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EUROPEAN COMMISSIONDIRECTORATE-GENERALINFORMATICSInformation systems Directorate

European Commission

Pre-Award e-ProcurementFeasibility Study Update (Phase 2)

e-Invoicing and e-Ordering

Date: 01/07/2013

Version: Phase 2 v1.0

Authors: Pieter Breyne

Cécile Guasch

Marius Andrei Juganaru

Marco Martini

Yvan Van Wynsberghe

Revised by: Didier Thunus

Approved by:

Public: Representatives of:

Commission DGs, EU Institutions, EU Public Administrations

interested in Pre Award solutions

Reference Number:

Commission européenne, B-1049 Bruxelles / Europese Commissie, B-1049 Brussel - Belgium. Telephone: (32-2) 299 11 11.

Commission européenne, L-2920 Luxembourg. Telephone: (352) 43 01-1.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION 5

1.1. BUSINESS CONTEXT AND PROBLEM/OPPORTUNITY STATEMENT 51.1.1. PROPOSAL FOR NEW DIRECTIVE 51.1.2. E-PROCUREMENT AT THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION 61.2. PURPOSE 61.3. SCOPE OF THIS DOCUMENT 71.4. DEFINITIONS, ACRONYMS, AND ABBREVIATIONS 71.5. REFERENCES 111.6. BIBLIOGRAPHY 12

2. BUSINESS ARCHITECTURE 13

2.1. STAKEHOLDERS 132.2. BUSINESS ARCHITECTURAL DRIVERS 142.2.1. BUSINESS GOALS 142.2.1.1. Reduce time to market 142.2.1.2. Facilitate access to the Tendering process 142.2.1.3. Harmonise the Tendering process 142.2.1.4. Support the e-Government programme (Digital Agenda for Europe) and promote e-Procurement (Directive on Public Procurement (2011/0438 (COD)): (and enforced by 2015 inside the Commission)) 152.2.1.5. Easy adoption by Public Administration 152.2.2. BUSINESS CONSTRAINTS 152.3. KEY NEEDS 162.4. BUSINESS PROCESS MODEL 272.4.1. BUSINESS FUNCTIONS PROPOSED FOR AUTOMATION 27

3. PROPOSED APPROACH AND SOLUTION 29

3.1. SOLUTION DESCRIPTION 293.2. APPROACH RATIONALE 403.3. MATURITY MODEL FOR E-TENDERING 433.4. ALIGNMENT WITH BEST PRACTICES FROM MEMBER STATES 433.4.1. INVENTORY OF TOOLS 433.4.2. DECISIONS ON RE-USE AND ALIGNMENT WITH GOLDEN BOOK AND E-TEG RECOMMENDATIONS 433.5. IMPACT ON SUPPLIERS (ECONOMIC OPERATORS) 453.6. IMPACT ON CUSTOMERS (CONTRACTING AUTHORITY) 46

4. INFORMATION SYSTEM OVERVIEW 48

4.1. FUNCTIONAL SUB-SYSTEMS 484.2. SUPPORTED HIGH LEVEL SCENARIOS 494.2.1. HIGH LEVEL FOR OPEN PROCEDURE SUBMISSION (PHASE 1 SCENARIO) 49

Feasibility Study – pre-Award e-Procurement Update (Phase 2) / 90

4.2.2. HIGH LEVEL SCENARIO FOR PROCUREMENT PROCEDURES REQUIRING AN EXCHANGE OF QUALIFICATION INFO DISTINCT FROM THE TENDER EXCHANGE. (PHASE 2 SCENARIO) 494.2.2.1. Business Process Model 504.2.2.2. Make Procedure Public 534.2.2.2.1. Publish Contract Notice (actor: CA) 534.2.2.3. Manage CfT Qualification : filing parameters (actor: CA) 544.2.2.3.1. Consult the Contract Notice (actor: EO) 564.2.2.4. Exchange Qualification 574.2.2.4.1. Create Qualification (actor: EO) 574.2.2.5. Route Qualification (actor: e-PRIOR system) 614.2.2.5.1. Receive Qualification (actor: by CA Back Office system) 624.2.2.5.2. Open Qualification by CA(actor: CA) 634.2.2.5.3. Evaluate Qualification by CA(actor: CA) 674.2.2.6. Exchange Tender 694.2.2.6.1. Prepare list of candidates (actor: CA) 694.2.2.6.2. Invite Candidates to Tender (optional) , actor: CA 714.3. INFORMATION EXCHANGE REQUIREMENTS 734.3.1. CEN/BII PROFILES MAPPED TO APPLICATION MODULES 734.3.1.1. e-Submission 744.3.1.2. e-Awarding 76

5. PLANNING 77

5.1. ASSUMPTIONS AND DEPENDENCIES 775.1.1. ASSUMPTIONS 775.1.1.1. Integration with an e-Access module 775.1.1.2. Coordination of development plans for VCD integration / interoperability 775.1.1.3. Access to a unique identification module 775.1.1.4. Adoption of a unique authorization module 775.1.1.5. Agreement of stakeholders 775.1.1.6. Availability of resources 785.1.2. DEPENDENCIES 785.1.2.1. Dependency on TED / TED e-Tendering 785.1.2.2. Dependency on other related projects 785.1.2.3. OpenPEPPOL: 795.1.2.4. Dependency on release of UBL 2.1 805.1.3. TIMING 81

6. ANNEX 86

6.1. PHASE 1 DESCRIPTION 866.2. STAKEHOLDER INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND INTERACTIONS 886.2.1. PHASE 1 AND GENERAL SCOPE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS 886.2.2. PHASE 2 SCOPE INTERACTIONS WITH STAKEHOLDERS 896.3. PHASE 1 SCENARIOS 906.3.1. CONTRACTING AUTHORITY PART 906.3.1.1. Pilot Presentation for Contracting Authorities 906.3.1.2. User and Operational Procedures Manual for Contracting Authorities 906.3.2. ECONOMIC OPERATOR PART 90


6.3.2.1. Pilot Presentation for Economic Operators 906.3.2.2. User and Operational Procedures Manual for Economic Operators 90

Document History

Version Date Comment Modified Pages

0.01 17/06/2013 Initial draft by Marco MARTINI All pages

0.02 18/06/2013 Included Phase 2 Scenario started by Y. Van WYNSBERGHE and completed by C. Guasch

§4.2.2

0.03 20/06/2013 Review of Phase 2 Scenario by M. Martini §4.2.2

0.03 24/06/2013 Reflect review from D. Thunus All Pages

0.04 25/06/2013 Reflect review from M. Juganaru All Pages

0.05 25/06/2013 Insert Business Functions §2.4.1

0.06 28/06/2013 Business Model Diagrams Updated, Business Function Updated

§4.2.2 and §2.4.1

1.0 01/07/2013 Global reformatting All


1. INTRODUCTION

This document represents an extension of the document "Pre-Award e-Procurement Feasibility Study" produced on July 2012 by the DIGIT B4 unit. It documents the result of the Inception of the Phase 2 of the ePRIOR Pre-Award project.

Some sections contained in the Feasibility Study produced in 2012 that might appear too technical are not contained in this document1. The proposed function of the system will be exposed through a rather extensive description of the business scenario supported by the Phase 2 of the project. Additionally, some sections, which in the 2012 Feasibility Study described proposed functions for modules that in the meantime have been implemented (eSubmission for Open Procedures), have been replaced by the user manual describing how these functions are available in the actual implemented solution.

For this reason the reader does not need to read the document "Pre-Award e-Procurement Feasibility Study" produced on July 2012 before consuming this document.

1.1. Business Context and Problem/Opportunity Statement

1.1.1. Proposal for new Directive In December 2011, DG MARKT proposed a new Directive on public procurement Error: Referencesource not found and in April 2012 the European Commission published a communication setting out a strategy to make the use of e-Procurement mandatory in the EU by mid-2016 Error: Referencesource not found.

These proposals aim at modernizing the public procurement in the European Union, through revision of Directive 2004/17/EC (procurement in the water, energy, transport and postal services sectors) and 2004/18/EC (public works, supply and service contracts), as well as the adoption of a directive on concessions, which were until now only partially regulated at European level.

These legislative proposals to modernise European public procurement adopted by the European Commission in December 2011 (IP/11/1580) set forth a gradual yet ambitious transition towards e-procurement in the EU through the following goals:

Enforcing electronic means of communication for certain phases of the procurement process (electronic notification of Tender opportunities and electronic availability of Tender documents) by mid-2014 (at expected transposition of the revised Directive). European central purchasing bodies will also be required to move to full electronic means of communication, including electronic submission of bids by mid-2014.

Enforcing electronic means of communication for all Contracting Authorities and all procurement procedures by mid-2016, which do not have a central purchasing body (two years after the expected transposition of the revised Directive).

Adopting more detailed provisions to encourage interoperability and standardisation of e-procurement processes.

1.1.2. e-Procurement at the European Commission

1 The Feature List and the Use Case Model and the description of the System interfaces will be produced in the context of the execution of the functional and technical analysis. They can be made available on request.


The above-mentioned communication on the strategy for e-Procurement Error: Reference source notfound also announces that the European Commission itself will move towards full e-procurement by mid-2015 – a full year ahead of the deadline for Member States – and that the Commission will make its e-Procurement solutions available to Member States.

An e-Catalogue gap analysis Error: Reference source not found performed under the e-PRIOR project revealed significant gaps, but also some matches between the pre-award and post-award use of electronic catalogues. One of the conclusions of this study revealed that e-PRIOR can play an important role in the integration of e-Tendering systems with the procurement Back Office systems of public administrations.

Building further on this idea, the ISA programme approved a proposal by DIGIT B4 to extend the scope of the e-PRIOR action; thereby DIGIT B4 will perform this feasibility study on Pre-Award e-Procurement and develop the analysed Pre-Award features, adding onto the existing parts of e-PRIOR.

The result of the development phase will be made available as an open source solution that can be adapted for the use by Public Administrations. However, in order to build a re-usable solution, a concrete implementation will be done taking into account the real business context of the Commission.

For this reason, the feasibility study will take into account not only the TED system, but also the TED e-Tendering solution that has been built by the Publications Office. TED e-Tendering provides an extension to TED, allowing the EU Institutions to publish Call for Tender related documents and to provide answers to questions from potential Tenderers. The Publications Office and DIGIT B4 agreed that DIGIT will take the lead in bridging the gap between TED e-Tendering and the e-PRIOR post-award building blocks, meaning the implementation of the e-Submission and e-Awarding modules.

This feasibility study will also consider how to contribute to building and promoting interoperability solutions for public administrations in Europe.

1.2. Purpose

This document is intended to be read by:

All parties involved in e-Procurement projects, including in particular members of:

o the Publications Office,

o DG MARKT (including e-TEG and e-PWG),

o DIGIT,

o DGs of the European Commission and of other Institutions consulted during the Inception Phase at the end of which this document was produced and

o The ISA Coordination Group.

All staff and contractors engaged in the execution of this project.

For the aspects concerning the respect of the Financial Regulations of the European Commission, DG BUDG has been consulted.

1.3. Scope of this Document


"Pre-Award e-Procurement Feasibility Study" produced on July 2012 by the DIGIT B4 unit. presented on the methodological approach used to define the proposed solution, for Pre Award and defined the business, information system and technical architectures for the proposed Pre-Award e-Procurement system, with a focus on the e-Submission module and in particular for Open Procedures,

This document will focus on the functions that allow to support procurement procedures requiring an exchange of qualification info distinct from the tender exchange.

1.4. Definitions, Acronyms, and Abbreviations The glossary below provides the reader with an overview of terms used in this feasibility study.

Term Description

AP Access Point –A PEPPOL AP is a software service operated by a PEPPOL AP Provider that enables transfer of business documents, such as orders and invoices, over the PEPPOL Transport Infrastructure.

Authentication Proof of identity. To be able to access a website or resource authentication is required via a password or some combination of tokens, biometrics, and passwords.

Authorization The act of granting approval. Authorization to resources or information within an application can be based on simple or complex access control methods.

CA Contracting Authority – State, regional or local authorities, bodies governed by public law, associations formed by one or several of such authorities or one or several of such bodies governed by public law, subject to the European regulatory framework on public procurement.

Call for Tender A call for bids, Call for Tender (CfT) or invitation to Tender (ITT), often called Tender for short, is a special procedure for generating competing offers from different bidders looking to obtain an award of business activity in works, supply, or service contracts.

CAN Contract Award Notice – A document completed by the Contracting Authority and made public after award of a contract.

CAPTCHA A type of challenge-response test used in computing as an attempt to ensure that the response is generated by a person.

CEN European Committee for Standardization

CEN/BII Reference to the CEN Workshop on Business Interoperability Interfaces (www.cenbii.eu)

CEN/BII 2 Reference to phase 2 of CEN/BII

Certification Authority An entity that issues digital certificates.

CfT Call for Tender

CN Contract Notice - A document completed by the Contracting Authority inviting companies to Tender.

CPB Central Purchasing Body


http://www.cenbii.eu/

Term Description

CPV Common Procurement Vocabulary – The CPV consists of a main vocabulary for defining the subject of a contract, and a supplementary vocabulary for adding further qualitative information. The main vocabulary is based on a tree structure comprising codes of up to 9 digits (an 8 digit code plus a check digit) associated with a wording that describes the type of supplies, works or services forming the subject of the contract.

(http://simap.europa.eu/codes-and-nomenclatures/codes-cpv/codes-cpv_en.htm)

Customer Portal A portal through which the Economic Operator can interact with the Contracting Operator.

Decryption To decrypt a protected file is to restore it to its original, unprotected state.

DPS Dynamic Purchasing System

e-Access The publication of all necessary documents pertaining to the procurement on the web. This relates only to general documents, and not to documents that a specific Economic Operator may require (electronic attestations and certificates, e.g. tax attestations).

e-Attestation e-Attestation concerns the use of qualification documents using electronic means, which allows for automation, simplification, transparency or monitoring of supplier qualifications during the qualification and tendering process.

e-Awarding The formalisation and communication of the outcome to the Tenderers using electronic means.

ECAS European Commission Authentication System

e-Catalogues Electronic documents established by suppliers which describe products and prices in a structured manner.

e-Evaluation The partial (i.e. decision support) or entire automation of the assessment of Tenders. Fully automated assessment is by definition only possible if assessment criteria are entirely quantitative (i.e. it does not require subjective appreciation) and clearly defined.

Encryption To encrypt a file is to apply a mathematical function that transforms every character in the file into some other character. Encryption renders the file unreadable. This means no one, including you, can read the file until it is decrypted. Only you and the authorized recipients can decrypt the file.

e-Notification The e-Notification module links with the TED platform, for the official publication of notices, such as prior information notices, contract notices or contract award notices.

EO Economic Operator – Generic term for a contractor, supplier or service provider in a public procurement. The terms "contractor", "supplier" and "service provider" mean any natural or legal person or public entity or group of such persons and/or bodies which offers on the market, respectively, the execution of works and/or a work, products or services.

e-PRIOR Electronic Procurement, Ordering and Invoicing – e-Procurement


http://simap.europa.eu/codes-and-nomenclatures/codes-cpv/codes-cpv_en.htm

http://simap.europa.eu/codes-and-nomenclatures/codes-cpv/codes-cpv_en.htm

Term Description

suite developed by DIGIT to be used by the European Commission and its suppliers; today only in a post-award context.

e-Procurement A public procurement initiated, negotiated and/or concluded using electronic means, i.e. using electronic equipment for the processing and storage of data, in particular through the Internet.

e-Submission The submission of Tenders online.

e-TEG e-Tendering Expert Group - The European Commission has set up an informal expert group to develop a blue-print for common e-Tendering/e-Submission solutions. See http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/e-procurement/expert/index_en.htm.

e-Tendering Overarching electronic public procurement process covering all the Pre-Award phases (e-Notification, e-Access, e-Submission, e-Attestation, e-Evaluation, e-Awarding etc.).

e-Qualification The handling of electronic attestations, which are documents originating from a party other than the Economic Operator, intended to demonstrate a quality or fact pertaining to the Economic Operator (e.g. administrative or financial qualification). e-Qualification also concerns requests for clarification and short list management.

FRA Fundamental Rights Agency (EU Agency) based in Vienna

IAM Identity and Access Management

JoinUp A collective platform created by the European Commission to provide services in helping e-Government professionals share their experience with interoperability solutions and support them to find, choose re-use, develop, and implement open source software and semantic interoperability assets.

Non-repudiation The inability to deny having signed a transaction or file. Transactions cannot be repudiated through notarization.

OJS Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union

OP Office des Publications/ Publication Office

Open e-PRIOR Open source version of e-PRIOR, which can be re-used by Member States' public administrations.

PEPPOL Pan-European Public Procurement Online – By joining national e-Procurement platforms and connecting e-Procurement communities on a standardised backbone, PEPPOL aims at re-moving technical and procedural barriers to public procurement and enable European businesses to deal electronically with any public buyers in their procurement processes. This gives companies (especially SMEs) access to a vast public procurement market, resulting in increased opportunities for businesses, greater efficiencies and lower costs. (www.peppol.eu)

PIN Prior Information Notice

Pre-Award phases Public procurement phases taking place before and including the awarding of a contract.


http://www.peppol.eu/

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/e-procurement/expert/index_en.htm

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/e-procurement/expert/index_en.htm

Term Description

PKI Public Key Infrastructure - A system that provides the basis for establishing and maintaining a trustworthy networking environment through the generation and distribution of keys and certificates. This is also the foundation technology for providing enhanced Internet security.

Public Procurement A procedure initiated by a Contracting Authority with a view of acquiring goods, services or public works for the fulfilment of its tasks.

Request to Participate Sent by an economic operator to the CA to request participation.

The Request to participate is implemented under the form of a Qualification document that contains all required information.

SSL Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) - A secure session protocol used to maintain data confidentiality only between Web browsers and Web servers. This is a fundamental component of basic Internet security.

Supplier Portal A portal through which the Contracting Authority can interact with the Economic Operator.

TCM Tender and Contract Management tool developed by FRA.

TED Tenders Electronic Daily – TED is a website providing access to the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union (OJS). Public procurement notices are published on TED (http://ted.europa.eu) and Economic Operators can browse them looking for business opportunities.

TED e-Tendering TED e-Tendering is the e-Access module developed by the Publication Office, to be used by EU Institutions. It is an extension of TED and gives access to Call for Tenders related documentation, such as Contractual documentation, technical specifications, annexes, questions and answers.

Tender A Tender is an offer to do or perform an act which the party offering, is bound to perform to the party to whom the offer is made.

Tender Bundle Group of electronic documents prepared in response to a Call for Tender.

Timestamping Trusted timestamping is the process of securely keeping track of the creation and modification time of a document. Security here means that no one — not even the owner of the document — should be able to change it once it has been recorded provided that the integrity of the timestamp is never compromised.

Two-step submission procedure

Instead of submitting the actual Tender or qualification documents, a representation or digest of those documents is submitted from the Economic Operator to the Contracting Authority. Error: Reference source not found

Two-step market procedure

In the two-step market procedures with limited invited Candidates, a request for Tendering must be received before the Call for Tender bundle, including Tender specifications for instance, can be viewed. Error: Reference source not found


http://ted.europa.eu/

Term Description

VCD Virtual Company Dossier – The e-Attestation solution from PEPPOL.

XML Extensible Markup Language - a markup language that defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C.

1.5. References

Reference Document

[0] "Pre-Award e-Procurement Feasibility Study" produced on July 2012 by the DIGIT B4 unit

[1] New Legislative Proposal for revision of Directive 2004/17/EC (procurement in the water, energy, transport and postal services sectors) and 2004/18/EC (public works, supply and service contracts)

[2] CEN/ISSS WS/BII Informative Report - Tender Submission (2009)

[3] CEN/ISSS WS/BII BII11 – Qualification PROFILE DRAFT v2.0.4 (2012)

[4] CEN/ISSS WS/BII BII11 – Tendering Simple PROFILE DRAFT v2.0.5 (2012)

[5] WTO: Uruguay Round Agreement on Government Procurement (currently under review at WTO: 2010)

[6] Vade-Mecum on Public Procurement in the Commission

[7] DIRECTIVE 2004/18/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on the coordination of procedures for the award of public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts

See Annex X - Requirements relating to equipment for the electronic receipt of Tenders, requests to participate and plans and projects in design contests

[8] European Commission eGovernment Programme

[9] COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF REGIONS. A strategy for e-procurement. (20/04/2012)

[10]E

e-Catalogue Gap analysis by DG MARKT (2010)

[11] Financial Regulation and implementing rules applicable to the general budget of the European Communities

[12] Harvard University - Best Current Practice: Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels (1997)

[13] Annex 4 TBC


http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt

http://ec.europa.eu/budget/library/biblio/documents/regulations/syn_pub_rf_modex_en.pdf

http://ec.europa.eu/budget/library/biblio/documents/regulations/syn_pub_rf_modex_en.pdf

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=e-catalogue%20gap%20analysis%20dg%20markt&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CFsQFjAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fjoinup.ec.europa.eu%2Fsystem%2Ffiles%2Fe-Catalogues%2520GAP%2520analysis%2520v1.0.pdf&ei=RYHhT-voF8jo-gaU1syeAw&usg=AFQjCNGTCVzMgJ99ACJnQemALM6PGyjH7g&cad=rja

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/docs/eprocurement/strategy/COM_2012_en.pdf



http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/egovernment/index_en.htm

http://www.procurement.ie/sites/default/files/Directive%202004-18-EC.pdf



http://www.cc.cec/budg/imp/procurement/_doc/vm/vade-mecum-public-procurement-bookmarked-en.pdf

http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/gpr-94_01_e.htm

http://www.cenbii.eu/wp-content/uploads/Profile-BII2-12-Tendering-simple.doc

http://www.cenbii.eu/wp-content/uploads/Profile-BII2-12-Tendering-simple.doc

http://www.cenbii.eu/wp-content/uploads/Profile-BII2-11-Qualification.doc

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=cen%2Fisss%20ws%2Fbii%20-%20tender%20submission%20%E2%80%93%206.1.3&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CFYQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cen.eu%2Fcwa%2Fbii%2Fspecs%2FTools%2Fdocuments%2FBII3-G-TenderSubmission_d10.doc&ei=g0CyT4iSMcur-QaWv-TdCA&usg=AFQjCNHIURPaKxWwb3tSWIxbWsoccrMpkw&cad=rja

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/modernising_rules/reform_proposals_en.htm



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W3C

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine-readable

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-readable_medium

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_format

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markup_language

A

[14] Contract Award Notice: study on e-procurement measurement and benchmarking 2012/S 25-039715

1.6. Bibliography

Reference Document

[1] DG MARKT – Pages on Public Procurement and e-Procurement

[2] ISA Programme

[3] Evaluation Action Plan (2010) – Background study from Siemens

[4] Electronic Catalogues in Electronic Public Procurement by DG Internal Markets

[5] Europroc Public Procurement (see Innovate procurement, Green and Social procurement, and e-Procurement)

[6] Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on public procurement - Cluster 4: E-procurement

[7] Directive of the European Parliament and of the Councilon public procurement (see annex IV - requirements relating to devices for the electronic receipt of Tenders, requests for participation and plans and projects in contests)

[8] Requirements for conducting public procurement using electronic means under the new public procurement Directives 2004/18/EC and 2004/17/EC

[9] CEN/ISSS WS/BIIxx - Guideline BII2 Tendering v0.11 (2012)


http://www.cenbii.eu/wp-content/uploads/Guideline-BII2-Tendering.doc

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/docs/eprocurement/sec2005-959_en.pdf

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/docs/eprocurement/sec2005-959_en.pdf

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2011:0896:FIN:EN:PDF

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2011:0896:FIN:EN:PDF

http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/12/st06/st06575.en12.pdf

http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/12/st06/st06575.en12.pdf

http://www.europroc.eu/en/deliverables/guides-on-public-procurement/4/

https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/CITnet/confluence/display/EPROCUREMENT/Experience+at+the+Commission

https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/CITnet/confluence/display/EPROCUREMENT/Experience+at+the+Commission

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/consultations/docs/2010/e-procurement/siemens-study_en.pdf

http://ec.europa.eu/isa

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/index_en.htm

http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/internal_market/docs/calls/2011/can_2011-097-c_en.pdf

http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/internal_market/docs/calls/2011/can_2011-097-c_en.pdf

2. BUSINESS ARCHITECTURE

2.1. Stakeholders

The following stakeholder types have been identified:

Stakeholder Description

Economic Operator

The terms ‘contractor’, ‘supplier’ and ‘service provider’ refer to any natural or legal person or public entity or consortium of such persons and/or bodies which offers to execute works, supply products and provide services respectively. The terms ‘Economic Operator’ covers ‘contractors’, ‘suppliers’ and ‘service providers’ etc.

Consortium A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal.

Tenderer Economic Operators who have submitted a Tender are referred to as ‘Tenderers’.

Candidates Economic Operators who have asked to be allowed to take part in a restricted procedure, a competitive dialogue, or a negotiated procedure are referred to as ‘Candidates’.

Contracting Authority

State, regional or local authorities, bodies governed by public law, associations formed by one or several of such authorities or one or several of such bodies governed by public law, subject to the European regulatory framework on public procurement.

Joint Procurement Authority

It is an authority combining the procurement actions of two or more Contracting Authorities. The key defining characteristic is that there should be only one Tender published on behalf of all participating authorities.

European Commission

In the context of this study the European Commission is considered a Contracting Authority and it is the main key stakeholder in this feasibility study given the business context (refer to section 1.1.2 e-Procurement at theEuropean Commission).

Other EU Institutions and Agencies

Other EU Institutions and Agencies may be interested to this study in view of an adoption of the proposed solution. Some EU Institutions have already adopted or are evaluating the adoption e-PRIOR for the Post Award business chain (e.g.: eInvoicing, eOrdering) , the support of the Pre Award business process chain would provide a natural complement.


2.2. Business Architectural Drivers

2.2.1. Business Goals The following goals have been identified as general needs for all stakeholders.

2.2.1.1. Reduce time to market

Electronic means of communication increase efficiency in public procurement by reducing the time required to complete regulatory procurement processes. For instance, the Vade-Mecum on Public Procurement Error: Reference source not found states that the receipt of Tenders by Contracting Authorities can be reduced from 52 days to 47 days after the dispatch of the contract notice, if there is electronic access to Tender documents.

Expedited communication between the Contracting Authority and Tenderers ensures that the Tender documents published remain up to date and true to the procurement needs of the Contracting Authority. Risks on price volatility are lowered through shorter Tender submission periods.

In order to reach the maximum potential of an electronic procurement solution, the pre-award solution should minimize the amount of manual data entry and to avoid hybrid workflows where e.g. electronic documents are printed on paper for processing, after which they are again scanned to electronic versions for further filing or processing.

The increased efficiency in terms of time to market and electronic workflows translate into higher productivity of the public purchasing authority, which is able to process a higher number of procurement procedures without increasing administrative effort. Overall, this business goal contributes to the achievement of a more efficient market response.

2.2.1.2. Facilitate access to the Tendering processVarious Economic Operators of European Union Member States have already built systems to support pre-award electronic procurement. Despite the WTO's efforts to open market access to international Tendering opportunities through its global agreement on public procurement Error: Reference sourcenot found, most of these national solutions are not interconnected and their contents are not known by actors outside of their domestic markets.

Given the current state of e-procurement, the goal is to establish an interoperability framework for exchanging documents in the context of pre-award e-procurement. This means that any Economic Operator can use their local e-procurement portal as a structured communication channel with any Contracting Authority connected to the interoperable e-procurement network via an access point. Connecting local e-procurement portals to the interoperability platform ensures preservation of existing e-procurement platforms and compliance with country specific regulations. As a result, facilitating access to the Tendering process will naturally increase competition among Tenderers.

2.2.1.3. Harmonise the Tendering processEnabling the electronic exchange of structured pre-award messages will further harmonize the Tendering processes, which are already streamlined by the Commission Directive 2004/18/EC Error:Reference source not found to ease the interaction between procurement actors. The harmonization of Tender processes also reduces the effort required to answer a Call for Tender and it minimizes the changes of mistakes that can potentially lead to the exclusion of a Tender.


2.2.1.4. Support the e-Government programme (Digital Agenda for Europe) and promote e-Procurement (Directive on Public Procurement (2011/0438 (COD)): (and enforced by 2015 inside the Commission))

The EU funded eGovernment programme Error: Reference source not found aims at boosting Europe’s competitiveness by promoting the use of ICT tools and systems to provide improved public services to citizens and businesses more cost-effectively at a time of budget constraints. An interoperable e-procurement system would allow the Commission to lead by example in the implementation of a smart eGovernment solution that would help Europe cooperate in the development and deployment of streamlined cross-border e-procurement services. Such a system would also facilitate information sharing and simplify interaction with the Commission, thereby empowering users and improving the efficiency, effectiveness and transparency of the Commission procurement activities.

On a similar note, the proposal for the new Public Procurement Directive Error: Reference source notfound aims to promote e-procurement in Member States by imposing the adoption of electronic communication and the availability of the procurement documents in electronic form in all procurement procedures within a transition period of two years. DIGIT’s pre-award solution will support this initiative and enable Contracting Authorities to prevent, detect and correct errors generally due to misunderstanding or wrongful interpretation of public procurement rules.

2.2.1.5. Easy adoption by Public AdministrationThe adoption by Public Administration would be facilitated by the availability of a solution having a high degree of independence from other applications (“self-contained” solution, see section 3.2 Approach Rationale).

2.2.2. Business Constraints Business constraints arising from legal aspects strongly drive the solution in the areas of:

Security, confidentiality and non-repudiation; and

Equality of treatment.

Relevant sources for legal constraints are the new directive on Public Procurement (2011/0438 (COD)), the Financial Regulation of the European Commission Error: Reference source not found and the Vade-Mecum of Public Procurement Error: Reference source not found. The new Directive on Public Procurement mentions some key dates, which are binding for public administrations with regards to the implementation of electronic procurement. Article 19(1) of the Directive states that Member States shall ensure that at the latest 2 years after the date provided for in Article 92(1), all procurement procedures under this Directive are to be performed using electronic means of communication, in particular e-submission, in accordance with the requirements of this Article (i.e. by 2016 the latest).

The adoption of an interoperability model is another element that sets conditions for the proposed architecture. While this model provides for the opening of the public procurement market to Service Providers across Member States, it amplifies the importance of security requirements due to the distributed character of the solution and allows the Service Providers to play a key role.


2.3. Key Needs

The table hereafter summarises the main Needs identified for Qualification management.

In the column "Source" Tbr41-xxx references identify CEBN BII data requirements for eQualification. "business process" indicates Needs derived from the analysis of the business process.

NEED ID Name Requirement description Source

NEED194Identification of an economic operator

The economic operator MUST be able to include all information necessary for identification: Name, Party Identification, Endpoint ID. tbr41-001

NEED195Contact information of economic operator

The economic operator SHOULD be able to include contact information: Postal address, telephone number, fax number, e-Mail address, contact person(s). tbr41-002

NEED196 Cross border Qualification

The economic operator MUST be able to define his country of registration. The country of registration is needed to identify relevant evidences and the legal domain of evidence provision. tbr41-003

NEED197 Role of economic operator The role of each economic operator MUST be known tbr41-007

NEED198 Tender structureThe tenderer structure MAY consist of one or more economic operators, each maybe having sub-contractors, which in turn may have further sub-contractors and so on. tbr41-004

NEED200 Contracting Authority

The contracting authority MUST be identified, hence information about the party are

required, such as party name, identification, endpoint id. tbr41-010



NEED201 Traceability

The document MUST contain a reference to the call for tender, i.e. URL to the notification platform and the call for tender ID, which defines the requirements (i.e. criteria) for which this document is created and submitted by the economic operator. It SHOULD be possible to maintain this information in order to keep track of the connection between request (call for tender) and response (this qualification document) tbr41-012

NEED202 Proof of pre-qualification

The economic operator SHOULD be able to include information about enrolment in an official list of approved economic operators indicating the classification in this list for the suitability to do certain works or provide certain services. tbr41-021

NEED203Criteria of qualitative selection

The Economic Operator MUST be able to prove his compliance to the criteria of qualitative selection defined in the Call for Tender.

tbr41-016,tbr41-017,tbr41-018,tbr41-019

NEED204Structured evidence for automated evaluation

The qualification document MAY contain structured information describing the content of included evidence. This is essential for automatic evaluation of criteria and provided evidences. This structured information SHOULD reflect information about what the given evidence proves with respect to the requested requirements expressed in the criteria tbr41-025

NEED205Qualification ID and Issue time

The qualification document SHOULD have an ID and reflect the date and time when de qualification document has been issued. br41-026



NEED206 Versioning

The qualification document SHOULD allow to include a VersionID to the Qualification Document. The VersionID helps to identify the status of subsystems that have supported the creation of a Qualification Document. It is needed to trace changes that have occurred. tbr41-027

NEED207

Issuing body of qualification and evidence document

The qualification document MAY reflect information about the issuing body of the qualification document itself.

The qualification document MAY reflect information about the issuing body of the evidences or additional documents. tbr41-028, tbr41-029



NEED208 Digital signature

The qualification document SHALL be capable of being signed and containing the signature information for later verification. All information required to validate the digital signature need to be included, such as signature method, signature certificate, etc.

For every economic operator, in case the document is signed, it SHOULD be possible to verify the power of attorney of the signers of the document. If the document is signed, then this is done by an authorized representative of the company, in this case having the power of attorney. The signature certificate of that person needs to be included in order to verify the signature.

The qualification document SHOULD contain information about the validation / verification of signatures of a (signed) document that has been attached to it. If the qualification document / VCD contains signed documents, it should be possible in these cases to include information about the result of verification of the signatures in case they are already validated during creation time of the qualification document, i.e. the time when a signed document is included into the qualification document

tbr41-030, tbr41-031, tbr41-032, business process



NEED213

Application of selection and exclusion criteria by evidence received prior to the call

The selected applicants for a shortlist associated to a call for expression of interest SHOULD send their latest balance sheet and profit-and-loss accounts every year.

Rationale:Given that a company's economic and financial situation can change very rapidly, it could be useful, as part of the procedure for managing the list produced in response to a call for expressions of interest, for the selected applicants to send in their latest balance sheet and profit-and-loss accounts every year or to check their economic and financial situation against the selection criteria set out in the call for expressions of interest on the basis of their latest accounts. Business process

NEED214Principle of a central exclusion database

Share the central exclusion database among institutions. The central exclusion database SHOULD also be used by the European Central Bank, the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund to protect funds. Business process

NEED215

Optional waiving of declaration on honour regarding non-exclusion

The institution MAY decide not to exclude an Economic Operator even if declaration on honour regarding non-exclusion is not provided.RationalePossibility to derogate from automatic exclusion in order to ensure the continuity of service of the institution (Article 93 Financial Regulation): in case of a negotiated procedure where, for technical or artistic reasons, or for reasons connected with the protection of exclusive rights, the institution may decide not to exclude an Economic Operator if this is indispensable. Business process



NEED244Identification of a Natural Person

The economic operator SHOULD be able to name a natural person and to include all the personal information necessary for identifying this natural person (e.g. Identifier, name, nationality, address, place of birth, date of birth). The natural person takes a specific role in the company in the qualification phase. Natural persons have to proof suitability with certain criteria if they have a particular role in the company (e.g. authorized representative) tbr41-006

NEED246Natural Person with Power of attorney

If there is a person having the power of attorney, i.e. legal support to sign contracts for the company, this person needs (MUST) to be stated specifically. This requirement is specifically important and relevant for the signature of the qualification document and its verification. tbr41-008

NEED247Country of registration for Natural Persons

The economic operator MUST be able to include the country in which the natural person is registered. The country of registration is needed to identify relevant evidences and the legal domain of evidence provision. The country of registration is in particular relevant when it is different to the nationality of the person in order to let economic operators and contracting authorities identify/verify evidences provided for the natural person. tbr41-009



NEED248Contracting Authority contact information

The qualification document SHOULD contain contact information of the contracting

authority: Postal address, telephone number, fax number, eMail address, contact person(s). tbr41-011

NEED251Reuse of the Call for Tender data

The economic operator MAY be able to reuse as much information from the call for tender as possible when elaborating the qualification document. It may be possible to define the criteria information (among other things) in the call for tender in a structured way that can be imported into the qualification document. This requirement very much relies on the alignment of Call for Tender and Qualification data models. tbr41-014

NEED252 Procurement lots

The document MAY contain information about the procurement lots defined in a call for tender and define for each economic operator, which lot he is applying to. If the contract described in the call for tender is divided into different lots, the economic operator should be possible to state for which specific lot he is applying. tbr41-015

NEED254 Additional documentation

The economic operator SHOULD be able to supplement and clarify the certificates and documents submitted, when requested in the call for tender, i.e. he needs to be able to include any additional documents that are not classified as evidences that prove specific criteria. 2004/18/EU Art. 51 tbr41-020



NEED256 Evidences

The economic operator MUST be able to attach evidence documents and certificates which prove his compliance to the requested criteria defined in the call for tender. These evidence documents or additional information allow the contracting authority to evaluate the compliance of the economic operator to the criteria of qualitative selection defined in the call for tender.

The qualification document MUST reflect the connection between a criterion and the evidence that has been attached to prove compliance to it and vice versa, i.e. it has to contain cross-references between criteria and evidences. One evidence may prove fulfilment of several legal or specific requirements (i.e. the criteria) established in the call for tenders.

The qualification document MUST contain a reference to the requirements in the call for tender for every evidence document contained in the qualification document. All the requirements for tenderers specified in the call for tender should be answered in the qualification documents. Therefore it would be very useful to keep a reference to these requirements in the documents provided by the tenderer

tbr41-022,tbr41-023,tbr41-024



NEED258Fast encoding of qualification data

User friendly tool allowing fast encoding of data (e.g. copy section of qualification). It SHOULD also allow for consolidating information from different sources (e.g. VCD). Business process

NEED260 Centralized DB for parties

A centralized DB SHOULD be implemented where all parties are stored for different market procedures in order to allow for re-using validation that has already been made for other market procedures. Business process

NEED261Facilitate interoperable qualification

A content model of the transactions that can be used by different procurement platforms or portals SHOULD be used, so that these platforms as well as procurement systems of Economic Operators and Contracting Authority are based on the same information and process models, which makes them more interoperable. Business process

NEED262Qualification Reception Notification

Send a Qualification Reception Notification in case the qualification is sent only without the Tender. The document MUST have its own ID, date and time of submission and name or identification of its sender and receiver, MUST refer to the Qualification document that was received and MUST state the date and time the Qualification was received. The Qualification Reception Notification MUST NOT give an assessment on completeness or validity of the Qualification.The receipt MUST be delivered to the right EO.

tbr42-001,tbr42-002,tbr42-003,tbr42-004,tbr42-005

NEED263 Qualification IntegrityIt MUST be possible to check the integrity of the received Qualification document, e.g. by quoting a signature. tbr42-007

NEED266

Qualification data consistency vis-a-vis Call for Tender

In order to avoid any inconsistencies in the Qualification, the Qualification MUST be built with the latest version of the Call for Tender (incl. corrigendum). Business process



NEED267

Composition of the envelope sent to the Contracting Authority

The EO MUST be able to see what is the content of the envelope that he sent to the CA Business process

NEED268 End-to-end confidentiality

The Qualification MUST be kept confidential both during the sending (external confidentiality), and in some cases after the opening (internal confidentiality). The means of ensuring confidentiality must be different in both cases (2 keys) Business process

NEED269 Qualification sent dateThe sent date of the qualification MUST be inalterable, as it is the proof that it was sent on time. Business process

NEED270 Qualification recipientThe qualification MUST be delivered to the right Contracting Authority, as defined in the Call for Tender. Business process

NEED271 Opening of Qualification

The Qualification MUST be assigned to a CfT + lot so that it is possible to count how many qualifications have been received per CfT/Lot before opening and list all the qualifications received for a CfT / Lot at opening. The opening of received qualifications for Call for Expression of Interest or DPS SHOULD require fewer formalities. Business process

NEED272 Opening Report An opening report MUST be generated at the end of the opening. Business process

NEED273 Notify evaluation board

A qualification evaluation board MUST be appointed for evaluating the qualification. When a qualification is open, the board MUST be informed that a qualification is to be evaluated. Business process

NEED274Qualification Evaluation Result + Shortlist

The evaluation board MUST be able to encode the Qualification Evaluation Result. Based on the result, the shortlist is created and managed Business process


NEED ID Name Requirement description SourceNEED275 Search for shortlist The shortlist MUST be searchable by CPV code, by lot, by CfT Business processNEED276 View qualification The qualification metadata MUST be viewable Business process

NEED277Restrict access to CfT based on shortlist Only shortlisted EOs SHOULD be able to have access to the CfT Business process

NEED278Inform EO of qualification evaluation The EO MUST be kept informed of the result of the evaluation of their qualification Business process

NEED279 Filing of QualificationIt SHOULD be possible to define how the qualification is to be filed (storage location, Document Management System etc..,). Business process


2.4. Business Process Model

The Processes and the activities implementing the procurement procedures requiring exchange of qualifications are represented in a series of diagrams produced with the ARIS tool.

The Model is composed by a “Level 1” diagram representing the “Pre-Award Qualification Value Added Chain”

Processes represented in the Level 1 diagram are detailed in Level 2 diagrams. Level 3 diagrams further details activities contained in processes composing Level 2 diagrams.

In order to facilitate the reading the various diagrams have been inserted in the section " 4.2.2 HighLevel Scenario for Procurement Procedures requiring an exchange of qualification info distinct fromthe tender exchange. (Phase 2 Scenario)"

2.4.1. Business Functions Proposed for Automation The analysis of the business processes around qualification identified business functions whose automation would enable the electronic exchange of qualification and facilitate the process.

From the Business analysis executed to support the procurement procedures requiring an exchange of qualification info distinct from the tender exchange the following Business Function proposed for automation have been identified:

e-Qualification FO Core belongs to Supplier Portal

supports Check CfT Version

supports Check Qualification Form Integrity and authenticity

supports Create or Update Qualification

supports Search and Open local existing qualification

supports Import common sections

supports View New qualification

supports Check Qualification

supports Consolidate Qualification

supports Send Bundle

supports Receive Qualification Receipt Confirmation

supports Receive Tenderer Qualification Response

supports View Pre award Inbox

supports View Qualification Receipt Confirmation

supports View Tenderer Qualification Response

supports View Tender Receipt Confirmation

e-Prior supports Route Qualification

e-Qualification BO Core belongs to e-Procurement suite

supports Enter CfT Qualification filing parameters


supports Check Qualification

supports Create Qualification Reception confirmation

supports Generate Qualification opening report

supports Get Qualification Bundle

supports Manage CfT Qualification metadata

supports Receive encrypted QualificationBundle

supports Receive Qualification

supports Send Qualification Reception Confirmation

supports Store Qualification

supports Generate Tenderer Qualification Response

supports Send Tenderer Qualification Response

supports View list of stored qualifications

supports View Pre award Inbox

supports View Qualification

e-Evaluation satellite belongs to e-Procurement suite

supports Enter Qualification Evaluation result

supports Generate positive Qualification Response

supports Generate negative Qualification response

supports Send Qualification response

e-Submission BO Core belongs to e-Procurement suite

supports Get QualificationResponse reference

supports Update CfT with Qualification Response reference

supports Check QualificationResponse Reference in tender

Encryption Key Management tool belongs to e-Procurement suite

belongs to Supplier Portal

supports Get Public Encryption Key

supports Decrypt Bundle

supports Encrypt Bundle

supports Get CfT Private Key


3. PROPOSED APPROACH AND SOLUTION

3.1. Solution Description

The proposed solution consists of the provision of a self-contained open source information system for public administrations bridging the gap between the e-Access process and the post-award processes; hence completing the e-Tendering process. This self-contained solution will be composed of:

(*) The modules marked with an asterisk (*) can be a "satellite" for the Open Source version or "Complementary" for the European Commission implementation.

"Core" modules covering the data exchange aspects in line with the CEN BII 2 specifications.

"Satellite" modules replacing the Back Office functionalities for the public administrations that do not necessarily have these functional components available in their environment.

"Complementary" modules that are already implemented and with which our solution will have to interact.


While the "core" modules are going to be fully implemented throughout phased and iterative development cycles, the "satellites" modules will provide minimal functionalities. Both the "core" and "complementary" modules interoperate with "satellite" modules. They are meant to be “default” building blocks that are candidate to be replaced, in the deployment phase, by the real Back Office systems probably available in the specific environments of the public administrations adopting the proposed solution.

The ‘glue’ between the various modules described above will be implemented via interfaces that will allow a loosely coupled solution making it easy to replace the satellite modules with the real Back Office systems.

IMPORTANT:

Since the priority is to be given to the development of the "core" modules:

1. the decision to actually develop some "satellite" modules will be taken during the execution of the action when tackling each phase on the basis of the available resource.

2. The level of interoperability between the "core" modules of the proposed solution could be initially basic (e.g.: "offline" interaction requiring the user intervention to "bridge" the info between "core" and "complementary" modules). The decision to implement more sophisticated and automated interfaces might be during the execution of the action on the basis of the available resources.

The main focus will be the Procurement domain. However, in line with the ISA objectives, further phases of this action will analyse the extensibility of some of the elements of the proposed solution to other business sectors different than "Procurement" (e.g. e-Submission of patents). A macro plan is provided in section Error: Reference source not found.

The target functional scope in terms of processes or sub-processes for the Procurement domain can be considered as covered by a number of "vertical" modules,

There are also a number of cross-process functionalities wrapped in modules to be interfaced with the core modules

The table hereafter gives the list of these modules together with the description and the type / classification.


Module Name Description Type (Core / Satellite/ Complementary) Classification (Vertical / Cross Process)

Prepare The Prepare module will be the starting point of the e-Tendering process where the market procedures and related documents are being prepared. These documents include notices such as prior information notice or contract notice, but also the Call for Tenders and its annexes. This is one of the "satellite modules" and could be part of any Tender and Contract Management tool, serving as e-Tendering Back Office tool for Contracting Authorities.

This module is responsible for the Call for Tender master data including:

defining the selection and exclusion criteria when preparing a Call for Tender

setting the Opening and Evaluation Committees. It can start with the planning of the Call for Tender and stops when the publication process starts. It is not mandatory for the e-Submission module.

Satellite

In principle a "basic" solution will be provided. For the provision of an Open Source version of the solution the TCM system from the Fundamental Rights Agency will be analysed and evaluated both from a functional and technical point of view to assess the possibility to re-use / adapt it to provide a "satellite" Back Office module. Apart the Tender Preparation functions, TCM might cover the Tender Evaluation functions.

Complementary

For the European Commission environment the PPMT solution provided by the Joint Research Centre has been identified as the Back Office Commission Corporate solution. In this context it will be considered as a "complementary" module.

Vertical

e-Access The e-Access module allows Contracting Authorities publishing their calls for Tenders and technical specifications. This module allows also answering to questions from Economic Operators.

It may be integrated with the prepare module (if / when available) and must be integrated with the e-Submission Back Office module to gather Tender templates and encryption key.

On the Economic Operator side, this module is responsible for giving access to Call for Tender specifications and

Complementary

It is currently covered by the Publications Office's TED e-Tendering solution. TED e-Tendering initially supported the open procedure only; however the Publications Office, in parallel with the Phase 2 of this project plans to support 2 steps procedures in the near future.

The Publications Office is going to cover also other EU Institutions but at present no plans are available for an open source solution. For this reason the proposed Pre-

Vertical



possibility to ask for questions and receive answers to the Call for Tender. It is integrated with the e-Submission and e-Qualification module for Economic Operators willing to participate to a Call for Tender.

Award solution assumes that an “e-Access like” module is available in the target environment of the public administrations adopting it.

In future Phases (not yet planned) the provision of an open source version of an e-Access "satellite" module might be foreseen in coordination with the Publications Office.

e-Submission The e-Submission module allows Economic Operators to respond to Call for Tenders by preparing their Tenders in a structured and secured way, and submitting their Tenders. The e-Access module should be the starting point for launching the e-Submission module.

On the Contracting Authority side, this module is responsible for generating the necessary templates and encryption key, and to securely open the received Tenders.

Core

The e-Submission module represents one of core elements of the proposed solution.

Vertical

e-Qualification The e-Qualification module, which can be plugged into the process to interoperate with the e-Submission module in order to handle the administrative, technical and financial qualification of the Tenderers.

This module is responsible for exchanging Economic Operators identification, exclusion and selection data.

It will also provide an easy way to prepare and/or view the Qualification documents whenever the convergence with the VCD e-Attestation solution provided by OpenPEPPOL is achieved.

Core

This module is responsible for exchanging and rendering qualification data for performing identification, exclusion and selection of economic operators. It will also provide an interface to the e-Evaluation "satellite” module for the Evaluation of the Qualifications in order to fulfil the Short List management needs. See also e-Evaluation.

Vertical

e-Attestation The e-Attestation module allows the Economic Operator to handle and transmit to the Contracting Authority the

Complementary Cross Process



evidences (associated to the selection and exclusion criteria) to be provided for a Call for Tender.

The Contracting Authority can use e-Attestation to check that the received evidences correspond to the selection and exclusion criteria associated to a Call for Tender.

An e-Attestation solution should help the Economic Operators and the Contracting Authorities for the cross country aspects.

Exchange of Attestations is not only required at the moment of the submission of Qualification info but also in later phases of Pre Award (e.g.: just before Awarding when self-declarations have to be replaced by actual attestations), and even Post Award in the cases where the Contracting Authority requires its Suppliers to re-send the evidences on a regular basis..

The VCD2 e-Attestation solution provided by Open PEPPOL is the selected set of tools that are candidate supported in the e-PRIOR Pre Award solution (interoperability mechanisms are being discussed between the Open PEPPOL and the e-PRIOR team at the moment of the drafting of this document).

The e-Certis3 system is another complementary element, partially overlapping with some VCD tools (the European VCD system). It is an information tool which helps to identify and recognise the certificates and attestations that are most commonly requested in the context of procurement procedures of the different Member States.

e-Evaluation The e-Evaluation module provides tools to support the evaluation of Tenders and Qualifications by the Contracting Authority. This module covers typical Back Office functionalities and ideally should provide also automatic evaluation of Tenders for best price selection mode. It uses information from the e-Submission/e-Qualification Back Offices or the e-Catalogue.

Satellite

The proposed solution will provide a satellite module, which will allow registering the results of the evaluation, but, depending on the possible re-use of the evaluation functions implemented in the TCM application of the FRA Agency, a more sophisticated solution might be provided.

Vertical

2 VCD solution is described at http://project.peppol.eu/peppol_components/virtual-company-dossier/virtual-company-dossier. A brochure describing it is available at http://project.peppol.eu/peppol_components/virtual-company-dossier/VCD%20International%20Marketing%20Brochure.pdf

3 The e-Certis application is accessible at http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/e-procurement/e-certis/index_en.htm (this page includes also a Video Tutorial and the User Manual).


http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/e-procurement/e-certis/index_en.htm

http://project.peppol.eu/peppol_components/virtual-company-dossier/VCD%20International%20Marketing%20Brochure.pdf

http://project.peppol.eu/peppol_components/virtual-company-dossier/virtual-company-dossier


Complementary

For the European Commission environment the corporate solution at the Commission for Grant Management system is going to provide a module for Evaluation that will be re-used as a "complementary" module.

e-Awarding The e-Awarding module is responsible for exchanging contractual agreements between CA and selected candidates and prepares regulatory notices to be published such as the contract award notice (to be published on TED) and notification to non-awarded Tenderer.

As this module is responsible for establishing the contractual agreement from the selected Tender, it may use the results of the e-Evaluation module and, and must use the info from the Party Management System module and Exclusion system to ensure that the selected Economic Operator(s) respect all the criteria for awarding calling the interface provided by the e-Evaluation module.

Core

This module represents one of the core elements of the proposed solution.

Vertical

e-Authorization This module is responsible for getting and setting authorizations to users (authorization).

Satellite

For Authorization, the complete solution would need to rely on a standard such as SAML. For Authorization, there are 2 IAM instances (one for the Back Office Sub-System, one for the Front Office Sub System), which can be the same, but deployed in different environments.

For the first 2 phases, a satellite module will not be provided: the alignment between e-Access and e-Submission / e-Qualification will be done via manual

Cross Process



operational procedures.

For future phases the development of an Authorisation Management Module will be decided based on the available resources (priority is to be given to the "core" modules).

In case an Authorisation Management Module is not available then the synchronisation between the various modules composing the proposed solution in terms of user authorisation will have to be guaranteed via operational procedures and / or scripts to be executed by the support teams.

e-Identification This module is responsible for identifying users (authentication)

Complementary

The proposed Pre-Award solution assumes that a Public Administration adopting it has already an Identity Management system.

In the context of the European Commission, the authentication part will be ECAS for the Back Office and External ECAS for the Front-Office.

Cross Process

Party Management System

This module is responsible for the reference data associated to economic operators that are or can become Suppliers of a public administration.

This module allows the identification and validation of a Party and contains Administrative and Legal info, Financial data, Attestations, etc.

The Party Management system is typically interfaced with an Accounting system and the exclusion system.

Complementary

An assumption is done on the existence of a Party Management System.

The initial level of integration foreseen is rather limited: the identification and validation of the Parties mentioned in a Tender / Qualification is done offline (i.e. it is not part of the “core” functions to be supported within the scope of this project),

Cross Process



Ideally all the relevant data contained in the tender qualifications (Party identification, Financial data, Attestations, etc.) are transferred to the Party Management system however initially this would require manual data entry by the Contracting Authority users.

Similarly the financial viability check for a Party is performed "offline" in the Party Management System in order to compute the ratios.

In future phases, based on the experience in the European Commission environment, it will be evaluated if the system will provide generic interfaces to a Party Management system (e.g.: to check existence of a Party, to associate Attestations to a Party, to execute Financial Viability Check)

Exclusion Management

The system is responsible for maintaining the legal entities exclusion list. It can be considered as an extension of the Party Management System.

Satellite or Complementary (to be decided in future phases)

In the first 2 phases a satellite module will not be implemented. The Contracting Authority users should consult a "corporate" Exclusion System to check if an Economic Operator has "warning" information associated to it that should trigger a rejection. In view of a pilot at the European Commission, the Contracting Authority users will interoperate with the Early Warning System component of the Commission Accounting System that implements these features.

In future Phases either a satellite might be implemented or interoperability with a EWS-like module will be

Cross Process



designed.

Document Management

This module is responsible for registering, filing, archiving and logging activity on the decrypted human readable version of the Tender bundle.

Satellite

In the initial Phases of the proposed solution only the Filing aspects will be tackled and the File System folder organization with ACLs will be considered as the "satellite" solution from this module.

Complementary

In further phases and in the context of the European Commission, the system will interoperate with the Commission document management system (ARES) that implements these features.

Cross Process

Encryption Key Management tools

The proposed solution uses encryption to guarantee the respect of confidentiality of tenders and qualifications received by the Contracting Authority in the context of a Procurement Procedure.

The use of asymmetric keys (private and public keys) is the selected technique for encryption.

Some tools are required to:

Generate the private and public keys associated to a procurement procedure (e.g.: Google Tool)

Safely manage the filing of the private key to be used to decrypt the tenders/qualifications received from the Economic Operator

Encrypt / decrypt on the Back Office side to safely file/transmit documents associated to an Economic Operator in the context of an on-going procurement procedure in view of the evaluation phase.( e.g.:

Complementary

Remark:

For the safe management the filing of the private key to be used to decrypt the tenders/qualifications received from the Economic Operator "procedural solutions" can be adopted.

The use of asymmetric keys (private and public keys) requires the existence in the Contracting Authority organisation of a central entity that can intervene to supply a copy of the private key associated to a procurement procedure in case of necessity.

Cross Process



Encrypting File System tools like LAN crypt, Secure e-mail solutions like SECEM at the Commission)

e-Signature The e-Signature module provides technical means for applying advanced or qualified electronic signature where required


e-Catalogue The e-Catalogues module allows for submitting electronic catalogues as part of the Tender.

Core Vertical

e-Reporting The e-Reporting module provides reporting on a number of indicators related to the e-Tendering transactions.

Satellite Cross Process

e-Notification The e-Notification module links with the TED platform, for the official publication of notices, such as prior information notices, contract notices or contract award notices.



The following figure illustrates the business architecture design, whereby e-PRIOR is positioned between the Supplier Portal (to be used by the Economic Operators) and the Customer Portal (to be used by the Contracting Authorities) to enable the exchange of information by sending XML based business documents following CEN/BII specifications. Only a sub-set of the modules listed in the table included in the previous page appears in the figure for readability's sake. It is to be underlined that e-Attestation (cross process module) even covers Post Award.


3.2. Approach Rationale

The approach rationale of the whole e-PRIOR Pre Award project was already described in the document "Pre-Award e-Procurement Feasibility Study" produced on July 2012 by the DIGIT B4 unit. It is confirmed also for this new phase but it has slightly updated. It can be summarised as built on the following elements:

1. Supporting the Commission's proposal on public procurement rules

As explained above, the Commission's proposal on public procurement rules foresees in a number of mandatory elements for Contracting Authorities in order to speed up the adoption of e-Procurement. Member States would be mandated to ensure that, at the latest 2 years after the date of transposition of the directives, all procurement procedures are performed using electronic means of communication, in particular e-Submission.

This implies that this feasibility study should take into account that:

The EC should lead by example and respect these deadlines set by legislation;

The Commission could help Member States that do not yet have access to e-Procurement tools with lessons learnt, specifications and re-usable software components developed in the e-PRIOR e-Tendering project.

At the time of the latest update of this document the legislative proposal was still under discussion and an agreement between Council and Parliament had not yet reached.

2. Bridging the gap between TED e-Tendering and e-PRIOR

A formal decision was made earlier in 2011 between the Publications Office and DIGIT B4 to collaborate on the completion of an e-Procurement suite for the EU Institutions. This entails bridging the gap between

TED e-Tendering, as it corresponds to an e-Access module;

e-PRIOR, covering all of the post-awarding e-Procurement modules (e-Catalogues, e-Ordering, e-Fulfilment, e-Invoicing and e-Payment).

DIGIT B4 will take the lead in developing the missing components, focussing on e-Submission and e-Awarding. This will be done by extending the coverage of e-PRIOR to the Pre-Award phases of the procurement chain.

The level of contribution of the Publication Office to the development of a solution bridging TED e-Tendering and e-PRIOR with the Publication Office is conditioned by the decisions taken by their IT Governance committee in terms of priorities and available budget.

3. Re-use and complementarity with existing solutions

The proposed solution tries to re-use specifications (e.g. CEN BII profiles) and software modules already available in the Procurement domain. When possible, it has interfaces with existing modules (e.g. the TED e-Tendering solution by the Publications Office). In other cases modules could be built by extracting building blocks from packages (e.g. TCM solution by the FRA). Details are given in section 3.4.

4. Self-contained solution


The adoption by Public Administration would be facilitated by the availability of a solution that is as self-contained as possible. This means that the solution should have a high degree of independence from other applications; in other words, it exposes services, but preferably does not call other services (unless standards exist for these services). The pre-award e-procurement application to be provided by DIGIT should allow the user to execute all the necessary tasks in pre-award. Nevertheless, a level of modularity should be achieved, whereby the user's organisation should be able to replace a module in the system with an existing application if so preferred. This extra layer of interoperability and modularity leaves room for competition in the private sector and lowers barriers to adoption by enabling integration with the user's legacy systems. It is in this context that the concepts of satellite and complementary modules have been introduced.

5. Prepare for a pan-European Interoperability Model

The solution will be designed in such a way that it will make use of a Supplier Portal and a Customer Portal to exchange XML-based business documents using CEN/BII specifications to allow for the implementation of a pan-European Interoperability Platform. This platform will allow for any Economic Operator in Europe using his preferred (probably local) e-Tendering service provider to send Tenders to any Contracting Authority in Europe, at their turn using their own (probably local) e-Tendering service provider or solution (see figure below). This solution would foster the implementation of the electronic European Market.

e-Tendering Supplier Portal

e-Tendering Customer

Portal

Any EU e-Tendering

Platform

e-Tendering Supplier Portal

e-Tendering Customer

Portal

Any EU e-Tendering

Platform

PEPPOL

AP AP

AP AP

6. Ability to provide an open source version

e-PRIOR is also available in an open source variant, called Open e-PRIOR. The approach should allow for adding the Pre-Award components to Open e-PRIOR.

7. Extension of the solution to other sectors


In line with the ISA objectives, further phases of this action will analyse the extensibility of some of the elements of the proposed solution to other business sectors different than "Procurement" (e.g. e-Submission of patents). However, the main focus will be on the Procurement domain. A high-level macro plan is provided in section 5.1.3 Timing.

8. Ability to have a phased approach

The selected approach foresees a progressive incremental coverage across different dimensions and takes into account some external dependencies (e.g. supports of types of Tender procedures by the e-Tendering solution of the Publications Office, maturity level of some e-Attestation solutions like VCD).

The dimensions in question are:

Processes: initial focus on Submission (Phase 1) and then extension to Qualification (Phase 2) then Award

Business procedures: start with the open market procedure and later support of other procedures (EOI, negotiated and restricted procedures). A tentative planning will be provided also for Auctions and DPS (not in scope yet of the ISA action related to this feasibility study).

Functions within a process (incremental number of automated functions, incremental level of sophistication of the automated functions)

Data: the earlier phases support a minimal set of mandatory fields in the exchanged messages while the later phases will support for the same CEN BII message additional structured data to allow a higher level of automation of checks and procedures.

Business Domain: the initial focus on the Procurement domain (original domain for e-PRIOR) will be extended to additional other domains when applicable (potential re-use for e-Submission and e-Attestation in additional business domain).

Level of interoperability: while the initial phases focus on deployment of the various components for e-Submission in a single “logical” environment managed by the Contracting / Awarding Authority, the later phases target the deployment of the solution in a distributed environment where the Front Office for Submission can be deployed in a “node” managed by an external service provider connected to the Back Office via a PEPPOL-like transport infrastructure (CIPA e-Delivery).

Open source: since the initial target environment for the POC/Pilot phase is the European Commission, the first release of the solution does not need to be "open source". However the development will be done since the beginning taking into account the objective to make an open source version of the solution available.

A high-level macro plan describing the phases is provided in section 5.1.3 Timing.


3.3. Maturity Model for e-Tendering

In Austria, the following e-Tendering maturity model has been developed by Auftrag.at:

1. Publication of notices

2. Provision of electronic Tender specifications

3. Managing electronic lists of Tenderers

4. Using electronic workflow for paper Tenders support

5. Using electronic communication channel with Tenderer

a. Restricted procedure/competitive procedure with negotiation

b. Tenderer request; clarification etc.

6. Manage electronic Tenders: submission, safe custody and opening

7. Workflow support for finishing the procedure: awarding, cancelation

8. Run automatic Tender assessment

When applying this maturity model to the solution proposed in this feasibility study, levels 1 to 5 are implemented by TED and TED e-Tendering (to some or to a large extent), while e-PRIOR will implement maturity levels 6 and 7:

Level 6: By the end of Phase 1, an e-Submission module with basic functionality should be ready;

Level 7: By the end of Phase 3, an e-Awarding module with basic functionality should be available.

The details of the project timing and related phases are elaborated in section "6 Planning."

3.4. Alignment with Best Practices from Member States

3.4.1. Inventory of tools An inventory of e-Procurement related projects and initiatives in Europe was performed during the Inception of Phase 1 of the project and is available upon request.

3.4.2. Decisions on re-use and alignment with Golden Book and e-TEG recommendations The detailed technical analysis in terms of re-use led to the decision that the re-use and adaptation of solutions already implemented and tested as part of the components of DIGIT B4 application portfolio was the preferred approach. DIGIT B4 in fact has developed a series of re-usable elements in the e-Procurement domain but also in cross-sector context, that proved to be effective. The advantage of


this approach in comparison to investing in re-use of solutions provided by other entities (e.g.: Member States) is the reduction of risks and external dependencies.

Some example of actual re-use of components from DIGIT B4 portfolio is given hereafter.

Front Office client (Applet based solution).

Re-used experience of client implemented in the context of e-TrustEx project in the Competition and Legislative policy domains at the Commission (applet based solution). Within the e-Submission client to be used by the Economic Operators some technical components has been incorporated and derived from implementations done in other contexts:

Encryption: end-to-end encryption based on asymmetric encryption key (source: e-TrustEx solution already implemented in context of secure exchange of documents in the Competition Policy domain)

e-Signature: re-use of the libraries developed by the DSS project (led by DG MARKT and funded by ISA) and already tested in DIGIT B4 applications (eContracts solution, eJustice solution). For the Commission specific environment, the solution is based on re-use of Electronic Signature Services Infrastructure (ESSI) Generic Signatures Services.

Front Office Server:

The Supplier Portal is a flexible Open Source platform developed and deployed by DIGIT B4 to allow Economic Operators to interact with the European Commission in the context of some post award e-Procurement processes (e.g.: eOrdering, eInvoices). This platform implements standard interaction mechanisms (e.g.: Inbox / Outbox) and is integrated with the e-PRIOR exchange platform (intermediary between the Front Office and the Back Office). These features have allowed basing the implementation of the e-Submission/e-Qualification Front Office on the Supplier Portal. The e-Submission/e-Qualification applet has been embedded in the Supplier Portal.

Front Office / Back Office mediator:

e-TrustEx is a cross sector exchange platform implementing services to allow Back Offices and Front Office systems. It provides a "toolbox" of ready-to-use services that allows supporting secure and reliable information exchanges. The support of encrypted exchange of large files, the logging features, the validation of business documents (business rules validation of the Tender and the Qualification structured documents composing the Tender Bundle submitted by the Economic Operators) and the Outbox/Inbox services are the main features provided by e-TrustEx that e-Prior (its e-Procurement specific implementation) re-uses for Pre Award.

Back-Office

The Central Catalogue Management System (CCMS) developed by DIGIT B4 in the context of the post-award management to implement exchange of e-Catalogues between Suppliers and Customers (e.g.: European Commission) has been extended to support the reception of tenders submitted by Economic Operators and Contracting Authorities. The implementation of e-Submission/e-Qualification BO allows the re-use, adaptation and generalisation of functions like queries on received objects, filtering based on user authorities and data scope, object status life-cycle, and filing.

Some example of decisions related to re-use of components developed by other entities:

The e-PRIOR Pre-Award e-Procurement project builds further on the TED / TED e-Tendering project of the Publications Office, which has already provided tools to support e-Notification and e-Access.


Whenever possible, the e-PRIOR Pre-Award e-Procurement project follows the specifications of CEN/BII 2 for e-Tendering, in particular for e-Submission, e-Awarding and e-Qualification.

The re-use of the TCM tool (Tender and Contract Management) from FRA (Fundamental Rights Agency) as an e-Tendering Back Office is still under evaluation. The functions that are candidate to be the most interesting to be analysed are the "Tender Preparation" and the "Evaluation".

The re-use of the PEPPOL Tool for producing e-Catalogues will be evaluated.

The re-use of the PEPPOL VCD tool will be evaluated as well, in the context of the e-Attestation module.

A gap analysis has been executed taking into account the output produced by activities executed by DG MARKT:

DG MARKT has launched the Golden Book of e-Procurement Best Practices project Error:Reference source not found, the results of which were available during Q2 2013. The e-PRIOR Pre-Award project team has executed a gap analysis which showed a satisfactory level of alignment. The results are available on demand and will be published on the JoinUp platform once the Open Source version resulting from Phase 1 development is made available.

The e-TEG activity executed by the e-Procurement Expert Group set-up by DG MARKT produced in Q1 2013 a generic e-Tendering blueprint. The e-PRIOR Pre-Award project team has executed a gap analysis which showed satisfactory levels of alignment.

The results of the 2 gap analysis mentioned above are available on demand and will be published on the JoinUp platform once the Open Source version resulting from Phase 1 development is made available.

3.5. Impact on Suppliers (Economic Operators)

The proposed solution is meant to maximise the positive impacts on Economic Operators and minimize the negative impacts.

Access to Call for Tender is eased and more exhaustive and therefore increases competition between operators.

By implementing an interoperable solution, any Economic Operator could be notified of any Contracting Authority Call for Tender and reply with a Tender in a homogeneous way.

The solution foresees a single point of contact.

The diversity of procedure types and Contracting Authority is hidden by a single user interface allowing accessing and replying to calls.

The solution guides the economic operator to the right answer depending on the process.

The user interface shows only the functionality that is required in a given procedure context.

The solution reduces the administrative burden and should reduce the effort to prepare the qualification data.


Company data and attestations will first be shared across Call for Tenders, may also be shared among companies making a consortium and may also be enriched by external systems such as VCD by Open PEPPOL. The Tenderer will nevertheless still need to check that the available data is accurate and up-to-date before sending the data to the Contracting Authority. It is important to underline that the use of VCD functions support of cross-border aspects (mapping between of exclusion and selection criteria with country specific evidences types based on an ontology engine).

The Open PEPPOL vision for VCD is to provide an interoperable electronic document solution that supports the exchange of evidences across borders. Open PEPPOL has developed an eAttestation tool for tendering that provides a standardised structure to submit evidence that can be used for both national and cross-border eProcurement, during the qualitative selection process.4

While the VCD solution is still being finalised (even if some national implementations have started) a simplified solution to help the Economic Operators in providing the appropriate evidences in a cross-border procurement environment, and not requiring the integration with VCD is based on the use of the e-Certis application managed by DG MARKT. 5

An evolution of e-Certis towards the VCD solution is a possible solution currently under discussion.

Qualified electronic signature is recommended but not a must.

As Economic Operators may find difficulties in implementing electronic signature, the foreseen solution proposes alternative ways for gathering the blue ink signature when the Economic Operator could not implement the electronic signature in its premises.

3.6. Impact on Customers (Contracting Authority)

The system will mainly contribute in the reduction of administrative burden by automation of several activities and speeding the procurement process by enabling electronic exchange of information with suppliers.

A side effect of enabling the electronic exchange of documents is that the need for dedicated secured locations to store files before the opening date is no more useful.

Automation of Tender and Qualification reception.

The system will be able to store the Tender and Qualification and acknowledge their reception.

Simplification of Qualification management on cross-border procedures.

The possibility to use the VCD e-Attestation solution provided by OpenPEPPOL will simplify the task also of the Contracting Authority thanks to the support of cross-border

4 VCD solution is described at http://project.peppol.eu/peppol_components/virtual-company-dossier/virtual-company-dossier. A brochure describing it is available at http://project.peppol.eu/peppol_components/virtual-company-dossier/VCD%20International%20Marketing%20Brochure.pdf

5 The e-Cerrtis application is accessbile at http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/e-procurement/e-certis/index_en.htm (this page includes also a Video Tutorial and the User Manual).








aspects (mapping between of exclusion and selection criteria with country specific evidences types based on an ontology engine). 6 The availability of the VCD Criteria Editor (not yet developed) would highly simplify the task of the Contracting Authority at the moment of the preparation of the procurement procedures and would guarantee coherence with the submission, qualification and evaluation phases.

The point on the use of eCertis as a simplified solution mentioned in the paragraph above applies also here.

Possible Automation the opening report preparation.

The system may check for the validity of the Tender (or the Qualification) and facilitate the opening session.

Automation of Tenderer and Tender data

The exchange of structure Company data via the Qualification message enables automatic registration of Tenderers or Candidates. The registration of structured data will ease subsequent activities such as evaluation, creation of legal entity or reporting that are for the moment depending on a huge manual data entry effort done by the Contracting Authority in order to automate such tasks. As a result for the moment these tasks are usually not automated or automation is limited to the strict minimum required.

Room management:

The Contracting Authority will reduce the need to have dedicated rooms and keys to handle security around received Tenders. As another advantage, detection of infringement will be traceable and auditable.

IT environment

As the proposed system is a modular self-contained solution, Contracting Authorities that will have implemented part of the solution such as most likely a prepare tool will be able to integrate their existing system at reduced cost by plugging pre award functionality to their system.

For Contracting Authorities not being equipped with a system, basic features will be provided in order to fulfil all exchanges with Economic Operators in an electronic format so that no development cost will be needed to use the solution.

6 See 2 footnotes above


4. INFORMATION SYSTEM OVERVIEW

4.1. Functional Sub-Systems

The Functions of the proposed System have been grouped by Functional Sub-Systems: Front Office, Back Office and e-PRIOR.

Front Office: for e-Submission and e-Qualification it offers the Economic Operators the functions to reply to a Call for Tender published via the e-Access module. These functions are mapped into 2 components:

o a Web Portal (Supplier Portal) and

o a local client application (SPOTS7, applet technology)

In these components an Economic Operator can:

o download the forms to reply to a procedure published via the e-Access module,

o import VCD files

o fill the forms associated to the Tender and/or the Qualification

o join the required attachments

o sign the Tender and/or Qualification documents

o encrypt the Tender and/or Qualification documents

o compose and submit a Tender and/or Qualification Bundle

o get a timestamp for the submitted Bundle

o get a receipt for the submission of the Tender and/or Qualification Bundle

Back Office (CUBE8): for e-Submission and e-Qualification it offers the Contracting Authority users functions like:

o make available to the Front Office the Tender and/or Qualification forms to be filled by the Economic Operators based on the Call for Tender published in e-Access

o provide a Tender Receipt that the Front Office can provide to the Economic Operator

o provide a Qualification Receipt that the Front Office can provide to the Economic Operator

o manage the Opening Session(s9) for the procurement procedure

o file in a secure way the received tenders and/or qualifications in view of making possible the Evaluation

o manage the Short Lists for two steps procedures, call of expression of interest, DSP .

e-PRIOR: it implements the exchanges between Front Office and Back Office

7 SPOTS stands for Secured, Portable and Open Tool for e-Submission8 CUBE stands for Customer Back office for e-Procurement9 Depending on the type of the procedure there may be a unique opening session (open procedure case),

two sessions (restricted procedure case), many opening sessions (DPS, Call of expression of interest)


4.2. Supported High Level Scenarios

4.2.1. High Level for Open Procedure Submission (Phase 1 Scenario) The business scenarios to be supported by the e-PRIOR Pre-Award solution in Phase 1 have been described in section 4.1.2 of [0]. Since some decisions taken after the Phase 1 inception were taken, this scenario has been changed during the Elaboration and Construction activities of Phase 1.The actual implementation is described in PowerPoint presentations prepared for the stakeholders participating to the Pilot / Proof of Concept and in the User Manuals. See in Annex "Phase 1Scenarios"

4.2.2. High Level Scenario for P rocurement P rocedures r equir ing an exchange of qualification info distinct from the tender exchange. (Phase 2 Scenario) In order to better understand the proposed solution and the business scenario which is supported, the reader should read the description of the Phase 1 scenario before reading the Phase 2 scenario.

Procedure10\Process Exchangequalification

ExchangeTender

Open x x11

Call of Expression of interest (AMI) & Vendor’s list

x x

(not mandatory for vendors 'list)

Restricted Procedure Following AMI

x

Accelerated restricted procedure

x x

Restricted procedure x x

Negotiated procedure for very low-value contracts

x

Negotiated procedure for low-value contracts

x x

Negotiated procedure with contract notice

x x x

Negotiated procedure following negotiated procedure

x

Accelerated negotiated procedure with contract notice

x x x

10 List of procedures as analysed by the Publication Office11 In the case of open procedures, the exchange Tender process includes the Qualification information.


Competitive dialogue x x

Contest x x

Negotiated procedure following contest

x

Table 1: overview of classification of procurement procedures

4.2.2.1. Business Process Model The Processes and the activities implementing the procurement procedures requiring exchange of qualifications are represented in a series of diagrams produced with the ARIS tool.

The Model is composed by a “Level 1” diagram representing the “Pre-Award Qualification Value Added Chain”.

Processes represented in the Level 1 diagram are detailed in Level 2 diagrams. Level 3 diagrams further details activities contained in processes composing Level 2 diagrams.


Level 1 Pre award Qualification Value Added Chain


“Level 1” diagram representing the “Pre-Award Qualification Value Added Chain”

IMPORTANT: The textual description of the scenario included hereafter focuses on processes, sub-processes and activities required to implement the procurement procedures (described in the Business Process Model diagrams included in this document) that require an exchange of qualification info distinct from the tender exchange. For this reason, processes, sub-processes and activities that are specific for procedures not requiring that (e.g.: Open procedures) are NOT detailed in the textual scenario.

Make Procedure Public

This process contains the following sub processes relevant for the scope of the scenario:

Exchange Tender

Publish Open Call for Tender, actor : CA

Exchange qualification

This process contains the following sub processes:

Exchange Qualification

Route Qualification , actor: e-Prior

The system notifies on daily basis the procurement officer in charge of the Call for tender for newly received qualifications, keeping the anonymity of the senders.

Evaluate Qualification by CA

Request for clarification , actor: CA

Monitor Submission results, actor: CA

Manage Qualification Parameters, actor: CA

Exchange Tender

This process contains the following sub processes:

Prepare list of candidates (actor: CA)

Prepare List of participants

Invite Candidates to Tender (optional) , actor: CA

Create tender, actor: EO or Candidate

Route Tender, actor: e-Prior


Receive Tender, actor: CUBE e-Submission BO

Open Tender, actor: by CA

Evaluate Tender, actor: by CA

4.2.2.2. Make Procedure Public

4.2.2.2.1. Publish Contract Notice (actor: CA)

[see Level 2 Diagram – Process “”]

The Contracting Authority prepares the Contract Notice (or Call for Expression of Interest 12) corresponding to the Call for Tender that will later be made available to the selected Economic Operators. If existing, all lots must be structured.

The following assumption is made: lots are organized per domain of expertise (e.g. CPV). The Contracting Authority can add templates (e.g. self-declaration) to be filled in by the Economic Operator. It is advised to reference standard documents/criteria as provided by e-Certis13.

The Contracting Authority must also generate the asymmetric encryption keys that will be used to encrypt / decrypt the Qualification documents.

If the Contracting Authority wants the Qualification to be electronically submitted and received, it must first publish the Call for Tender on an e-Access system (integrated with the Pre Award solution proposed by this project) with the relevant templates to be filled in, if any. The Contracting Authority has the possibility to add templates to be filled in for Self Declarations or actual Attestations 14. It must then enable the call for tender for e-Submission by initialising 15 the call for tender information in the e-submission system in a structured standard format. This initialisation allows the procurement officer also to check how the economic operator will view the tender form provided by the e-Submission system.

The Procurement Officer can then "preview" the various forms that the Economic Operator will have to fill. If the results are satisfactory he/she can give his/her approval: this will trigger the inclusion in the standard qualification form of the public encryption key and the e-sealing of all the documents the EO has to fill to guarantee their integrity and authenticity.

The choice of the procedure type implies a variation in the process. Please see Table 1 to view all the possible variations due to the procedure type. When the process splits the reception of the qualification from the tender , it only requires the deadline for request to participate in the first phase of the procedure as for the second phase it requires the deadline for the submission of the tender (as in the open procedure case).

12 In the rest of the document the call of expression of interest will be assimilated to a call for tender.13 In the future phases of the project, a further integration with the e-Attestation solution “Virtual

Company Dossier” developed by OpenPEPPOL (see http://project.peppol.eu/peppol_components/virtual-company-dossier/virtual-company-dossier) will be evaluated'. In particular the Contracting Authority might use the VCD Criteria Editor to define the required criteria for Exclusion and Selection. This integration requires coordination not only with OpenPEPPOL but also with the Publication Office since this would require changes in the TED and in the TED e-Tendering systems.

14 The e-Access solution (TED e-Tendering) provided by the Publication Office of the EU Institutions has an interface with the TED system to retrieve seamlessly Contract Notice main data. The Contracting Authority may add template documents and specifications in e-Access to finally make accessible to the economic operator all tendering specifications of the call for tender.

15 Transmission of the call for tender metadata from e-Access to e-Submission




4.2.2.3. Manage CfT Qualification : filing parameters (actor: CA)[See Level 2 Diagram “CfT Manage Qualification filing parameters”, referred in Level 1 Diagram]

The initial implementation will not address the variability of the opening filing session method and will always consider that an "attended" opening session will be necessary. However the CA representative has to choose the filing method for the qualification documents received from the Economic Operators or generated during the opening session (e.g.: target file system folder(s), URL of a target Document Management System, URL corresponding to a filing function of the eQualification Back Office)

The possible support of alternative filing methods in case of future support of "automatic" opening (useful for some specific procedures like EOI) is not in the current scope and might be evaluated at a later stage of the implementation16 .

Another axis of variability is the enabling or disabling of file encryption (Filing Encryption Policy) that could be handled by setting options. This would allow to protect the qualifications (once opened and before filing them) depending on the specificities of the CA environment using various methods (e.g.: Secure e-mail encryption17, Encryption Tools based on public keys associated to the Evaluators => see LAN crypt18 like solutions).

16 The support of variability concerning "manual" (ie "attended", requiring the activation by human actors) or "automatic" (ie "unattended", automatically activated by the system) opening session would imply that the contracting Authority may "toggle" a specific parameter to select for an "unattended" the opening of the Qualifications and their filing. By default, the opening would be considered as manual ("attended") but the Procurement Officer could overwrite this default behaviour by setting the opening session as automatic/unattended and entering :

the delay after reception by when the system would open the qualification once a deadline has expired;

the path of the storage area (eg: file system folders or reference to an external Document Management System) where the opened qualifications must be stored filed.

17 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_encryption, 18 http://www.smartgrid-security.com/fileadmin/assets/smargrid-security/products/SGLC%20security

%20concept%20WP.pdf


http://www.smartgrid-security.com/fileadmin/assets/smargrid-security/products/SGLC%20security%20concept%20WP.pdf


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_encryption

4.2.2.3.1. Consult the Contract Notice (actor: EO)

[see Level 1 Diagram – Process “”]

The Economic Operator goes to TED (OJS website) to consult the relevant Contract Notice.

TED publishes the URL of the e-Access system where the Economic Operator can download, if applicable, additional documents (e.g.: Word / Excel templates to be filled) and start the Supplier Portal implementing the e-Qualification FO to respond to the procedure.


4.2.2.4. Exchange Qualification

4.2.2.4.1. Create Qualification (actor: EO)

Level 2 Diagram – Process “Exchange QualificationCreate Qualification”

Level 3 Diagram – “Complete Qualification Form”


Level 3 Diagram – “Make [Qualification] Bundle19”

19 The Make Bundle process is a generic process for both Qualifications and Tenders


Level 3 Diagram: Submit [Qualification] Bundle]20

Level 3 Diagram "Monitor Submission Results"

20 The Submit Bundle process is generic for both Qualifications and Tenders


When the Economic Operator has chosen to reply to a procedure, e-Access redirects the user to the Supplier Portal sub-system of the proposed e-Submission application and makes available all the required forms and templates having checked their integrity, authenticity and considered the latest version of the required form. The Economic Operator must log in into the e-Submission module of the Supplier Portal. In the European Commission specific implementation, if the user does not have yet an account21, he can register himself and continue into the application.

The application proposes to the user to either create the Qualification in this application or to import a VCD file created by using an external application22.

If the Economic Operator has chosen to import a VCD23: the user fills in the VCD in an external system. He then uploads the VCD into the application. The application copies the VCD file into the qualification under preparation. The application will still perform some basic checks about its compliance with the selected specific procurement procedure and considered the latest version of the required form (ID of the procedure, name of Contracting Authority, etc.). If the imported file is unsuccessfully checked, the user will be notified and will have to modify his/her VCD and then re-import it. In case of corrigenda, (new version of CfT published in e-Access) the system will import all possible relevant data in the latest version of the Qualification form. It is important to highlight that the use of VCD components helps the user in determining the appropriate evidences corresponding to the Exclusion and Selection criteria specified by the Contracting Authority taking into account of the cross border aspects. Once a file is imported, the EO can import a new file and/or edit the Qualification as if it was created in the application.

If the Economic Operator has chosen to create a Qualification directly from the application then, based on the procedure information, the application creates a new Qualification structure, prefilling exclusion and selection criteria fields. With this option, the Economic Operator can either only consult e-Certis from the Supplier Portal to know the correct evidence types from his/ her country or, via the invocation of the Web services offered by the EVS (European VCD system by Open PEPPOL), automatically get the correct evidence types from his country. This depends on the coverage in terms of countries and criteria types by the EVS at the moment the integration with the e-Qualification solution proposed by this action is implemented24.

In both options, the Economic Operator has also the possibility to attach typed documents (incl. Self-declarations). When the Economic Operator attaches such documents, he must also enter the issue date of the document.

21 ECAS account in the Commission environment22 In the first implementation of the e-Qualification solution provided by this project, the VCD file is

created in an external component with the functionalities of the Open Peppol modules: VCD Designer and VCD Builder and interoperating with the European VCD System.

See http://www.peppol.eu/peppol_components/virtual-company-dossier/VCD%20International%20Marketing%20Brochure.pdf23

? The integration with VCD solution and in particular with the EVS will be possible under the assumptions documented in "5.1.1.2 Coordination of development plans for VCD integration / interoperability"

24 see previous footnote about assumptions on the integration with VCD solution and in particular with the EVS


http://www.peppol.eu/peppol_components/virtual-company-dossier/VCD%20International%20Marketing%20Brochure.pdf

After having imported a VCD or having a new Qualification, the Economic Operator fills in/reviews the requested information in the Qualification. In order to make life easier, he has the possibility to select and copy data (sections) or import data from existing Qualifications (having the same format) stored on his local drives: the Economic Operator can then modify the data that were copied/ imported from other Qualifications and can fill in the rest of the Qualification which is specific to the Market Procedure. These Qualifications may have been communicated by other Parties (case of Consortia). The Economic Operator will be allowed to retrieve section information from different Qualifications and to select whether the Party is a single party or part of a Consortium. The retrieved information will be limited to the common criteria between the target qualification and the source qualification.

Upon completion of the Qualification, the application follows the same process as for the Tender already described in the User Manual of e-Submission for Open Procedures available in the Annex (consolidate, generate preparation report, sign preparation report, attach preparation report to the bundle, encrypt bundle). The only differences are that:

The deadline for submission is in this case not the deadline for submission but the deadline to request for participation.

The system checks that Bundle contains a completed structured qualification document and not a structured tender document.

The EO sends the bundle; the system computes the date of sending and returns to the EO an acknowledgement that the Bundle was sent. The system transmits the encrypted bundle to the platform of exchange that ensures the post office role.

4.2.2.5. Route Qualification (actor: e-PRIOR system)On basis of the Bundle metadata (CA identification, EO account) the e-PRIOR system determines which back office to inform of the incoming Qualification bundle and transmits it.


4.2.2.5.1. Receive Qualification (actor: by CA Back Office system)

[See Level 2 Diagram – “Receive Qualification"]

The Qualification Bundle is transmitted to the back-office of the Contracting Authority. The Contracting Authority Back office automatically creates and sends a qualification reception confirmation to the account that was used to send the Qualification.

The system notifies on daily basis the procurement officer in charge of the Call for tender for newly received qualifications, keeping the anonymity of the senders.


4.2.2.5.2. Open Qualification by CA(actor: CA)

Level 2 Diagram – “Open Qualification by CA(actor: CA) Open Qualifications”

Level 3 Diagram – “Open Qualifications”


Level 3 Diagram – “Handle Opening Session”

Level 3 Diagram – "Prepare Evaluation"


The initial implementation for the opening of Qualifications will mimic the implementation of the opening of tenders (see Phase 1 scenario in e-Submission Use Manual in 6.3.1.2 User and OperationalProcedures Manual for Contracting Authorities). The safe storage of the private key used for decryption is to be managed offline by the authorized actors and an opening session has to be organised.

Nevertheless, since the submission period can last for long periods of time, in certain procurement contexts (e.g.3 years in the Call of expression of interest and DSP), the opening could occur as soon as the Qualifications arrive. Adequate protection mechanisms should be put in place to protect the private key used for decryption.25

As stated in previous sections, the initial implementation of the system only supports a manual ("attended") opening session that has to be started by an human actor (representative of the Contracting Authority)26.

In contexts where an opening session with fewer formalities and more flexibility is required (e.g.: case of qualifications received in the context of a Call for Expression Of Interest procedure), the "attended" mode can be kept but instead of having a formal opening committee, the opening of the received qualification can be done by a single representative of the Contracting Authority.

When starting an "attended" opening session, the user will have to provide the Private Key and the filing method storage area allowing respectively decrypting the Qualification Bundle and filing the Qualifications, their associated metadata and other documents generated during the opening session. If a Qualification arrives after the deadline, the application will highlight the fact that it is late, but will not prevent the Contracting Authority from using it at evaluation time. Depending on the specificities of the Contracting Authority environment, if the Qualification Filing Encryption policy is enabled, the system will implement measures to guarantee the respect of confidentiality rules and / or segregation of duties using encryption methods based on public / private keys associated to the Evaluators27.

The Qualifications are then part of the e-Qualification module (reception and evaluation of qualifications) where they are securely stored, accessible and readable28 only to the appointed members.

All the opened Qualifications are grouped by Market Procedures and by Lot so that the Contracting Authority can easily see how many Qualifications have been received for each Lot.

25 The private key is protected by a password and a key management procedure can be put in place to guarantee that the private key can be accessed using a "four eye" principle and not before the date for the opening session.

26 In future implementations the system might determine the conditions for opening tenders, either manual ("attended") or automatic ("unattended").

27 Use of tools like Lan crypt (http://www.smartgrid-security.com/fileadmin/assets/smargrid-security/products/SGLC%20security%20concept%20WP.pdf) or Secure e-mail (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_encryption) could simplify the implementation of this security mechanisms.

28 Possibly with VCD viewer (external application) developed by Open PEPPOL.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_encryption



The Procurement Officer can manually assign evaluators and notify via mail29 selected members of the Evaluation Board to perform the evaluation.30

29 The use of a Cft Internal Key to encrypt the documents for the Evaluation phase might be decided to implement security measures against "insiders" with administration rights. A safe method to pass the decryption key to Evaluators might be based on secure e-mail. Alternatives methods to implement security might be based on Encryption Tools based on public keys associated to the Evaluators (eg: like LAN crypt) is needed.

30 When the e-Prepare module is ready, the Evaluation board will be automatically informed based on the Market Procedure / Lot .


4.2.2.5.3. Evaluate Qualification by CA(actor: CA)

[See Level 2 Diagram – “Evaluate Qualification”]


The Evaluate Legal Status, Evaluate financial capability and Evaluate technical capability sub processes are not described further because they should be part of a complementary e-evaluation module.

Level 3 Manage Shortlist

Pre-condition: The Contracting Authority has appointed the members of the Evaluation Board offline (not supported by this system).

Depending on the selected filing method and encryption policy to be used in the Back Office (CUBE), the appointed members of the Evaluation Board can view the Qualifications that they must evaluate. For instance, in case of a Document Management system as filing method, the evaluator will access the Qualifications using his/her access rights to such a system and the appropriate decryption key when applicable. The Qualifications are grouped by Market Procedures and by Lot. The application allows for the creation of a human-readable version of the Qualification.

The identification and validation of the Party is done offline (i.e. as described in "3.1 Solution Description", the implementation of a Party Management System is not part of the “core” functions to be supported within the scope of this project - in fact, an assumption is done on the fact that the Contracting Authority has a Party Management system - “complementary” module). In the early implementation the system will NOT provide an interface to the Party


Management: in future phases a more sophisticated integration will be evaluated. Ideally all the relevant data (Party identification, Financial data, Attestations, etc.) are transferred to the Party Management system31.

The evaluation of the Qualification is done offline as it is not a core module of e-Prior pre-award solution. The evaluators communicate their results to the Procurement Officer. The Procurement Officer has to manually input the result of the evaluation in the "satellite" evaluation module in order to build the list of selected candidates (shortlist). For each Qualification received, the Shortlist Management functionality will present the following information:

List of Tenderer Parties (prefilled based on Qualification). For each Party and each lot, the Contracting Authority must indicate whether:

o It is valid, not valid or black listedo In case of rejection, a justification for rejection.

The system will then prepare and submits a Tenderer Qualification Response to each candidate, indicating the result of the evaluation (Rejection, or part of a shortlist for given lots).

A Shortlist service for the given call for tender and lot is then exposed to the e-Access BO that can call it to prepare its invitation to tender for the given call for tender and lot.

Each candidate receives the response to his/her application in the INBOX of the Supplier Portal.

4.2.2.6. Exchange TenderIn this macro process only 2 sub processes are described as the rest of the process is similar to the scenario of phase 1.

4.2.2.6.1. Prepare list of candidates (actor: CA)

Level 2 Prepare list of candidates

31 In the Party Management system, the Contracting Authority could reconcile the newly received data with the existing data in the system, if any. If the Party cannot be found in the Party Management system, the Contracting Authority should be offered the possibility to create a new one and to update the Party information. All attestations have a deadline filled in by the Contracting Authority and the System should indicate whether an attestation is still valid or not. The Contracting Authority should have the possibility to consult e-Certis (or the OpenPEPPOL European VCD System) to verify the adequacy of the documents. In case of adoption of the VCD solution, the use of VCD Viewer will facilitate this type of checks. There is a status in the Party Management system to indicate if the Party is valid or not. The financial viability check is performed in the Party Management System in order to compute the ratios. The Party Management System should also be interfaced with a Central Exclusion DB. If the Central Exclusion DB returns a rejection, the status of the Party is set to "black listed". The history of the status with the combination of data and attestation is recorded, together with the Contracting Authority that is making the changes. The Party Management system can be interfaced with an Accounting system.


For some procurement procedures (e.g.: Accelerated restricted procedure, Negotiated procedure for very low-value contracts, see Table 1: overview of classification of procurement procedures) the Contracting Authority can poll the market in order to identify potential candidates. The Procurement Officer should manually input the identified suitable candidates for the market into the shortlist under the market procedure that has been created when preparing the procedure in e-Access. The Contracting Authority must then ask the potential candidates to provide an account32 in order to set the proper authorization in e-Access. The shortlisted candidates are then notified with invitations to tender.

Alternatively, the list of candidates results in calling the GetShortList service 33 for a given Call for Tender and Lot.

32 ECAS account in case of the European Commission environment33 Input parameters are the Cft and Lot(s) , output parameters are Qualification references , name and

Candidate user account.


4.2.2.6.2. Invite Candidates to Tender (optional) , actor: CA

Level 2 Invite candidates to tender

Depending of the type of procurement procedure, either as a second step of a two stage procedure or following a call of expression of interest or after having prepared a vendor's list, the Contracting Authority invites the economic operators to tender by (re-34)publishing the call with information such as deadline for submission and list of selected candidates.

The Contracting Authority decides to publish the Call for Tender as for the Open Procedure on e-Access. However as access to this Call for Tender should not be public, but rather restricted to a shortlist possibly produced at the previous step, the economic operator access to the system will be controlled by a login / password. The login name corresponds to the account35 transmitted in the Qualification or manually set by the Procurement Officer further to contacts between CA and EO. The authorization is done at the Call for Tender level. The e-Access system calls the shortlist service for a given call for tender36 and lot, and then retrieves the list of Qualifications and accounts that have been selected in the Qualification Evaluation process. E-Access sets the authorizations to the call. The Procurement officer sets the Tender Submission deadline and sends the invitation to tender. The Economic Operator has the possibility to reply to the Call for Tender.

The e-Access system calls the e-Submission system to create the call for tender in e-submission providing as well the restricted list of selected economic operators including user account, qualification reference. In case the Qualification reference (see Tenderer Qualification Response in previous paragraph) is not provided, the e-Submission module assumes that the CA has polled the market and first generates and sends an automatically generated Tenderer Qualification Response to the selected user account before adding these references to the call.

The rest of the process is very similar to one applied for the Open Procedure process (see "6.3 Phase 1Scenarios").

34 Only in case of two stages restricted call.35 ECAS account in case of the European Commission environment.36 In case of call of expression of interest, the Shortlist of the Call of expression of interest is used by other

call for tenders, whereas in other cases, the Shortlist can only be used within the context of the second phase of the same call for tender. E-Access will call the Shortlist service using the reference of the parent procedure.


The e-Submission system will perform checks on basis of the procedure type and phase of the procedure to ensure that the needed information is provided at the right moment.

At tendering time, for procedures supported by this scenario, the e-Submission system may display the qualification previously sent in read mode as informative purpose if still available on the local environment of the EO making use of the Qualification Response information to check the consistency of the qualification info. Either checking that the Qualification Response exists for the given lot and given user account37, or that the Qualification Receipt and Qualification response match38, the system will only allow the shortlisted economic operator to fill in tenders for the lots for which his/her qualification was selected.

This mechanism will ensure the anonymity of the candidates while establishing a strong control on the pre-selected candidates.

The Candidate will then prepare and submit his tender like in the Open Procedure case but the system will additionally check39 that the tender is linked to qualification that is part of the Short List. The tender will refer to the selected Qualification Response.

During the Opening Session the Back Office will check and highlight the tenders not compliant with the Short List (e.g. The Economic Operator has submitted a tender for a Lot for which it was not selected) by making the comparison of the list of selected Qualification Responses in the CfT and the Qualification reference provided in the Tender. However the rejection decision will be the responsibility of an Opening Board member.

Later on in the procurement process, the Economic Operator will have to send the real attestations (or update existing data) to the Contracting Authority. This step is not in scope of this document. It will be covered when tackling the Award phase.

More advanced integration with a VCD system will also be described in a later phase of the project (a future phase will focus in more details on e-Attestation).

37 This check is active for users who can use the same user account in the submission of the qualification and the submission of the tender.

38 When the economic operator cannot use the same user account at qualification and tender time, the system will allow to use another user account, provided that the user enters the corresponding Qualification Receipt reference. The system will then check that both references match the same qualification reference.

39 The system will make use of the Tenderer Qualification Response Qualification reference and verify that the Tender is well based on such a reference.


4.3. Information Exchange Requirements

4.3.1. CEN/BII Profiles mapped to application modules The e-Tendering profiles from CEN/BII 2 will be used as the basis for defining the choreography of exchanging e-Tendering related business documents between Contracting Authorities and Economic Operators. While the e-Tendering nomenclature of this Feasibility Study is aligned with the terminology DG MARKT is using, CEN/BII is using a different one. What CEN/BII calls "Tendering" corresponds to "e-Submission" as referred to in this study.

UBL 2.1 will be used as a basis for the syntax binding to the CEN/BII profiles. For the Profile Roll-out please refer to section 5.1.3.

This study CEN/BII 2 – business process

e-Notification Notification

e-Submission Tendering

e-Awarding Awarding

The following profiles will be used as a basis for this project:

CEN/BII 2 business process

Profile number Name

Tendering Profile BII2-11 Qualification

Tendering Profile BII2-22 Call for Tender

Tendering Profile BII2-xx Call for Tender with Catalogue template

Tendering Profile BII2-12 Tendering simple

Tendering Profile BII2-xx Tendering simple with Catalogue

Notification - Awarding Profile BII2-10 Tender Notification

UBL 2.1 will be used as a basis for the syntax binding to the CEN/BII profiles.

The applicable profiles are more detailed in the following sub-sections.

REMARK:

The chief analyst of the e-PRIOR Pre Award action is actively participating to the CEN BII 3 workshop. From this participation proposal for changes to the current CEN BII profiles may derive to enhance modularity (in particular to support 2 stages procedures and Qualification) and in the convergence with the VCD solution by Open PEPPOL

Feasibility Study – pre-Award e-Procurement – Summarized version / 90Document Version 0.001 dated 24/04/2012

4.3.1.1. e-Submission

Profile Name: BII2-11 - Qualification

Profile Description: This profile supports a process of qualification by submitting a virtual company dossier. It is intended to support transmission of electronic documents for processing in semi-automated processes by the receiver. The legal requirements that were taken into account are requirements from European legislation, in particular the EU directives, mentioned in section 6 of this profile. The intended scope for this profile includes Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Government (B2G) relations, with a focus on B2G.

The transactions, specified in this profile are intended to be exchanged between the Tendering systems of Economic Operators and Contracting Authorities. This means that it is expected that the parties have connected their systems to the internet, and that they have middleware in place to enable them to send and receive the transactions in a secure way, using an agreed syntax.

The content model of the transactions can also be used in procurement platforms or portals, so that these platforms as well as procurement systems of Economic Operators and Contracting Authority are based on the same information and process models, which makes them more interoperable. Even if platforms are not technically interoperable, the content model facilitates understanding the Tendering documents and to participate in the Tendering process.

Profile Name: BII2-12 – Tendering Simple

Profile Description: This profile supports a process of submitting a Tender by an Economic Operator to a Contracting Authority. It is intended to support transmission of electronic documents for processing in semi-automated processes by the receiver. The legal requirements that were taken into account are requirements from European legislation, in particular the EU directives. The intended scope for this profile includes Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Government (B2G) relations, with a focus on B2G.

The transactions, specified in this profile are intended to be exchanged between the application systems of Economic Operators and Contracting Authorities. This means that it is expected that the parties have connected their systems to the internet, and that they have middleware in place to enable them to send and receive the transactions in a secure way, using an agreed syntax.


Profile Name: BII2-xx – Tendering Simple with Catalogue

Profile Description: This profile supports a process of submitting a Tender by an Economic Operator to a Contracting Authority. It is intended to support transmission of electronic documents for processing in semi-automated processes by the receiver. The legal requirements that were taken into account are requirements from European legislation, in particular the EU directives. The intended scope for this profile includes Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Government (B2G) relations, with a focus on B2G.

The transactions, specified in this profile are intended to be exchanged between the application systems of Economic Operators and Contracting Authorities. This means that it is expected


that the parties have connected their systems to the internet, and that they have middleware in place to enable them to send and receive the transactions in a secure way, using an agreed syntax.


Profile Name: BII2-22 – Call for Tender (out-of-scope)

Profile Description: This profile supports the dispatch of the Call for Tender to facilitate Economic Operators to submit a Tender electronically. It is intended to support transmission of electronic documents for processing in semi-automated processes by the receiver. The legal requirements that were taken into account are requirements from European legislation, in particular the EU directives, mentioned in section 6 of this profile. The intended scope for this profile includes Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Government (B2G) relations, with a focus on B2G.



Profile Name: BII2-22 – Call for Tender with Catalogue Template (out-of-scope)

Profile Description: This profile supports the dispatch of the Call for Tender to facilitate Economic Operators to submit a Tender electronically. It is intended to support transmission of electronic documents for processing in semi-automated processes by the receiver. The legal requirements that were taken into account are requirements from European legislation, in particular the EU directives. The intended scope for this profile includes Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Government (B2G) relations, with a focus on B2G.




4.3.1.2. e-Awarding

Profile Name: Publication BII2-10 – Tender Notification

Collaboration "ContractAwardNotification BiiColl023" only

Profile Description: This profile describes a process where a Customer in the role of a Contracting Authority sends notifications that relate to a Call for Tender, to a Publication body that publishes it.

The profile is intended for communication to the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), in case of all for Tenders that are above the threshold requiring publication in the EU area, as well as for communication to national or regional Publication bodies.

The profile supports the notification process specifically and can be used in relation with any Tendering procedure that requires publication, including open procedure, restricted procedure, negotiated procedure and competitive dialogue.

The profile enables the Contracting Authority to submit in structured electronic format, Contract Notices and Contract Award Notices to the relevant Publication body. For each document the relevant Publication body can send a response message that notifies the Contracting Authority whether the content of the message meets criteria for publication, or not.


5. PLANNING

5.1. Assumptions and Dependencies

5.1.1. Assumptions The feasibility of the proposed solution and the project plan is based on the following assumptions:

5.1.1.1. Integration with an e-Access moduleThe proposed Pre Award solution leans on the existence of an e-Access module in charge of the publication of Call for Tenders and of the management of Questions & Answers related to a published Call for Tender. In the EU environment this role can be played by the TED e-Tendering system developed and managed by the Publication Office of the EU Institutions. In other contexts, a different e-Access solution can be extended with the modules composing the proposed solution for Pre Award provided that it implements the same interfaces with the e-Submission / eQualification solution.

5.1.1.2. Coordination of development plans for VCD integration / interoperabilityThe integration with VCD solution and in particular with the EVS will be possible under the following assumptions:

1. a governance is put in place for the management of the evidences types associated to the criteria type. DG MARKT has to play a role in this even if OpenPEPPOL might set-up a governance model as done for the Peppol e-Delivery solution.

2. The EVS is run by OpenPEPPOL as a stable production system.3. there is a convergence between the VCD project of OpenPEPPOL and e-Prior Pre-award

project on qualification.

5.1.1.3. Access to a unique identification moduleThe Pre Award module for Economic Operators will lean upon the external ECAS self-registration and identification facilities. The underlying assumption is that e-Access Front Office also leans upon the same tool. The advantage for the Economic Operator is that he will have to self-register only once for multiple modules.

5.1.1.4. Adoption of a unique authorization moduleThe adoption of a unique authorisation module, such as an IAM, would help avoid redundancy of authorization modules and management. For Phase 1 and Phase 2 a unique authorisation module has not been adopted. It is a candidate point for future phases depending on the respect of the planned activities and the availability of resources (priority is given to "core modules"; IAM is instead a "satellite module" in the proposed solution).

5.1.1.5. Agreement of stakeholders The planning and costs given in the following sections are conditional on the availability of budget, the technical environment (see also section Error: Reference source not found Error: Reference sourcenot found), and the agreement of the stakeholders on the proposed approach.


5.1.1.6. Availability of resourcesThe required funds should be made available and the external experts selected and on-boarded in due time.

5.1.2. Dependencies The following dependencies were identified, which could potentially have an impact on the proposed solution or project planning. The high-level macro plan in section 5.1.3 Timing shows how the various dependencies are associated to the project phases. Please note that not all dependencies affect the open source version of the solution.

5.1.2.1. Dependency on TED / TED e-Tendering SOLVED: For phase 1, TED e-Tendering had to implement the interfaces and services described in the section Error: Reference source not found Error: Reference source not found. Refer to the column “Invoked by”.

Important:

The e-Access module should be the starting point for launching the e-Submission module. TED e-Tendering should provide seamless integration to Front Office e-Submission module.

For Phase 2:

Synchronisation is needed for the support in the Publications Office solution of additional procedures (EOI, Negotiated Procedures etc.).

Support of additional structured data in the e-Access module. A list of structured info associated to CEN BII rules was discussed with the TED e-Tendering development team. This list has been organised according to priorities and can be found in the Annex (see section Error: Reference source not found). At least Priority 1 points should be taken into account by TED e-Tendering development team to allow an acceptable level of functionality to support e-Qualification and e-Submission for two-stage procedures.

Due to these dependencies, the overall coordination with the Publications Office is a key point in respect to the integration with the TED e-Tendering solution.

For Future Phases:

Synchronisation is needed for the support in the Publications Office solution of additional procedures (DPS, e-Actions)

Support of additional structured data in the e-Access module to allow an acceptable level of functionality to support eEvaluation and improve automation of checks for e-submission and e-Qualification See change requests with Priority higher than 1 in section Error: Reference source not found of the Annex.

5.1.2.2. Dependency on other related projects Please see Macro Plan at 5.1.3 for the Phases during which the concerned points should be tackled by the e-PRIOR Pre Award action

E-TrustEx platform:Feasibility Study – pre-Award e-Procurement – Summarized version / 90Document Version 0.001 dated 24/04/2012

Evolution according to the roadmap of its Architecture Vision on the generic e-TrustEx platform, on which e-PRIOR is based (e.g.: availability of monitoring procedures for the exchanged messages and advanced traceability functions)40.

IT Rationalisation exercise within the EU Commission on e-Procurement Domain

This on-going exercise will allow to identify the "corporate" solutions covering the various parts of the e-Procurement domain and to set-up a seamless integration of the modules implementing the various parts of the business process chain. Some of these solutions can become "satellite" or "complementary" modules of the e-PRIOR Pre Award solution depending of the possibility to have them as Open Source solutions.

TCM application of FRA Agency:

Possibility of re-use of TCM as a basis for "ePrepare" and for the Evaluation module for an advanced solution supporting automated evaluation (see Macro Plan at 5.1.3 for the Phases during which these points should be tackled by the e-PRIOR Pre Award action);

5.1.2.3. OpenPEPPOL:- Possibility of re-use of PEPPOL tool for Pre-Award Catalogue;

- Maturity of e-Attestation solution (Virtual Company Dossier):

Contacts are on-going between the e-PRIOR and the OpenPEPPOL VCD team in order to find convergences. The following points have been identified:

o VCD Qualification data should be described in UBL format in order to achieve an alignment with e-PRIOR Qualification data. This requires joint work for the execution of a gap analysis between the e-PRIOR qualification data and the VCD implementation and to agree on how the various fields are to be interpreted.

o Availability of services implementing an European VCD System and endorsement by DG MARKT (to set-up of governance for code lists for the "criteria" and the "evidences types", e-Certis solution migrated to VCD)

o The adoption of VCD at national level (National VCDs)

o Adoption of VCD by External National Issuer Bodies (for the delivery of evidences)

NB: when tackling e-Attestations, the solution for Qualification exchange already implemented for Phase 1 and planned for Phase 2 will be reviewed.

Availability of Pilots for cross-sector re-use:

- Contacts are on-going with the consortium in charge of the execution of the e-SENS41 CIP pilot to identify opportunities for collaboration ;

CEN BII workshops

40 eTrustEx is an ISA action developed by the same unit in charge of e-PRIOR development so the level of coordination is good.

41 http://www.esens.eu/home.html: The e-SENS (“Electronic Simple European Networked Services” ) project is a new Large Scale Pilot to be launched within the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP), under the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP).

The aim of the project is to develop an infrastructure for interoperable public services in Europe. It will support the creation of a Digital Single Market by facilitating the delivery and usage of electronic public services.


http://www.esens.eu/home.html

Definition and review of "profiles": definitions of profiles for Profiles on 2 stage procedures including VCD exchange at the time of different steps of the process.

CIPA e-Delivery:

o Availability of support of large files exchanged via CIPA e-Delivery to support Interoperable Model42

5.1.2.4. Dependency on release of UBL 2.1 In order to implement CEN/BII profiles, the project is dependent on the release of UBL 2.1.

42 CIPA e-Delivery is an ISA action developed by the same unit in charge of e-PRIOR development so the level of coordination is good.


5.1.3. Timing

This section gives an overview of the high-level project planning to be rolled-out as from the completion of this feasibility study on Pre-Award e-Procurement. The planning is phased based on important project milestones and objectives and they provide for checkpoints for review and releases. The planning also takes into account:

External time constraints, such as the deadline suggested in the proposal for the new public procurement Directive Error: Reference source not found and the communication on the strategy for e-Procurement Error: Reference source not found, which would oblige Member States to ensure that all procurement procedures are performed using electronic means of communication by June 2016. Furthermore, in the European Commission's effort to lead by example, full e-Procurement must be implemented at European Union Institutions at least a year before (i.e. mid 2015).

External technical dependencies on related or potentially re-used technologies e.g. the TED e-Tendering solution of the Publications Office supporting different types of Tender procedures or the maturity level of e-Attestation solutions, such as the VCD. Refer to section 5.1.2 Dependencies for further elaboration.

The proposed plan has been developed using an approach that foresees a progressive incremental coverage across different dimensions (see section in 3.2 Approach Rationale) and takes into account external dependencies.

Intermediate releases might be deemed necessary within a phase in order to make additional features or improvements of existing features available to the user or open source community.

A summary of the key points foreseen for phase 1 is given in the annex, refer to 6.1 Phase 1Description.


Start End Activities DependenciesJune 2012

Global Inception Initial version of the Feasibility Study

Inception of Development Cycle 1 Feasibility Study initial version – focus on e-Submission

Aug 2012

July 2013

Elaboration / Construction (Development Cycle 1 – Phase 1a)Topics CEN BII Profiles e-Qualification (open procedure) Submission (open procedures, interfaces

with OP eTendering systems)

CEN/BII2-11 – Qualification

CEN/BII2-12 – Tendering Simple

Elaboration / Construction (Development Cycle 1 – Phase 1b)Topics CEN BII Profiles GUI Refinement of Phase 1a solution eSignature using DSS (open source

solution) Validation of eSignature using ESSI

services (EU Commission specific) Safe filing of received tenders Improved support of LOTS Enhanced Opening Session Support

(Report "record of opening session") 2 Envelopes support Tender Receipt initial support Enhanced Timestamping support (ESSI

services).



Elaboration / Construction (Development Cycle 1 – Phase 1 Open)Topics CEN BII Profiles Open Source migration of

SW components Replace ESSI eSignature

/and Validation services with DSS

Complete Tender Receipt support

CEN/BII2-11 – Qualification CEN/BII2-12 – Tendering

Simple

Inception (Development Cycle 3 - Phase 2)Topics CEN BII Profiles e-Qualification (support CEN/BII2 profile

11 for Negotiated, Restricted and EOI procedures)

e-Submission for EOI e-Submission enhancement EOI

support, gap analysis with conclusions of Expert Group and Golden Book)



Piloting POC with DIGIT, OP, selected Economic Operators and with

selected DGs

Progress made on the generic e-TrustEx platform on which e-PRIOR is based (e.g. availability of functions like encryption and support of e-Signature)

Coordination with Publication Office for integration with eTendering solution.

June 2013

Aug2013

Elaboration / Construction (Development Cycle 2 – Phase 1 Availability of results of the projects about


Open)Topics CEN BII Profiles Open Source migration of

SW components Replace ESSI eSignature

/and Validation services with DSS

Complete Tender Receipt support


Simple

Inception (Development Cycle 3 – Phase 2)Topics CEN BII Profiles Identify opportunities for

Cross sector re-usability of e-Submission

Analysis of MARKT's Indicators study

TCM assessment for possible re-use ("procedure preparation", evaluation) and comparison with other EC solutions (PPMT).


Simple

Piloting Contribution to standards improvements further to lessons

learnt / feedback from executed POC / Pilot

Indicators (DG MARKT)

Availability of TCM documentation and source code.

.

Aug 2013

Dec 2013

Elaboration / Construction (Development Cycle 3 – Phase 2)Topics CEN BII Profiles support procurement

procedures that require an exchange of qualification info distinct from the tender exchange

initial integration with VCD solution for e-Attestation

enhancement of e-Submission solution further to results of the Pilot of Phase 1

improvement of eSignature solution


Simple

Inception (Development Cycle 4 – Phase 3)Topics CEN BII Profiles e-Qualification

enhancement: more advanced integration with e-Attestation solution (VCD)

e-Evaluation (“minimal” functionalities, more advanced functions for Evaluation depending on possible re-use of TCM)

e-Catalogue (analysis and


Simple CEN/BII2-10 – Tender

Notification CEN/BII2-xx – Tendering

Simple with Catalogue CEN/BII2-10 – Tender

Notification

Support in Publication Office solution of additional Tender procedures (e.g.: EOI, Restricted and Negotiated procedures)

Convergence of VCD to UBL, synchronisation of development plan by Open PEPPOL


assessment of PEPPOL tool, Back Office evaluation module)

e-Awarding (contract generation with eSignature support)

Jan 2014

August 2014

Elaboration / Construction (Development Cycle 4 – Phase 3)Topics CEN BII Profiles Initial support of DG MARKT

indicators e-Qualification

enhancement: more advanced integration with e-Attestation solution (VCD)

e-Evaluation (“minimal” functionalities, more advanced functions for Evaluation depending on possible re-use of TCM)

e-Catalogue (BO evaluation module and integration PEPPOL to client app)

e-Awarding (contract generation with eSignature support)




Simple with Catalogue

Inception (Development Cycle 5 – Phase 4)Topics CEN BII Profiles Procedure preparation

(depending on possible re-use of TCM)

Functions for e-Prepare system

Dynamic Purchasing System with DG MARKT indicators support





Piloting Progress with Roll-out of e-Submission and eQualification at

the Commission (support of additional procurement procedures)

Contribution to standards improvements further to lessons learnt / feedback from use at the Commission

Support in Publication Office solution of additional Tender procedures (e.g.: EOI, Restricted and Negotiated procedures, DPS)

Possibility of re-use of TCM Evaluation module for an advanced solution supporting automated evaluation.

Possibility of re-use of PEPPOL tool for Pre-Award Catalogue.

Maturity of VCD solution and / or other national solutions (e.g.: e-Passport)

Availability of Pilots for cross-sector re-use

Sept 2014

Dec 2014

Elaboration / Construction (Development Cycle 5 – Phase 4)Topics CEN BII Profiles Dynamic Purchasing System

with DG MARKT indicators support

Basic satellite system for e-Prepare

Additional support of DG MARKT Indicators





Inception (Development Cycle 6 – Phase 5)

Support in Publication Office solution of additional Tender procedures (e.g.: DPS, e-Auction)

Possibility of re-use of TCM Evaluation module for an advanced solution supporting automated


Topics CEN BII Profiles e-Auction with DG MARKT

indicators support Identify opportunities for

Cross sector re-usability of e-Attestation




Simple with CataloguePiloting

Identify opportunities for cross-sector Pilots

evaluation. Possibility of re-use

of PEPPOL tool for Pre-Award Catalogue.

Maturity of VCD solution and / or other national solutions (e.g.: e-Passport)

Availability of Pilots for cross-sector re-use (contacts with e-SENS)

Jan 2015

July 2015

Elaboration / Construction (Development Cycle 6 – Phase 5)Topics CEN BII Profiles

e-Auction with DG MARKT indicators support

Adaptation to support e-Submission and e-Attestation in a domain different from eProcurement (basis for cross-sector re-usability)





Inception (Development Cycle 7 – Phase 6)Topics CEN BII Profiles Review of Interoperable

Model CEN/BII2-11 – Qualification CEN/BII2-12 – Tendering




Piloting Roll-out of e-Awarding for additional DGs at the Commission Contribution to standards improvements further to lessons

learnt / feedback from POC / Pilot

Support in Publication Office solution of additional Tender procedures (e.g.: e-Auction)

Availability of support of large files exchange via CIPA e-Delivery


Aug 2015

Dec 2015

Elaboration / Construction (Development Cycle 7 – Phase 6)Topics CEN BII Profiles

e-Submission for Interoperability model

e-Awarding for Interoperability model

Dynamic Purchasing System





Piloting POC with Agencies in sector different than Procurement

solution for e-Submission Contribution to standards improvements further to lessons

learnt / feedback from POC / Pilot

Availability of support of large files exchange via CIPA e-Delivery



6. ANNEX

6.1. Phase 1 Description

Objectives

Development of a first e-Submission module covering the open procedures without interoperable model, focus on the use of electronic means for transmission of Tenders in a secure way rather than electronic Tender processing. The Tender will be printed in the Tender opening session for further evaluation.

First iteration of Transition Phase to make available the developed solution in a test environment in view of assessment in the EC environment.

Execution of a Pilot / Proof of Concept in an acceptance environment involving representatives of the Business Actors (Contracting Authority: Contract Unit of DIGIT

Steps

Inception of e-Submission (Feasibility study initial version) – completed by June 2012

(August – December 2012) : Elaboration and Construction of initial version of e-Submission (e-Submission Phase 1a)

(January 2013): e-Submission Phase 1a – transition into test environment and integration tests with TED eTendering

February – April 2013: Elaboration and Construction of enhanced version of e-Submission for Open Procedures (Phase 1b)

May – June 2013: Pilot / Proof of Concept with involving representatives of the Business Actors

May – July 2013: Construction and Packaging of Open Source version to be made available in JOIN-UP

Principles

Business Documents: Tender form and Qualification form completed locally and submitted as part of a

“Tender Bundle”.

Other documents included in the submitted Tender Bundle: e-Catalogue included as an annex (not necessarily in a structured format) Attestations: included as annexes of the Qualification message.

PLEASE NOTE THAT:

1. The new directive promotes the use of self-declarations. Once produced they are either electronically or "blue ink" signed by the Economic Operator and sent as part of the Tender Bundle. Attestations can be requested only in the Awarding phase.

2. When a self-declaration is not yet allowed the paper "attestations" provided by third parties can be sent as electronic scanned documents included in the Tender


Bundle prepared by the Economic Operator. The paper version may follow by the post and be available in the awarding process.

3. In case a Third Party provides an attestation electronically signed (qualified signature to an Economic Operator) then it can be sent as part of the Tender Bundle.

Key solution elements:

Integration with TED e-Tendering (case of EU institutions context)

Tender and Qualification produced locally and then submitted to e-Submission Front Office (minimal Qualification data, use of annexes for qualification data)

Implementation of the e-Submission Front Office (for Economic Operators) and e-Submission Back Office (for Contracting Authorities)

CEN/BII profiles for Tendering (Tender Simple) and Qualification Use of UBL 2.1 syntax for messages

Data aspects: (minimal) subset of structured data in exchanged CEN BII messages / UBL docs, use of annexes when possible as unstructured data.

End-to-end encryption (encryption of the elements of the “Tender Bundle”) Possible (not mandatory) use of e-Signature (Signing the documents within the

Tender Bundle) Signed Tender Bundle Preparation Report (for non-repudiation – Economic

Operator) Tender Receipt (for non-repudiation – Contracting Authority)

Guarantee of integrity (use of “hash” method) Timestamping of the Tender Bundle

Transmission and reception of Tender Bundles re-using e-TrustEx mechanisms ("bundles")

Decryption of the received Tender Bundle(s) during the Opening Session, after giving access to the decryption key to the opening officers

Blue ink signature of a Tender Bundle Preparation Report, which can be printed and signed

If eSignature applied then Validation of the electronic signature of the Tender Bundle(s) during the Opening Session

Authorization management for the opening session, and providing access to the decryption key(s)

Logging of key activities on Tenders (sending, receipt, opening) Received Tenders once opened are filed on an external document repository (e.g.:

File System folders) (the focus of the action is on use of electronic means for transmission of Tenders and not on the post-transmission aspects)


6.2. Stakeholder Interview Questions and Interactions

6.2.1. Phase 1 and general scope Interview Questions 1. Organisation Structure (about 15 minutes)

1.1. Which type of procedures does your DG make use of? How many of them does your organisation manage each year?

1.2. How is your Organisation organised regarding the management of these procedures and how many persons are involved in the management of those procedures?

a. By nature (services, goods, etc.);b. By procedure type (open, restricted, negotiated, etc.);c. Other categorisation (by amount, etc.).

2. Business Processes and Variances (about 45 minutes)

2.1. What are the critical business functions in the management of procedure within the perspective of :

a. Economic Operator interaction (e.g. tender submission, guarantee request, etc.);b. Internal DG processes (e.g. call preparation, joint-procurement management,

evaluation, etc.);c. Resource Management (e.g. DG HR, IT, document management, security).

2.2. Do you apply the guidelines of the Procurement Vade-Mecum as such or do you have any variances?

2.3. Regarding question 2.2, which are the main types of (in)variances (e.g. processes, systems, etc.)?

2.4. Relationships with the grant management: Does your organisation share processes between pre-awarding and grant management? If so, which processes?

3. Risk and Improvement Opportunities (about 30 minutes)

3.1. Which are the existing issues today and risks for the future?

3.2. Which could be the priorities for implementation?

3.3. Which could be suggestions for improvement and harmonisation?a. Within your Directorate;b. Within your DG.


4. Use of tools (about 15 minutes)

4.1. Do you/would you use the OP e-Tendering tool?

4.2. Do you use other tools (for preparation, publication, assessment, etc.)?

4.3. Are you ready to use new tools or would you prefer integrating your existing tools with our solution?

5. Involvement in the pilot project (about 5 minutes)

5.1. Would you like to be part of a pilot project?

6.2.2. Phase 2 scope Interactions with stakeholders

A number of interactions between the Pre Award Inception team and business stakeholders:

Workshop of 12/12/2013 on Qualification management and 2 stages procedures involving the Contract Unit of DIGIT, business experts of the EU Council and of DG CLIMA.

Coordination meeting with unit MARKT.C.4 of 16/01/2013

Coordination meeting with TED eTendering project team (Publication Office)

Meeting of 22/01/2013 with DG BUDG representatives on the Qualification management, 2 stages procedures and the related articles of the Financial Regulation.

Workshops/(net-)meetings (29/1/2013, 14/2/2013, 15/3/2013, 20/6/2013) with OpenPEPPOL representatives on Virtual Company Dossier involving also DG MARKT and the Contract Unit of DIGIT,

Meetings (conference call of 7/3/2013) followed by several mail exchanges and by Workshop (26/4/2013) with the Publication Office representatives to synchronise development plans and scope for next releases of e-PRIOR Pre Award and TED eTendering.

Participation to CEN BII Workshop in Barcelona on 19/3/2013 and mail interactions with members of CEN BII and UBL committees / working group.

Pilot executed with collaboration of TED eTendering team of the Publication Office in May / June with some Economic Operators, members of unit DIGIT R2 (business owner) and representatives of Commission services (BUDG, MARKT, DGT, ENTR, JRC).


6.3. Phase 1 Scenarios

The business scenarios supported by the e-PRIOR Pre-Award solution are described in Power Points presentations prepared for the stakeholders participating to the Pilot / Proof of Concept and in the User Manuals.

In case the reader does not have access to the Wiki pages mentioned hereafter, he/she can request a copy of the documents to the DIGIT B4 eProcurement Team.

6.3.1. Contracting Authority Part

6.3.1.1. Pilot Presentation for Contracting Authoritieshttps://webgate.ec.europa.eu/CITnet/confluence/display/EPROCUREMENT/e-

Submission+Pilot

6.3.1.2. User and Operational Procedures Manual for Contracting Authoritieshttps://webgate.ec.europa.eu/CITnet/confluence/display/EPROCUREMENT/e-

Submission+Pilot

6.3.2. Economic Operator Part

6.3.2.1. Pilot Presentation for Economic Operators https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/CITnet/confluence/display/EPROCUREMENT/e-

Submission+Pilot

6.3.2.2. User and Operational Procedures Manual for Economic Operators https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/CITnet/confluence/display/EPROCUREMENT/e-

Submission+Pilot


https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/CITnet/confluence/display/EPROCUREMENT/e-Submission+Pilot






