E Procurement Tendering and Contract Management System

The vendor required to provide scalable and secure, e-procurement and contract management system, requiring minimal configuration that will:
•    Support the efficient procurement of goods and services, and construction while adhering to provincial and agency policies and procurement requirements
•    Provide modern and efficient features or tools that include, but are not limited to, the following:
o    Initiating procurement requests via an intake tool 
o    Tender document development and posting
o    Receiving e-bid submissions
o    Evaluating submissions
o    Awarding contracts
o    Contract management
o    Tracking and reporting
- The solution, the successful respondent will provide the following services:
•    Solution configuration as per agency requirements.
•    Solution implementation support.
•    Cloud-based hosting.
•    Solution training for agency staff.
•    Continued solution support, maintenance, and issue resolution.
- Solution requirements
•    Business requirements
•    Solution requirements
•    IT requirements
1. Business requirements
•    The solution should include a reference library providing procurement staff with access to a range of standard specifications and other reference materials (e.g., technical specifications) that are previously approved.
•    The solution should allow for procurement staff to upload a document to the solution's library.
•    The solution should provide a feature for storing and referencing executed tenders, enabling procurement staff to access and reference past tenders for future procurement activities
•    The solution should provide the capability to lock a specific version of a templated document to prevent further modifications.
•    The solution should incorporate a feature to facilitate the sending of approval requests, along with the corresponding documents, to designated personnel for approving.
•    The solution should have a mechanism for authorized personnel to confirm their approval (e.g., clicking to confirm, electronically signing, or initialing) of document.
•    The solution should be able to send notifications to relevant personnel when their review or input is needed, as well as when changes are made to the documents, including notifications upon completion of reviews.
•    The solution should enable multiple users to concurrently engage in the review process, allowing them to collaboratively comment, suggest edits, and provide feedback directly on the documents.
•    The solution must include a feature to pause or cancel ongoing projects while retaining all associated data within the software's library or warehouse, allowing for the possibility of resuming the project at a later time.
•    The solution should allow for the uploading of various document types.
•    The solution should have a mechanism for inviting registered vendors to submit proposals for future projects.
•    The solution must facilitate communication with vendors directly via a self-serve portal.
•    The solution must provide a vendor portal for the submission of bid or proposal. 
•    The solution must not impose fees, subscription charges, or similar costs on potential bidders. vendors may create an account and submits bids in the solution without in curing any costs.
•    The vendor portal should be accessible via mobile phones, tablets, and desktop computers.
•    The vendor portal should enable vendors to access and review their historical record of submitted bids and any awarded projects.
•    The solution must not allow vendors to submit their bid until all required documentation and information has been uploaded.
•    The solution should allow agency staff to set up evaluation templates and provide access to online evaluations for our evaluators.
•    The solution should have the ability for procurement staff to send invitations to evaluators to score bids within the system.
•    The solution should incorporate an auto-check feature for standardized vendor documents, such as insurance certificates, to verify critical information like dates and coverage details automatically.
•    The solution should allow the creation of different evaluation groups (e.g., technical, pricing, presentations), with each group having access only to the content relevant to their scoring aspect.
•    The solution should be able to process bid evaluations via automatic bid analysis and other digital evaluation tools.
•    The solution should include track changes and auditability features for all bid evaluation documents.
•    The solution should offer a mechanism for side-by-side comparison of bid evaluations based on multiple criteria (e.g., technical specifications, pricing, rated requirements).
•    The solution should have the capability to export reports and documentation summarizing the evaluation results and decisions.
•    The solution should allow for the identification of prequalified vendors based on defined criteria. e.g., certifications, insurance coverage.
•    The solution must provide the functionality to create contracts from a range of customizable templates.
•    The solution should have the ability to retain all versions of contract revisions and allow users to lock the final version to prevent any further changes.
•    The solution should include a mechanism for iterative and collaborative review and feedback. 
•    The solution should integrate with DocuSign. 
•    The solution should have the ability to import contract information, including vendor data, payment terms, and vendor-related documents.
•    The solution must provide the functionality to upload legacy agreements.
•    The solution should include an auto-population feature for contract fields to minimize manual typing and reduce errors. 
•    The data used for auto-population can be sourced from various places within the solution, awarded proposal documents, vendor profile information, previously entered contract terms, and standard contract clauses.
•    The solution must include a mechanism for creating, storing, and tracking contract amendments, variations, and extensions.
•    The solution should provide capabilities for perpetually storing and accessing all contracts within the system for future reference.
•    The solution should provide mechanisms for documenting contract key performance indicators (KPIS) and milestones, e.g., through a dashboard that visualizes contract timelines and milestones.
•    The solution must incorporate automated reminders or notifications for contract renewals, and expirations.
•    The solution should generate visualizations and offer interactive features, such as an interactive dashboard, to enhance data analysis. 
•    The solution should provide procurement-based reporting and analytic capabilities for the organization.
•    The solution should allow users to add comments or annotations. 
•    The solution must have the capability to export data and reports in MS excel file formats.
•    The solution must track and manage spend, team resource loading, and upcoming project tasks to optimize your procurement processes. 
•    The solution must offer search and filtering options (e.g., by start date, contract value, location, or custom fields) for locating contracts.
•    The solution should facilitate database access for agency.
2. Solution requirements
•    The solution should provide distinct resolution timeframes for issues, determined by their severity levels. 
•    the solution must provide support availability to agency and vendors during regular business hours from 8 am to 5 pm, Monday to Friday (Atlantic time). 
•    The solution should provide support to agency and vendors through ticket channels with two-way communication capability (e.g., via channels such as emails or messages within the solution) between the support staff and users.
•    The solution should offer training materials and help resources (e.g., tutorials, FAQs, and user guides) to assist users in using the solution effectively. 
•    The solution should have procedures for notifying about planned outages or service interruptions. 
3. IT requirements
•    Solution is required to follow the principle of separation of duties ensuring that no single user can perform or control all aspects of a critical business process or function. 
•    Different users perform different tasks or duties for a business function, and each user is granted appropriate privilege.
•    Solution is required to follow the principle of least privilege ensuring that users, accounts, and computing processes have the minimum level of access necessary to perform legitimate and authorized functions. 
•    Users do not have access to information or systems that is not relevant to their roles or responsibilities.
•    Solution is required to allow for regular review and update of user access to ensure that IT is consistent with the current roles and responsibilities of the users. 
•    IT is required to allow for the removing or disabling of user accounts that are no longer needed, inactive, or compromised.
•    Solution should limit the number of concurrent sessions per user and automatically end inactive sessions.
•    Solution is required to record and generate logs for security events, including user authentication, authorization, data access, data modification, data deletion and data export.
•    The cyber security incident response plan should be regularly tested to identify areas for improvements.
•    The province must be notified within 72 hours of any threats, attacks, breaches or other security events related to the product or service in general and the product or service provided to the province in particular.
•    A cyber security incident response plan must be maintained with defined roles and responsibilities, escalation procedures and communication channels, security measures and tools to be used, and recovery and evaluation steps.

- Contract Period/Term: 5 years
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: November 25, 2025