Run a solicitation
Start from the request
Section titled “Start from the request”When an approved request needs competition, the solicitation drafting agent prepares a draft solicitation and tells you what it could not settle, such as missing specifications. You can also start one with New solicitation on Sourcing.
- Type: RFI, RFQ, IFB (formal bid) or RFP.
- Scope: written vendor-neutral. Requesters can work on it with you in the shared workspace.
- Evaluation criteria: weights that add up to 100, plus pass/fail criteria.
- Required documents: bid forms, insurance certificates, bid bond percentage.
- Dates: questions due, bids due, opening.
- CIP-013: mark the purchase in scope so vendor risk assessment and the required clauses follow it.
Publish
Section titled “Publish”Publishing posts the notice to the channels your agency uses: RAMPLA, Cal eProcure and your public bid feed. Registered suppliers in matching commodity codes get an alert. Suppliers who download or follow it become plan holders.
While it is open
Section titled “While it is open”- Q&A: questions arrive anonymously; publish answers to all plan holders.
- Addenda: issue an addendum and every plan holder is told.
- If a posting to a bid board fails, it waits on the solicitation for a retry.
An RFI collects information without bids. Close it into a follow-on RFP and its plan holders carry over.