Creating a Sourcing Project
A Sourcing Project (SP) is a container for all information and documents pertaining to a formal solicitation for bids on goods or services. The process begins when the user clicks on the ‘Sourcing Project’ link. By default, the user who initiates the SP becomes the Project Owner. Once a SP has been initiated, the user populates the Sourcing Attributes fields, which trigger the appearance of either a ‘State of North Carolina Sourcing Process’ template or an ‘NCDIT Sourcing Template’ depending on the nature of the solicitation. These templates guide the remainder of the user’s steps in the SP creation and management process, based on the P&C or NCDIT prescribed procurement process (e.g., Phases and Tasks).
For more detailed step-by-step information regarding this topic in a printable format, see the following job aid.
The first step in creating a Sourcing Project is to click on the 'Sourcing Project' link and fill in all the Sourcing Attributes. These attributes act as the framework for the project.
Note that there are 10 required fields when entering the Sourcing Attributes including:
- Name
- Description
- Entity
- Est. Total Contract Value (incl. Renewals)
- Estimated Base Contract Value
- Execution Strategy
- Solicitation Vehicle
- Approval Scenario
- Commodity
After filling out the Sourcing Project Attributes fields, the user should navigate down the screen to the ‘Select a template’ section. Based on the selection made in the ‘Solicitation Vehicle’ field above, the radio button next to either the ‘State of North Carolina Sourcing Process’ template or the ‘NCDIT Sourcing Template’ will be populated and the user will be required to answer two questions.
After clicking ‘Create’ on the Sourcing Attributes page, the Sourcing Project is saved, and the Overview screen is displayed. From this screen, users can access six other tabs for the management of the Sourcing Project:
- Documents
- Tasks
- Team
- Message Board
- Event Messages
- History
The Phases and Tasks are located under the ‘Tasks’ tab. The purpose of the Phases and Tasks are to provide a road map for the Project Owner to navigate the State’s Sourcing Project Lifecycle and to track the progress made throughout the Sourcing Project. There are 6 Phases with subsequent Tasks under each phase. These should be considered as best practices.
The ‘Team’ tab lists the ‘Project Groups’ and its ‘Members.’ Each ‘Project Group’ can have different roles that specify the permissions for the users in that group, the objects the users can access, and the actions they can perform. Each ‘Entity’ template is set up with the necessary ‘Project Groups,’ but it is possible to edit the assigned ‘Project Groups’ within each Sourcing Project should the need arise.
The ‘Documents’ tab is a central storage location for all documents related to a Sourcing Project. By default it includes folders for ‘Sourcing Project Documents,’ 'Solicitation Document,’ ‘Sourcing Event,’ and ‘Document Templates,’ within which users can keep record of the Sourcing Project’s most important documents.
The ‘Message Board’ allows members of the Sourcing Project to communicate with one another. The ‘Message Board’ is used internally and is not visible to vendors, while ‘Event Messages’ (read-only within the Sourcing Project) are for communication with the vendors responding to the Sourcing Event.