0. eTenders and Suppliers Tender Operations Team
Contact Us
e-Tenders Assistance Contact No
353 (0)
Website:
Good morning, Welcome to the eTenders Briefing Session.
My name is John Murray and I am here with my colleague David Rafferty
We work for the Office of Government Procurement
In this presentation I will give you a brief overview of the eTenders website and David will go through the process of registering as a supplier.
At the end, rather than having a Q&A session, if you have any questions, please hang back to meet with myself or David and we will answer any queries that you may have.

1. Welcome to eTenders Irish Government website managed by the OGP
Located at
Tenders above €25K for Goods & Services and above €50K for Works and works related services are published on the portal
1000s of public sector tenders published online annually
Register as a Supplier and receive electronic business alerts – it’s FREE!
So what is eTenders?
It is an Irish Government Website managed by the Office of Government Procurement
The web address is:
It is the portal for all public sector bodies to publish ALL tenders above €25k for goods and services and above €50k for works contracts
There are thousands of public sector tenders published online annually.
Registration is free so you should register to receive electronic business alerts on upcoming opportunities

2. Benefits of eTenders to Suppliers
Registration is Free
Access to majority of public sector business
FREE automatic alerts on potential business opportunities that match your business
FREE online marketing tool - advertise YOUR expertise, experience, capability and capacity to Public Sector Buyers
Insight on future business through Prior Information Notices
Online facility to manage your tender responses (not relevant to works contracts)
What are the benefits of eTenders to Suppliers?
Well you have access to majority of public sector business
You can sign up for FREE automatic alerts on potential business opportunities that match your business. David will go into detail on how to set this up in a few minutes.
You can use eTenders as a FREE online tool to market your goods and services. You can advertise your expertise, capability, capacity and experience to Public Sector Buyers
You can get an insight on future business through PIN notices
It’s a tool to manage your tender responses
Please note for works and works-related services tenders the requirements of the Capital Works Management Framework (CWMF), must be met requiring all tenders to be submitted in hard copy format.

3. Supplier Registration Process
Now David will go through all aspects of the Supplier Registration Process.

4. To Register
Go to and click Supplier Company Registration
Registration on eTenders is available to all types of business entities
To register as a new user from a Supplier Company, first check to see if your company is already registered by clicking on Supplier Search
If your company is registered then your company’s eTenders Administrator will register you as a new user on the site.
If you need assistance verifying if your company is registered please contact support. 
If you company is not currently registered
To register a New Supplier Company, please click on SUPPLIER COMPANY REGISTRATION in the menu to the left.

5. To Register
You will be brought to the Supplier Registration Form and you will see instructions on the left hand side of the screen
Enter your Business Information;
The Type of Organisation field: Are you a Sole Trader, Partnership, Private Company, Public Company, Charity Organisation
Type of Business Activity: What kind of business do you fall under? for example; Construction, Manufacturing, Education, Transportation
VAT Number field can be your VAT number, your Organisation Number, PPS Number in the case of a Sole Trader, etc.
Enter Business Address, and Brief description of business
You will notice the *, these are mandatory fields. Also click the tooltips for help filling in fields.
Enter a point of contact and their contact details. This person will have ownership on your main company account
You can test your address if you wish

6. To Register Company Administrator
Enter a company administrator and their contact details. The Administrator will manage the setup of eTenders users for the company
You can copy from above using the button if this is the same person.
Select preferred language
It should be noted that the options here are irrelevant because it is the Contracting Authority that decides which language to publish a tender in.
The responsibility of the organization to ensure that all details are up to date.
Company Administrator Credentials
Create a username and password for logging into eTenders.
Follow the password policy as mentioned in the yellow box, such as a minimum of 6 characters, one which must be a number.
Add an address for alerts.
You can read the T&Cs and Privacy Policy, then accept them by ticking the box and click Save. *You have now completed the Registration*

7. Go to Administration – Company Administration – Company Profile
Once you are registered – you can complete your company profile
Login to eTenders – go to Administration – then Company Administration and Company Profile

8. Company Profile
Insert membership of Trade Associations/Professional Groups
Certifications
Not a mandatory filed, will not affect notifications.

9. Business Alerts Set up Business Alerts to ensure:
You are receiving the right alerts?
You have not missed opportunities to tender?
Automatic notices telling you when a tender is published that matches your selected business areas
Use CPV (Common Procurement Vocabulary) codes to match your business.
Only 50% suppliers using Business Alerts. Don’t miss opportunities. Set up in under 2 minutes.
Set up Business Alerts to ensure:
You are receiving the right alerts?
You have not missed opportunities to tender?
Automatic notices telling you when a tender is published that matches your selected business areas
You select CPV (Common Procurement Vocabulary) codes to be alerted on. CPV Codes are like barcodes for the type of business you can provide and so you will be alerted on tenders that you are interested in. CPV coding was established by the European Commission
These business alerts are what drives the RFT notifications you as a supplier will receive. It is important that you carefully consider the categories in which your business operates in order to maximise the chances of you receiving relevant RFT notifications.
Only 50% suppliers using Business Alerts. Don’t miss Tendering opportunities. Set up in under 2 minutes.

10. Business Alerts
Click on Manage Business Alerts- at the left hand side of your home page

11. Business Alerts On your Homepage – Click on Manage Business Alerts
FREE Alerts
On your homepage- click on Manage Business Alerts
Alerts should be set to ON
This is also where you can add more address for staff in your company so that it is not only you that receive the business alerts.
A problem that has come up before is that people have left companies and the only address that the system has for them, so we would recommend to have a few different address and to update this when staff changes happen.
Problems with s addresses - the onus is on Suppliers to keep their information up to date on eTenders. You might want to set up a generic addresses so all staff has access to it.
One of the more common questions we receive is that companies are not receiving business Alerts most of the time it is because the status of business alerts is selected Off.
pre-populated from the registration page – add further user s to receive business alerts
You select CPV codes to be alerted on at this point. Please note again that the cpv codes that you choose are what drives the RFT notifications

12. Business Alerts
When you click on +Add CPV Codes, you are presented with the Category Tree.
Search for a category that is common to you business, product or service
Here you can search for your type of business, e.g. type in printing and it will bring back all CPV codes related to printing.
I would recommend keeping this search very general for example search for the word ‘Agriculture’ and you can drill down to select categories within it such as Forestry, Fishing, machinery etc.
Just to note, that whatever code you select lower in the tree, you will be notified from the parent code and will receive alerts on all lower levels.
This is to ensure you do not miss out on any related opportunities.
Select your CPV codes by ticking the box beside the one you’re interested in, click ADD SELECTED CATEGORIES
Once you have selected all the CPV codes click Finish and Done

13. Business Alerts
You will now see that two CPV codes have been added to your alerts.
You can add or remove as many as you like, click DONE when finished.
Ensure that you business alerts are turned on – a message will appear in green
An alert is sent every night if any new RFTs are published matching your selected CPV codes
Ensure that you are giving your company the best opportunity to Tenders
Ask yourself three questions at this point.
Are the right cpv codes selected
Are the right people getting the notifications
Are the business alerts turned on.

14. Go to Administration – Company Administration - Market Coverage
Again on your home page- Go to Administration and Company Administration and Market Coverage
Click ADD to add market coverage locations (where you can provide business)
Like the CPV tree, here you can search/select the locations where you can provide business.
Tick the box beside your chosen location and click ADD SELECTED CATEGORIES.
Not a mandatory field will not affect the notifications. CPV are what drive the notifications.

15. Market Coverage You can add just Ireland or the various regions
Feel free to add or remove locations as you wish

16. Responding to Open Tenders
2 Ways to Find Tenders:
Receive automatic alerts and click on link in
Search on eTenders for notices and select a notice
How to respond to a tender?
Paper responses (mainly for works)
Access and download tender documents
Clarification Process (Ask/Answer questions)
Upload Tender Response Documents
Receive Tender Notifications
There are 2 Ways to Find Tenders:
Receive automatic alerts and click on link in
If you have registered correctly you will receive the notifications automatically
Search on eTenders for notices and select a notice
How to respond to tenders?
Express an interest and download tender documents
You can request clarification on a tender through the messaging facility.
Answer to questions are broadcast to all suppliers that have expressed an interest in a particular tender
The OGP will broadcasted all questions and answers to questions so that all suppliers are treated equally and in a far and transparent way as part of the ogp guidelines.
All suppliers will get the same information.
No personnel details will be broadcasted. The Clarification Response will be Anonymised.
You can upload you tender response documents
And receive notifications once you have expressed an interest or submitted your response

17. Submit Response
Submission for works contracts would generally be paper based due to high volume of documents:
Technical templates and procedures
Drawings
Bill of Quantities
eTenders allows 4GB max file capacity
Max 200 files per folder
Submission for works contracts would generally be paper based due to high volume of documents:
Technical templates and procedures
Drawings
Bill of Quantities
eTenders allows 4GB max file capacity
Max 200 files per folder

18. Supplier Homepage
Find tenders in Public RFTs – Lists all RFTs, or in Messages – if you have been directly invited to Tender. In the case of mini competitions if you have already been successful in getting onto a framework contract.

19. Supplier Homepage
When you click on Public RFTs, you are presented with the list of all current tenders. You can search for tenders using any of the filters.
Select the tender you are interested in.

20. Access to Tender Documents
Now you are presented with the Tender Invitation Letter
You can view the tender details using the RFT details button but you cannot download any documents.
Click Accept to express your interest in the RFT. You can then view documents and respond to the tender.
This section applies only to Supplies and general Services – the CWMF has its own suite of Invitation to Tender letters for works and works-related services.

21. Responding to the Request for Tender
As outlined earlier, you can add company users to your company profile. As part of your tender response you will need to assign access to your team members, for each individual tender response, in order for them to receive system notifications relevant to the specific tenders to which you have assigned them to access. In order to achieve this you will need to click the Assign user access link, which will present you with a listing of people in your company
This Section relates only to an Open Procurement procedure for Supplies and General Services

22. Assigning team members to a Request for Tender Response
To move specific users over into the team for the selected RFT, simply click their name once to highlight it and simply click the right arrow to move them across into the members area. If you want to move several people at once then hold the CTRL button and click the required names before clicking the right arrow to move them to the members area. When you are satisfied click Save.

23. Role Permissions/Change Owner
Once you have completed the above process you will be presented with the following screen
Here you will see a listing of the team members you assigned to this particular RFT. If you are the person who responded to the RFT then you will be the Owner, this means that you will receive all notifications about this RFT. On this page you can assign rights to the people who are in the team assigned to this RFT. There are two options available, Editor and Viewer and explanations for these can be seen on the page in the Role Permissions area
If you are the Owner and want other people in the team to receive message notifications in relation to a specific RFT then you need to click the Assign responsible button and you will be presented with the screen below, simply check the box beside the individuals name and click the Save button. As a result these individuals will be given the same responsibilities as the response owner and will receive notifications of any new messages relating to this tender.
It is also possible to change the owner of the response, simply click the Change owner button and you will be presented with the following screen. As with the Assign responsible button you check the radial button beside the individual’s name and click Save to complete the action
IMPORTANT NOTE: To ensure that all members assigned to the team will receive important notifications relating to a tender, you must ensure that these team members have been selected as an Editor or have their name checked in the Assign responsible section. Messages will always be delivered to the team members inbox within the system but if the person is not marked as an Editor or checked in the Assign responsible section they will not receive an notification to alert their attention to the message in the system mailbox. Just for one RFT.

24. Return to RFT Response
In order to return to the RFT Response page you must click the link in the area marked above and you will be returned to the page below

25. Manage Response to Tenders1
Ask and Answer questions, by clicking the ‘Messaging’ tab.
Access tender documents here
Attach your documents as part of your response
The OGP are currently not using ‘Enter response sum or quote’ – some other contracting authorities may still use this 2 3

26. Ask & Answer Questions
Like an , when you click on the Messaging tab, you click on new message.
You enter your question and give it a title, attach files if you wish and Send.
Clarification Timelines

27. Manage Response to Tenders1
Ask and Answer questions, by clicking the ‘Messaging’ tab.
Access tender documents here e.g RFT, Tender response document etc
Attach your documents as part of your response 2 3

28. Submit Tender Click Submit Response to complete your response.
You will see the progress bar is 100% complete and your Response Submitted with a timestamp
Progress is green so you are finished

29. So Register or Update Your Profile Today and Access a Market Worth Approximately €12 Billion annually!!
So Register or Update Your Profile Today and Access a Market Worth €12 Billion annually!!

30. Thank You @procurement_ie
Thank you for listening we will be here for the day if you have any questions. If you would like a copy of the presentation we can it to you.