State Procurement Manual Revision Project
The State Bureau of
Procurement is moving full steam ahead on a project to update and modernize the
State Procurement Manual. The manual is used by State agencies and campuses to
conduct procurement activities in a legal, uniform manner. While the underlying
laws and principles of procurement (competition, integrity, consistency and
openness) remain unchanged, recent developments, such as the implementation of
STAR and eSupplier, require revisions to ensure official policy and procedures
are in harmony. Starting last fall, SBOP undertook a public campaign to gather
input from agencies, campuses, the public and the vendor community. A
cross-agency team has been convened to do the heavy lifting of drafting
revisions. For more information about this project, contact Sara Redford at (608) 267-2706.
New RFB Template and User Guide
The most current
version of the RFB Template is loaded into the Strategic Sourcing module.
While STAR agencies have access to this template through the system, non-STAR
agencies do not. To support our other enterprise customers like UW campuses, a
Word version of the template is now available on VendorNet. In addition to the
template we have posted a separate document, the RFB Template User Guide, as an
instructional aid. The RFB Template
is publicly available while the User Guide requires login. Please contact doawispro@wisconsin.gov with any questions.
Contract Spotlight
Advertising/Marketing Services RFP. The State
Bureau of Procurement is starting work on an enterprise Request for Proposal
for advertising/marketing services. If your agency is interested in
participating on either a standards or an evaluation committee, please contact Steve Slawny at (608) 266-3209.
Court Reporter
Services and Transcription Services. Contract 505ENT-O16-COURTREPORT-00
will expire on July 31, 2018 and a Request for Bid will be developed to
establish a new contract. Contractors provide qualified court reporters for
hearings and depositions held throughout the state on an as needed basis for
State agencies. The contract has allowed for videotaping and audiotaping
of proceedings as well as transcription services. If your agency is
interested in serving on the standards committee for this solicitation, please
contact Marcy Schmelzer at (608) 266-1625.
Strategic Sourcing Tips & Tricks
Amending a Bid Factor. Consider this
scenario: You must change a bid factor after receiving at least one response to a
Strategic Sourcing solicitation. Revising a bid factor will erase any
responses to that factor because the bidder hasn’t officially responded to the
amended factor. You must notify all potential bidders of the amended
bid factor through the Bidder Communication tool and advise that they must
reenter the system to submit a new response to the updated bid factor.
Looking for
additional resources for Strategic Sourcing? STAR agencies can access a variety
of job aids, tools and resources on STAR Connection
(STAR Connection > Resources > Finance and Procurement > Job Aids >
Search for “Strategic Sourcing”). If you would like to share a Strategic
Sourcing tip or trick you’ve learned, please email your ideas to Jessica Vieira.
Oracle Business Intelligence
The Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) tool provides agencies
with the ability to monitor their purchasing activity. Two dashboards within BI
are used to view information related to supplier diversity.
Supplier Diversity Dashboard. The Supplier Diversity Dashboard
allows agencies to track non-PCard spend with certified minority and disabled
veteran-owned businesses. To avoid double counting, the amount of spend
for disabled veteran-owned and minority-owned businesses is displayed on
separate lines because suppliers may be certified in multiple categories.
Since this information does not include Tier 2 or PCard spend, the information
in this dashboard is best used as a gauge (and is not used in the official MBE
report). The direct reporting by agencies to the Supplier Diversity Office is
the primary source for the data reported in the MBE report. The State
Bureau of Procurement will continue to send out monthly reports to help
agencies track PCard MBE activity. Please remember that agencies are still required
to report activity with any MBE that is a sub-contractor to a prime supplier (https://wisdpreporting.wi.gov).
Draft MBE and CS
Dashboard.
The Draft MBE (Minority Business Enterprise) and CS (Contractual Services)
Summary Dashboard provides two reports in one location: the baseline spend for
the MBE report and reportable spend for the CS report. These BI reports are
reviewed by DOA to remove transactions for grants, government entities or other
non-Chapter 16 transactions that appear obvious to us. However, a
knowledgeable eye in the agency should also review your agency’s spend
periodically to identify these types of transactions and notify us so we may
remove them from the reports. If you have questions about these dashboards,
please contact Zack Lehman at (608) 261-8552 or Terri Lenz at (608) 266-0167.
WISBuy
WISBuy streamlines the buying process through a common system
that has many suppliers accessible with a single login and password,
but the system provides other advantages.
Using WISBuy reduces maverick spend since all suppliers are on contract.
WISBuy supports strategic sourcing and cost-saving initiatives for all agencies.
We have access to more data that can be analyzed and used to leverage volume pricing and drive product standardization through new contracts and contract negotiations.
WISBuy reports are customizable, thus we can create reports in a variety of ways that may be valuable to all agencies.
WISBuy staff can audit pricing to ensure users are receiving the correct contract pricing.
When end users are ordering items through WISBuy, procurement staff can be more focused on important procurement projects.
WISBuy is easy to navigate and allows users to quickly re-order supplies using the Order History tab or Favorites Lists.
The system provides complete access to their order history and purchasing documentation for recordkeeping.
Anyone looking to
learn the basics or become a more advanced WISBuy user may sign up for
trainings through the SBOP training page. For more information, contact the WISBuy team at doawispro@wisconsin.gov.