WORK IN PROGRESS

Sprint 129 (May xxth 2023)

TM - Randomizer on invite

Why

In some scenarios, buyers do not want to invite all suppliers previously approved. To prevent them from using other software, we’ve added a randomizer so that buyers can select a smaller number of suppliers out of a bigger pool of suppliers. This is also one of the GAPs between Negometrix3 and Source-to-Contract.

What

As part of the first iteration, the randomizer does only work in mini-competitions. That means that the bigger pool of suppliers are taken from either a DPS, Qualification System, or Framework Agreement.

The randomizer could be seen as a step to reduce the big pool of approved suppliers, to a smaller (random) number of suppliers who will receive an invitation to the tender.

How

BPM

There is a new setting in the BPM called Enable Randomizer when inviting suppliers. This can be found in BPM > Workflow > Round > Round Settings > Suppliers. The default setting should be on Yes, to enable the randomizer. Note that this BPM should be created with the purpose of a Mini-competition.

When enabled, additional fields will become visible:

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• Number of selected suppliers

  • Indicates to the system how many suppliers the randomizer should return

• Allow buyers overwrite number of suppliers

  • If allowed it gives buyers an option to specify case by case how many randomly selected suppliers they want.

    IMPORTANT note: by default the Company Admin (has “Manage all tenders as an admin” right) will ALWAYS be able to overwrite this option. Just like in Q&A publish/unpublish.

• Number of attempts

  • How many times the buyer can roll/re-roll the randomizer

• Let the buyer overwrite number of attempts

  • When initiating the randomizer, the system may allow buyers to decide case by case how many attempts to perform.

    IMPORTANT note: by default the Company Admin (has “Manage all tenders as an admin” right) will ALWAYS be able to overwrite this option. Just like in Q&A publish/unpublish.

Case 1: Randomizer in a regular Mini competition

In the menu Suppliers, the Pre-selected suppliers card, there is a new button Run randomizer.

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Based on the BPM settings, Run Randomizer will request or allow changing the default settings (by default the Company Admin will be able to overwrite any randomization related settings from BPM, i.e. no limitations for Company Admin):

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Execution of the randomizer takes some 5 sec. before the end result is shown

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The randomly selected suppliers are indicated with additional dice appended to the organization name.
Mouse over the dice to see the tooltip about who and when run the randomizer on selected supplier.

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Please note, when the randomizer is executed and supplier(s) randomly selected, the Mini-competition doesn’t start immediately. It should be the buyer’s conscious decision via common “Start mini competition” button.

If the currently logged user has the company admin permission OR in BPM it’s allowed to re-launch the randomizer, the “Run randomizer” button will still be visible. When clicked the user has these to pick from the following options:

• Add new randomly selected suppliers to the current randomization result

• Start from scratch (current randomization will be lost)

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If we pick the first option, the end result will be the additional randomly selected supplier (with different timestamp of the execution date)

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Once the randomizer is executed we show WHICH suppliers were randomly selected and which are not.

Case 2: Randomizer in Mini competition with “Add admitted suppliers” option

It is as well possible to combine the Randomizer and “Add admitted suppliers” option (if enabled in BPM)

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In the inner page the supplier has a possibility to pick suppliers they want to work with AND run the randomizer on the rest of suppliers. The buyer can as well simply run the randomizer over the entire list of suppliers (which is equal to Case 1).

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In the above image you can see one manually selected supplier - Romsteel SA, and one supplier randomly selected by the system - Dimp Aust Ltd. Please note, if the randomizer has to be run again, already selected suppliers are NOT included in the backlog for the randomizer.

Suppliers already selected by the randomizer can’t be removed from the list.

Both manually selected and randomly selected suppliers appear in the list of prepared suppliers for the Mini competition.

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Again, suppliers already selected by the randomizer can’t be removed from the list, while those manually selected can be removed (see 3-dots menu).