Solicitation (SO) Document Type

”Solicitation” is the general term given to documents that are used to formally advertise a requirement and invite vendors to respond with bids or proposals, or to qualify vendors for a second stage of the bid process.  Solicitations documents in CGI Advantage Procurement may also be used for reverse auctions, surplus auctions or sales. The Solicitation Document Type in Advantage is used to describe the goods or services that are being requested or auctioned along with specifying any terms or conditions for participating in the bidding process.

There are three main ways to solicit responses for a Solicitation:

• Available to public - No Vendor List.  Any vendor can submit a response.  Vendors registered for commodities detailed on a solicitation will receive notification of the posting.

• Available to public - Not pre-qualified. Any vendor can submit a response.  Notification of the published Solicitation is sent to vendors on the Solicitation vendor list.

• Available to specific vendors - Pre-qualified.  Only selected vendors can submit a response.  Notification of published Solicitation sent to pre-qualified vendors.

A buyer attaches documents to the solicitation either at the Header section and/or Commodity detail section.

Important features for the SO Document Type:

• Inactive Line Functionality on Solicitation Documents

  The Inactive Line flag can be selected on Modification Draft SO documents in CGI Advantage.  The following general rules apply to this field on documents of the SO Document Type.  (Rules that apply only to specific components are listed with the component in the table below): The Inactive Line flag cannot be set to True on a new line. The Inactive Line flag cannot be selected unless the Solicitation Status is ”Open” (that is, the Solicitation Closing Date and Solicitation Closing Time have not passed, the Solicitation has not been awarded, or the Solicitation has not been cancelled). Inactive lines are not copied forward into a target document. If the Hide Inactive Procurement Lines flag is selected when printing the SO document, then only the active lines are printed.  If the Hide Inactive Procurement Lines flag is not selected when printing the SO document, then the active and inactive lines are printed. If the Hide Inactive Procurement Lines flag is selected when assembling the SO document, then only the active lines are assembled.  If the Hide Inactive Procurement Lines flag is not selected when assembling the SO document, then the active and inactive lines are assembled.  (Refer to the "Understanding the Assembly Process” section in this user guide, for more information on the Assembly functionality.)   The Inactive Line flag is included on the following Solicitation Document Components: Document Component Component Specific Rules Schedule of Events   Terms and Conditions   Commodity Group   Commodity If the Inactive Line flag is selected for a Commodity Group, then all Commodity Lines associated with the inactive Commodity Group are also marked inactive. Commodity T&C If the Inactive Line flag is checked for a Commodity Line, all associated Commodity T&C Lines are also marked inactive. Evaluation Criteria Group   Evaluation Criteria Line If the Inactive Line flag is checked for an Evaluation Criteria Group, all associated Evaluation Criteria Lines are also marked inactive. Supporting Documents

   

• Lock Order Specs Functionality

  On the PRDOC table the Lock Order Specs indicates if vendors can bid with alternate Commodity Specifications than those specified on the RQ and SO document types.  If this check box is selected then it defaults the value to Yes on the documents and this indicates that the vendor cannot bid with alternate specifications.  If the check box is unselected, it defaults the value of No on the documents and alternate specifications can be submitted. In the actual RQ types of documents the PRDOC value can be overridden by selecting a different value on the Lock Order Specs CVL before submitting to final.  Valid values are Blank, Yes, or No.  If the SO document references a RQ document type then the value of the Lock Order Specs CVL is defaulted from the RQ document type, else the value is defaulted from the PRDOC table. Similar to the PRDOC, the default value can be overridden on the document. On modified version of SO document type, the value of Lock Order Specs CVL cannot be changed from No to Yes on an existing commodity line. If a new commodity line is added on the modification version of the Solicitation document (that was not present on the previous version), then the Lock Order Specs CVL can be set to either Yes or No.

• Amendments to a Solicitation

  A buyer can make changes to the Solicitation document any time prior to the Solicitation being released.  Once the Solicitation has been published, changes to the Solicitation are tracked in the form of amendments.  Notification of amendments will automatically be sent to vendors on the vendor list (as previously described) and vendors that have responded but were not on the list.  The Prohibit Online Responses flag can be modified in a Solicitation Amendment if the flag is being changed from true to false, allowing online bids to be submitted.  However, the Prohibit Online Responses flag may not be modified in a Solicitation Amendment if the flag is being changed from false to true, prohibiting online bids to be submitted.  In short, once a Solicitation has been finalized, the Buyer can allow online responses to that Solicitation if they were originally prohibited, but the Buyer cannot prohibit online responses to that Solicitation if they were originally allowed.  This is because once the Solicitation has been finalized and the Let Date has passed, a vendor may have already responded to that Solicitation.  A buyer cannot change the Restrict Multiple Responses per Vendor TIN flag during a modification of a submitted Solicitation document. The following steps identify the amendment process of an open published Solicitation document in CGI Advantage Procurement: Open Solicitation document, click Edit and make changes. An Amendment Number will be automatically assigned.  The amended solicitation will be posted to the web after the modification is finalized.  Amendment detail may also be posted to the web. This is controlled by a publishing option. All vendors that were originally notified are notified of the amendment along with any vendors that have responded to the Solicitation.

• Key inputs/outputs of the Solicitation Documents

  A Solicitation document can reference all Requisition documents.  Information from a Requisition document can be copied forward to the Solicitation document, thereby eliminating the need for re-keying.  You may also select individual RQ lines from multiple procurements.  A Solicitation document can be referenced by the Solicitation Response document the Evaluation document, all PO document types, and the Master Agreement.  Document references are defined on the Document Allowable References (DARF) table.  Along with the ability to print the Solicitation, when a vendor has a Correspondence Type of Postal Service, you can generate a separate mailing label for the corresponding Solicitation.  The mailing label includes the following fields: Vendor Name Solicitation Description (30 - characters) Street 1 Street 2 City, State Zip

Related Topic(s):

• The "SO Delivered Document Codes" section provides a list of all Document Codes that are delivered with the SO Document Type.

• The SO Document Type belongs to the Solicitation State.