants’ link at the top of Section 2 (Suppliers) and adding specific vendors.
When Section 2 (Suppliers) is complete, users can proceed to the final ‘Summary’ section. This contains the summary of the first three sections and allows the user to review and edit before clicking ‘Publish.’
