30, All these terms relate to the use of technology to assist the process of selecting suppliers and purchasing goods. Because this is quite a young industry, many competing terms are in use. For this reason, some definitions may be helpful:

SRM - Supplier Relationship Management . This term is borrowed from the use of technology in Sales, where the term is "Customer Relationship Management". Supplier Relationship Management software is any software that helps an organisation manage its supplier relationships. SupplierSelect addresses one aspect of SRM - evaluating and selecting suppliers through a tendering process.

e-sourcing - Electronic Sourcing "Sourcing" means to find a source of a good or service. There are two steps in sourcing: identification and selection. Identification involves finding a number of potential suppliers of a good or service. Selection involves selecting the best supplier from these potential suppliers. SupplierSelect is concerned with Selection, not Identification. Selection can be further broken down into commodity and complex. Commodity purchases can be boiled down to price. Complex purchases are, well, complex, and therefore require many different criteria to be assessed and weighed against one another - an RFx. ]]> 32,29,36,35,79, eRFx is shorthand for:

  • Request For Proposal (RFP)
  • Request For Quote (RFQ)
  • Request For Information (RFI)
  • Invitation To Tender (ITT) or Pre Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ0)

Where the buying organisation asks a detailed set of questions from each candidate.

The 'e' is for 'electronic'. The term eRFx is generally only applied to cases where the project is managed via web based software.

An RFx questionnaire is a bit like a college examination. It consists of a number of questions, arranged into sections and subsections (to any depth). Respondents (potential suppliers) provide answers to these questions, and the buyer scores these answers. Questions and sections are given a weighting which determines the contribution of each question's score to the total, overall score. This process is felt to give the buyer a good chance of selecting the supplier which best fits the requirements of the project.

Respectable RFx software (like SupplierSelect, of course) supports the use of multiple weighting sets and multiple score sets (score cards) for really sophisticated RFx projects. ]]> 30, eTendering software manages a tender electronically. The term is imprecise, and is used to include approaches of varying sophistication:

  1. Sending tender documents by email
  2. Placing notifications on a website and allowing bidders to download documents
  3. Software for the production and analysis of tender documents or scoring matrices
  4. A full process system for drafting, issuing, responding to and scoring tenders through a website

Increasingly, only the last variant is seen a proper use of the term eTendering, and is in this sense that SupplierSelect is an example of Tendering software.

]]> 27, 27,30,36,
  • Regulated Industries. Where government rules require that suppliers are chosen on the basis of quality and cost effectiveness (anti-corruption rules). e.g. public sector or the pension fund industry
  • Consultants. Many organisations use consultants to help them purchase complex goods or services. Consultants use RFx questionnaires to encapsulate their knowledge of an industry, and to demonstrate to their clients the basis on which they are making recommendations
  • Procurement Professionals. RFx questionnaires are central to any professional procurement officer's role. In many respects a procurement officer is like an internal consultant, so the same drivers apply.
    • In summary, if you need to make a difficult purchasing decision, and to be able to demonstrate the basis on which the decision has been made, RFx questionnaires are the way to go. ]]>         35, In order of sophistication, the alternatives are:

    • Paper based documents.
    • Emailed word processor documents.
    • Emailed spreadsheet

    These are all valid approaches, any of which may be the best fit for your situation. For example, if you are only asking 10 yes/no questions, and there is no weighting for scores associated with each answer, then using a web-based RFP tool would be overkill.

    ]]>         34,30,
  • Central Storage - All data relating to a project is stored centrally and is backed up.
  • Objective Comparison - Answers to a specific question can be compared (and scored) side by side.
  • Re-use - Questions, Sections and entire questionnaires can be re-used between projects
  • Automatic Scoring - Questions can be autoscored without the risk of the respondent breaking spreadsheet formatting.
  • Collaboration - Teams can work together on both drafting the questionnaire and scoring responses.
  • Calculations - Weighting and total score calculations are automatic and robust
  • Analytics - Scores charts and analysis are automatically generated on line.
  • Audit - Everything is tracked for a full audit trail.
    • ]]>         30,32,80,
  • RFx Specialist SupplierSelect is not part of a bigger eProcurement system. It is designed to make questionnaire based supplier evaluation easier to manage, nothing more.
  • Instant setup SupplierSelect is a hosted, web based service. You can be running live projects within minutes of reading this.
  • Very Affordable Pricing You can pay by monthly subscription, or per project
  • Vendor Friendly Respondents can register on-line and use the system free of charge. Workflow functionality allows teams of respondents to work together effectively on large projects. Import functionality enables vendors to copy answers from previous project with one mouse click.
  • Rich Questions All other RFP software systems' restrict one question to containing one input element (text box, multiple choice field etc). With SupplierSelect questions can contain any number of elements, structured into rows and columns as required. This is significant - the question is the unit of weighting, and individual elements may be too fine grained for a sensible weighting to be a applied.
  • Multiple Scorers SupplierSelect has very strong support for multiple scorers working either together on the same set of scores, or for each scorer to create a separate, parallel set of scores.
  • Branding & Internationalisation SupplierSelect is designed to be easy to re-brand and to support any language (including double byte character sets). Translations for French, Russian and Chinese are standard.
    • ]]>         2, not support Reverse Auctions. See wikipedia auction page for a good discussion of auction types. ]]> 37,

    • DEFINE : buyer defines requirements and evaluation criteria - drafts the questionnaire
    • INVITE : buyer invites Suppliers to respond
    • RESPOND : Supplier accepts invitation and responds, inputting answers online
    • ANALYSE : buyer scores responses and compares Suppliers
    ]]>         ratings and research company in the global custody industry. Since 2000, Thomas Murray has used SupplierSelect to complete more than 500 large (1000+ plus questions each) Supplier Evaluation projects for a range of clients including banks, insurance firms, airlines, government bodies.

    The outcome of these projects has resulted in the selection of custody providers to manage over 2.4 trillion dollars worth of assets.

    SupplierSelect Ltd was created in 2006 to make SupplierSelect available to other industry sectors.
    ]]>         16,45, Physical Security & Access Control Our production equipment is located in London, United Kingdom at a facility that provides security barriers, 24x7x365 monitoring by on-site personnel to include visual verification of all persons entering the building, CCTV video camera surveillance and a security breach alarm. Access to the buildings, data floors and individual areas are via individually programmed Proximity Access Cards (PAC), usage of the PAC is logged centrally by time and date. The cards cannot be used by anyone else, whenever you swipe your card tag over the sensors to gain access to the building, your digital photograph will be displayed on our security systems which are continuously monitored by our on-site technicians. The technicians will then verify the information and only when satisfied, allow access.

    Perimeter Defence

    The network perimeter is protected by a firewall and is monitored by intrusion detection systems.

    Data Encryption

    We use the industry standard encryption products to protect customer data and communications, including 128-bit SSL Certification and 1024-bit RSA public keys. The lock icon in the browser indicates that data is fully shielded from access while in transit.

    User Authentication

    Users access Supplierselect only with a valid username and password combination, which is encrypted via SSL while in transmission. Users are discouraged from choosing weak or obvious passwords. A session ID cookie is used to uniquely identify each user.

    Application Security

    Our robust application security model prevents one Supplierselect customer from accessing another's data. This security model is reapplied with every request and enforced for the entire duration of a user session.

    Operating System Security

    Supplierselect enforces tight operating system-level security by using a minimal number of access points to all production servers. We protect all operating system accounts with strong passwords. Operating systems are maintained at each vendor?s recommended patch levels for security and are hardened by disabling and/or removing any unnecessary users, protocols, and processes. In addition, we monitor and analyze system log files to identify security threats.

    Database Security

    Whenever possible, database access is controlled at the operating system and database connection level for additional security. Access to production databases is restricted to a limited number of IP addresses.

    Reliability and Backup

    All customer data is stored on carrier-class disk storage using RAID disks and multiple data paths. All customer data, to the last committed transaction, is backed up to an off site location on a nightly basis.

    Disaster Recovery

    SupplierSelect has a geographically remote disaster recovery facility along with the required hardware, software, and Internet connectivity to ensure continuity in the event that our production facilities were to be rendered unavailable.]]>         32,31, SupplierSelectBrochure.pdf]]> 20,78, Yes, SupplierSelect can be used for vendor comparison.

    In SupplierSelect, you create questions, and invite potential suppliers to respond to these questions. Questions should be written so as to facilitate objective scoring, and thus accurate side by side vendor comparison.]]>

    21,
  • Your own URL (e.g. http://buyer.supplierselect.com or http://procurement.buyer.com)
  • Your own branding / look and feel. Logos, colours fonts etc.
  • Public projects enable you to accept bids from unknown suppliers
    • ]]>         57,72, SupplierSelect is easy to learn and can be used immediately. Using SupplierSelect is similar to using other popular web sites - it's fairly intuitive. If you understand the principles behind RFP style tendering, and you are familiar with the web, you should be able to get started without training.

    For documentation, two detailed Guides are available as PDF or HTML documents from the Help link within SupplierSelect:

    Some aspects of the system are a little more subtle. One is designing multiple column questions, for which a basic understanding of table design (row-span and column-span) will be useful. Another is the use of different approaches to calculating total weighted scores, which can become confusing in a big questionnaire with deeply nested sections.]]> 6,61,

  • Users. Go to "My Account" > "Users" and add accounts for any other members of your own organisation that you wish to work with.
  • Run a test project. To familiarise yourself with SupplierSelect, it might be useful to create a test project to practise using the system.
    • Import a questionnaire template from the global library. This is a good way to see a range of question types, and to experiment with editing them.
    • Invite your own organisation to respond - this allows you to get the respondent's perspective on answering a questionnaire.
    • Invite SupplierSelect to respond - we have special tools enabling us to generate random answers to questions. This is a nice way to get a feel for how the response process works.
    • Publish, answer, and score the project - work through the full process.
  • Having worked through these steps you should feel confident to launch a live project.
    • ]]>         6,52,84, Projects are the central concept in SupplierSelect. A project contains all information - questions, answers, scores, lists of respondents, attachments - relating to an evaluation exercise.

    Your first step in using SupplierSelect is to create a new project. An informative Wizard will guide you through what's involved.]]> 36, Yes. SupplierSelect is fully internationalised, and supports any languages. Translations for the user interface are available in:

    • Chinese (Simplified)
    • Japanese
    • French
    • Russian

    New Translations can be added by editing one translation file.]]>

    7,8,9,11,52,61, 6, 21,22,6, 6, 6, "Draft" means that you are at the project definition stage. This is the stage when you create the evaluation questionnaire, attach supporting materials, and select which Suppliers can view and respond to the project.

    "Live" means that you have completed the project definition stage and Suppliers have been invited to respond. When you are ready to invite Suppliers to respond, change the project status from "Draft" to "Live" .

    "Closed" means that the project is no longer active. Suppliers can no longer view or respond to the project. Evaluators can no longer score questions or edit weightings. When you are ready to close the project, change the project status from "Live" to "Closed".]]> The Questionnaire is the means by which Suppliers are evaluated. Each Supplier that responds to your project must answer your evaluation questionnaire. After you have scored their answers, you can graphically compare the Suppliers by their total score, or compare them by specific sections or questions within the evaluation questionnaire.

    ]]>         18, 28, This is a uniquely fine grained audit, a feature which makes SupplierSelect well suited to highly regulated environments such as EU Public sector procurement, or Financial Services.
    Below is a list of all event types logged by the system:

    ANSWER_ALLOCATED

    ANSWER_APPROVED

    ANSWER_CREATED

    ANSWER_IMPORTED

    ANSWER_REJECTED

    ANSWER_SUBMITTED_FOR_APPROVAL

    ANSWER_UPDATED

    ISSUE_ACCEPTED

    ISSUE_CREATED

    ISSUE_DECLINED

    ISSUE_DELETED

    ISSUE_NOTE_ADDED

    ISSUE_RELEASED

    ISSUE_RETRACTED

    ISSUE_SUBMITTED

    ISSUE_UPDATED

    PROJECT_CLOSED

    PROJECT_CREATED

    PROJECT_DELETED

    PROJECT_NOTE_ADDED

    PROJECT_PUBLISHED

    PROJECT_REVERTED_TO_DRAFT

    PROJECT_UPDATED

    QUESTIONNAIRE_CREATED

    QUESTIONNAIRE_DELETED

    QUESTIONNAIRE_IMPORTED

    SCORE_AUTOSCORE_CREATED

    SCORE_CLEARED

    SCORE_COMMENT_ADDED

    SCORE_CREATED

    SCORE_IMPORTED

    SCORE_UPDATED]]>         47,69, In many Evaluation exercises, multiple organisations need to be able to access respondents' answers. For example, a company tendering for a new Logistics provider might hire a specialist consultancy to assist with that purchase. In such a case, the consultancy would need to be able to draft some specialist questions and then help with the analysis and scoring of those questions.

    SupplierSelect enables the project author to provide additional organisations with access to the question drafting and scoring parts of the project. These additional organisations are called Participants. Participants organisations are assigned a Role defining permissions. The participant's the organisation Role masks (overrides) the permissions assigned to users in that organisation.

    Participants can be managed under the Advanced Options link in the Project Tree menu.]]>

  • Software Products
  • Hardware
  • Software Development
  • Integration Services
    • Categories belong to your own organisation. You can add, edit or delete a category from "Settings". A project can have one or more categories associated with it. ]]>
    • Shipping fees by country
    • Delivery times by country
    • Insurance and indemnification by country
    • Number of deliveries currently sent by country
    Creating this manually would involve a lot of work building the question. Markets are a list of countries (or other criteria) that a Buyer organisation can define in SupplierSelect. When you create a Project, you must then select which of these markets apply to that Project. This list is then used to create Dynamic Questions in the questionnaire. ]]>         In order to respond to an RFx questionnaire, a supplier or vendor must be invited to access the Project. Each invitation issued to a vendor is called a "Response" in SupplierSelect. Responses enable Suppliers to view and answer SupplierSelect questionnaires. Each Response has a deadline by which the Supplier must submit their Response. By default, this deadline is synchronized with the Project deadline. Vendors must be registered with SupplierSelect before a Response can be created for them. There is a link that can be sent to a Vendor to register on the Add Response page.

    For Projects marked "Private", you must explicitly create Responses for each organisation that you wish to respond. For Projects marked "public" it is not necessary to create them. When a Respondent begins to answer a Public project they will self-issue a Response to themselves.]]> 61, A Reference Project is one where the Evaluator (Buyer) can view vendors' answers as soon as they have been entered. This avoids the need for a traditional issue-write-submit cycle.

    For a vendor, an invitation to respond to a Reference Poject will show in the Issue List as an "Updateable" Issue.

    Reference Projects are typically used to collate reference information from a wide range of vendors. ]]> Closing a project has the following effects:

    1. It is no longer possible to edit questions or scores
    2. All data is kept in the system - questions,answers,attachments and the audit trail
    3. Respondents do not receive email notifications that the project has been closed
    4. If you create a new project you can re-use the same questionnaire. In this case answers from the old project can be imported by respondents, if they wish.
    ]]>
      SupplierSelect can Show Changes (highlight textual differences) between answers
      Differences in scoring can be picked up
    ]]>         19, Yes.

    Weightings can be edited when the Project is at status Draft or Live, even after responses have been submitted. It is not possible to edit weightings once the project is Closed.]]> 72,82,

  • first question - weight: 1 (20%)
  • second question - weight: 1 (20%)
  • third question - weight: 1 (20%)
  • fourth question - weight: 1 (20%)
  • fifth question - weight: 1 (20%)
    • If you now increase the weighting of question 5 to "2", then questions 1 to 4 will each contribute 16.66%, and question 5 will contribute 33.33%:
    1. first question - weight: 1 (16.7%)
    2. second question - weight: 1 (16.7%)
    3. third question - weight: 1 (16.7%)
    4. fourth question - weight: 1 (16.7%)
    5. fifth question - weight: 2 (33.3%)
    ]]>         20,38, There are two primary ways of using weightings to calculate total score.

    Firstly, you can just multiply question score X section X parent section etc.

    This is an entirely valid approach which we refer to Arithmetic scoring. However, this does mean that increasing a questions weight will increase it's contribution to the overall total score - effectively increasing the contribution that its section is making to the total. To get around this, weighted scores can be normalised within each section:

    Normalised Section score = section weight X ((sum of weighted question scores) / (maximum possible sum of weighted scores))

    Normalised scoring usually produces results which users' expect, more so that Arithmetic scoring. With Normalised scoring, a weight applied to a section caps the contribution of that section to the overall score. SupplierSelect supports both approaches.

    A longer article describing these two approaches to calculating total weighted scores is available on the SupplierSelect news site. ]]> 74, 73, To help with these situations SupplierSelect supports multiple weighting sets. A weighting set is a complete parralell set of weightings for all questions and sections. Weighting sets are given a name. When you create a new weighting set you can copy all the weightings from an existing set, so you've got a more realistic base to work from.]]> 82, Yes

    SupplierSelect supports the use of Score Sets, which can be enabled or disabled on a per project basis. When enabled, Score Sets mean that each answer can be associated with any number of scores - one for each user, and one "Agreed" score. When Score Sets are not enabled, the score used is always the Agreed Score.

    There are two permissions relevant here. "Save Score" and "Save Agreed Score". A user with the former can save only his or her own score. A user with the latter permission can view other user's scores, and can set the Agreed Score.

    Multiple scoring sets are commonly used in highly regulated public procurement exercises, or in cases where questions are open, and answers ambiguous and it is therefore useful to compare a range of views from different evaluators. ]]>

    8,4, When working in a Project, look for a link to "Responses". Add a new Response, and select the Organisation to which you wish to issue this response.

    If the Supplier is not listed in the address book, then they must be sent a link to a page where they can register, after which they can be invited as normal.

    When the Project is published, the invitees will be sent an email.]]> 8,

  • The project status is "Live"
  • The Response for that respondent is at Status "Opportunity"
  • The deadline (if set) for the Response has not passed
    • When you are ready for respondent to respond, change the project status from "Draft" to "Publish". You will then be prompted to send invitations to each respondent. If the project is public, respondents can self-invite themselves. ]]>
    18, 17,13,19,66,
  • multiple choice (radio buttons or drop down menu)
  • check box (yes/no values)
  • text-input
  • Attachment - a file attached to the question for reference
  • File Upload field - for attaching files to the answer
  • Topic (market) specific questions1

    • Questions can be arranged in a grid or table layout. Any number of rows and columns can be added, and there is support for cells than span multiple rows or columns.

    ]]>         18,10, Yes <8> No <0> This associates a score of 8 with "yes" and a score of 0 (zero) with "No". When a supplier submits their RFP response, SupplierSelect calculates a score for each answer. If a question contains more than one auto scored multiple choice element, then the scores are summed (capped at the Maximum Score value for that project).]]> 25, When working in the questionnaire editor screens (with the questionnaire tree on the left), you can click a link on the right hand side saying "Import from Excel". This takes you to a page which allows you to upload Excel spreadsheets containing questions. SupplierSelect then analyses the spreadsheet and creates questions and sections.

    N.B. this import relies on following very strict rules about how the Excel documents are structured. Example Excel files are provided, and should be studied carefully to ensure that the import format of the new questions is an exact match.

    If you already have RFPs defined as Excel spreadsheets using a specific format, we can develop a custom script to import these questions into SupplierSelect. Please contact us for details.

    ]]>         18,
  • What is the cost of delivery to country X
  • What is time to deliver to country X
  • Do you insure for loses to country X
    • Without using Markets, building these questions would be very laborious, since you would have to create different input field elements for each country you wish to ask about. SupplierSelect Markets allow you to define the list of countries once, and then create questions which use this list to create repeating input fields. Different projects might relate to different Markets, therefore it is necessary to assign markets to a project. It is necessary to do a bit of setup before Market Specific questions can be used:
    1. Define which Markets are going to be assigned to a specific projects from Project -> Properties -> Advanced Options -> Project Markets
    2. Create a question and set at least one question element to be "Market Specific". This will cause the row containing that element to be repeated, one time for each market assigned to that project.
    ]]>         75, Yes. SupplierSelect provides each organisations with a Template Library. This is a list of questionnaires, each with nested sections and subsections, that can be used when creating a new Supplier Evaluation project questionnaire. Any number of Library questionnaires can be created. When designing a questionnaire for a new Project, there is an option to "Import". From here select "Private Template Library". You are then presented with a list of sections and questions to import from.

    Question Templates

    Any one of the list of Library Questions can be flagged as the provider of "Template Questions". Doing so will mean that, when working in Questionnaire Draft mode and clicking to "Add New Question", the list of available question types will be extending to include any questions found under the root section of the Library Questionnaire flagged for "Template Questions".

    This functionality allows the evaluator to identify commonly question formats, and make it a one click operation to create new questions of the same structure. ]]> Yes.

    Go to "Advanced Options" then "Rules". ]]>

  • Regulated industries such as the UK healthcare sector - central goverment prescribes a standard "PQQ" - Pre-Qualification Questionnaire - which must be completed by all candidates.
  • Consultant, or trade association body mediate industries - standard questionnaires are re-issued for all tenders. Respondents can import question answers by looking under "Advanced Options" on the "Response Details" page. Answers can imported from previous responses where the same questions (same question ID) has been used. Answers can also be imported from an XML file in special cases where an organisation is migrating between different SupplierSelect websites. ]]> 53, Large Questionnaires will often be answered by a team, some of whose members will be in different locations or timezones. For such situations SupplierSelect provides workflow functionality. This allows responsibility for questions or sections to be allocated to individuals for answering. When the questions are answered and saved, a different person can be assigned to review and approve the answers. In this way, a questionnaire is seen as a task list, susceptible to standard team-task management tactics.

    To enable team working for a response, check the box for "Enable Workflow" under "Advanced Options".]]> 48,47,
    StatusPurpose
    ANSWEREDThe answer is saved, but not ready to be submitted
    NOT_ANSWEREDNo answer has been saved for the given question
    FOR_REVIEWThe answer is saved, and is ready for review.
    APPROVEDThe answer is saved, and has been approved.
    REJECTEDThe answer is saved, but the reviewer rejected it.

    Answers can only be viewed by the Buyer / Evaluator once the Response has been Submitted. It is only possible to Submit a Response when all answer are in APPROVED status.

    A typical workflow for a given question might be as follows. Bob is an analyst writing answers. Alice is a supervisor reviewing answers:

    1. Bob saves an answer to question 2.14, but is not ready to have this answer reviewed (Status:ANSWERED)
    2. Bob edits his answer, and indicates that it is ready to be revieweed (Status: FOR_REVIEW)
    3. Alice reads the answer, but doesn't like it, so rejects it (Status: REJECTED). She writes in a comment against the question describing why it was unsatisfactory.
    4. Bob reads Alice's comment, and amends his previous answer. Again, he sets the status to FOR_REVIEW
    5. Alice reads the answer, and this time approves it (Status APPROVED)

    N.B. When Workflow is enabled, it is not possible for a respondent to submit their questionnaire response to a supplier until the status of all questions is APPROVED.

    Users with different permissions can perform different status transitions.

    ]]>
  • The user submitting the response must belong to a Role (such as Response Manager) with the permission ISSUE_SUBMIT
  • All questions marked by the Buyer as "Required" must be answered
  • If using "Workflow" for the response, All answers must be at the Status "APPROVED".
  • The Deadline for the Response must not have passed
    • ]]>         Many Respondents have asked if we can implement a Spell Checking facility within SupplierSelect. It is our view that this functionality is much better implemented on the client / Browser side, rather than within SupplierSelect. The main reason for this is that respondents in SupplierSelect use a high proportion of words that are unique to the industry sector or even to the individual company - brand names, acronyms etc. Any useful SpellCheck would need to allow the User to add new words to the spell checker's dictionary. Because so many terms are company specific, this would mean that the Custom Dictionary would quickly become corrupted with terms from different organisations.

    SupplierSelect enables a respondent to download all their answers into an MS Word format, and the spell checker within word can then be used to check spelling.

    For users still looking for spell checking functionality within SupplierSelect, there are a number of very good tools available for spelling checking in the browser. IESpell is a good plugin for Internet Explorer. The increasingly popular browser Firefox has an excellent spellchecker built in. ]]> 70,

  • SupplierSelect is for comparing information about vendor's products and services, not their document formatting skills.
  • Formatted text uses much more bandwidth, slowing down all aspects of the site
  • Formatted text is more difficult to manipulate or search
    • Where a Buyer wishes a vendor to include graphics (e.g. technical drawings), they can create questions with any number of file upload fields. ]]>
    63,
  • PDF - get reports of questionnaires, with or with answers, for presentation or scoring purposes
  • CSV / Spreadsheet - export scoring data for offline analysis, charting etc.
  • XML - data interchange format. Use for moving question and answer data in and out of the system
    • ]]>
    click here. ]]> 60, 60, 54,53,42, SupplierSelect uses "Role Based Permissions".

    Permissions, in SupplierSelect, are very fine grained, such as "Can Accept Invitation" or "Can Approve Answer". There are around 40 such permissions in the system, and new permissions are added as the system is extended.

    If users were granted individual permissions, their accounts would need to be updated whenever new permissions were introduced in the system.

    To simplify user account management, we employ the widely used concept of Roles. A Role represents a group of permissions, and a user can be in one or more Roles. Roles are designed to correspond with business functions, having names such as "Response Reviewer" or "Questionnaire Manager". When a user is mapped to one or more roles, new permissions can be added to those roles, and there is no need to edit hundreds of user accounts.

    You can view the permissions associated with a Role by clicking on the role name in the user administration pages.

    ]]>         47,
    Note that users are not allocated permissions directly. Users are set Roles, and Roles are grouping permissions.
    • ALLOCATE_QUESTIONS - Determines whether a respondent user can allocate a question
    • ANSWER_QUESTIONS_ALLOCATED_TO_ANYONE - Determines whether a respondent user can answer questions allocated to any person (also can answer to not allocated questions)
    • APPROVE_ANSWERS - Determines whether a respondent user can approve a question answer
    • CATEGORY_ADD - Determines whether a user is allowed to create a new categories
    • CATEGORY_DELETE - Determines whether a user is allowed to delete an existing categories
    • ISSUE_ACCEPT - Determines whether a respondent user can accept or decline an Issue (i.e.
    • ISSUE_CREATE - Determines whether an issuer user can create an Issue
    • ISSUE_DECLINE - Determines if a respondent user can Submit an Issue
    • ISSUE_DELETE - Determines whether an issuer user can delete an Issue
    • ISSUE_MANAGE_ISSUER_ATTACHMENTS - Determines whether a buyer user can add/remove issue attachments.
    • ISSUE_MANAGE_RESPONDENT_ATTACHMENTS - Determines whether a respondent user can add/remove issue attachments This permission, however, does not allow a respondent user to remove issue attachments added by a buyer user.
    • ISSUE_PUBLISH - Determines whether an issuer user can publish an Issue
    • ISSUE_RETRACT - Determines whether an issuer user can retract an Issue
    • ISSUE_SAVE_AGREED_SCORES - Determines whether an issuer user is allowed to save agreed scores
    • ISSUE_SAVE_QUESTION_RESPONSE - Determines whether a respondent user can save a question response
    • ISSUE_SAVE_SCORES - Determines whether an issuer user is allowed to save scores
    • ISSUE_SELF_ISSUE - Determines whether a user is allowed to create a self-issue for a public project
    • ISSUE_SUBMIT - Determines if a respondent user can Submit an Issue
    • ISSUE_UPDATE - Determines whether a buyer is allowed to update certain properties of an issue
    • ISSUE_UPDATE_WORKFLOW - Determines whether a respondent is allowed to update "useWorkflow" property of an issue
    • ISSUE_VIEW_SCORES - Determines whether an issuer user is allowed to view existing scores
    • MANAGE_ORGANISATION - Determines whether a user is allowed to update details of the organisation he/she belongs to.
    • MANAGE_PRIVATE_ADDRESS_BOOK - Determines whether a user is allowed to manage private address book of the organisation he/she belongs to.
    • MANAGE_USERS - Determines whether a user is allowed to manage (create,update,delete) users in organisation which he/she belongs to.
    • PROJECT_ADD_NOTE - Determines whether an issuer user can add a Project note
    • PROJECT_ADD_RESPONDENT_NOTE - Determines whether an respondent user can add a Project note
    • PROJECT_CLOSE - Determines whether an issuer user can close a Project
    • PROJECT_CREATE - Determines whether an issuer user is allowed to save a new Project
    • PROJECT_DELETE - Determines whether an issuer user is allowed to delete a Project
    • PROJECT_EDIT - Determines whether an issuer user can edit a Project
    • PROJECT_EDIT_COSMETIC - Determines whether an issuer user can do cosmetic editions on a Project
    • PROJECT_EDIT_WEIGHTING - Determines whether a buyer is allowed to update question weight(ing)s.
    • PROJECT_LIBRARY_MANAGE - Determines whether an issuer user is allowed to manage Library Projects
    • PROJECT_LINK_TO_CATEGORY - Determines whether an issuer user can link/unlink a Project to a category
    • PROJECT_LOCK_QUESTIONNAIRE - Determines whether an issuer user can lock/unlock a project questionnaire
    • PROJECT_PUBLISH - Determines whether an issuer user can publish a Project, making it visible to respondents
    • PROJECT_REVERT_TO_DRAFT - Determines whether an issuer user can revert a published Project to DRAFT status
    • PROJECT_SAVE_QUESTIONNAIRE - Determines whether an issuer user is allowed to save changes (sections or questions) to a Questionnaire
    ]]>         "Users" -> Click on the user name -> "Edit User". ]]> 42,
    56, 56,

    Spring Framework

    Jakarta Velocity]]> 28, 38, Hosted Service

    Customers using SupplierSelect as a hosted service only need a web browser to access the system. The following browsers are tested for compatibility:

    • Internet Explorer 5+
    • Mozilla 1.1 +
    • Firefox
    • Safari

    All browsers must have Javascript enabled.

    Server Requirements

    Customers who wish to install and run their own local copy of the SupplierSelect server system should be aware of the technologies on which SupplierSelect runs:

    • Java 1.5
    • Servlet 2.3 compatible web container
    • MySQL version 5+ (support for other databases if necessary)

    Recommended minimum hardware requirements for high volume use are:

    • Any operating system supporting Java 1.5 (Windows,Linux, most Unixes)
    • 1 GB RAM
    • Intel 2 Ghz processor or equivalent
    ]]>         40,41,
  • Authentication via Single Sign On providers
  • Directory services (e.g. LDAP) for using external user/organisation databases
  • Data Import. Questionnaires and scores can be imported from XML or Excel format.
  • Data Export - to Excel, CSV or XML formats
  • Look and feel. SupplierSelect uses templates and Themes to facilitate re-branding or other changes to the look and feel.
    • SupplierSelect uses the Spring Framework to manage it's runtime configuration, and adopts the Spring approach of interface based programming. The benefit of this approach is that when integration requires custom coding, it is only necessary to produce a new implementation of an existing interface and change the Spring configuration files. All other existing code can remain unchanged. Finally, SupplierSelect maintains an extensive set of Unit Tests, ensuring quick and accurate regression testing. ]]>         44,43, SupplierSelect employs a modular architecture for extensibility, flexibily and scaleability. There are three groups of components: Core, Management & Peripheral. Authentication and User Directory services are externalised through a generic Java interface, enabling integration with 3rd party user directories (LDAP, Active Directory) and with SSO (Single Sign On) providers. The hosted version of SupplierSelect uses Yale's CAS server for SSO, and an LDAP directory for user and organisation data. Core has no user interface.

    At the heart of SupplierSelect is a robust Java application, SupplierSelect Core, which enforces business rules and provides persistence (database logic). SQL operations are externalised from application code enabling databases to be switched with comparitive ease.

    The next component is "Management" which consists of a web application exposing a user interface for business operations such as issuing or submitting RFPs. It also provides an HTTP/XML web services (REST) interface for specialised user interface applications

    "Peripheral" applications are specialised applications for generating richly collaborative and/or graphical user interfaces. Data access uses the XML/HTTP API provided by the Management layer.

    SupplierSelect Architecture Diagram

    This architecture provides SupplierSelect with an enviable combination of robustness and flexibility. All critical business processes are managed by the Core, which is rigorously tested and which has a tightly restricted set of responsibilities. Other components are responsible for user interface generation, whilst external systems provide Authentication and User Directory services. SupplierSelect can scale horizontally with ease, simply by adding more servers to take up Peripheral services. Development resources can work very effectively in parallel by working to either a limited set of Java interfaces or the XML/HTTP web services API. ]]>