EVALUATION FLEXIBILITY

eRFP stands out in the fact that it is completely flexible. It is capable of evaluating any RFP and facilitate any vendor selection process. The systems recognizes that every RFP is different and every purchasing organization follow somewhat different evaluation process. It creates the magic of flexibility and adaptability through the configurator. The configurator is designed to follow a flexible evaluation process while avoiding duplication of effort. Some of the specific evaluation flexibility issues that eRFP addresses are:

1. Flexible evaluation metrics

2. Flexible evaluation criteria

3. Flexible pre-qualification criteria with admin. override

4. Flexible process components

5. Flexible reporting capabilities

6. Flexible analytics 

7. Flexible cost models

8. Flexibility in setting up upset levels

9. Flexible criteria weights

10. Flexibility in checking references in before or after shortlisting

11. Flexibility in initial, best and final cost, and negotiated costs in-between

12. Flexibility in initial evaluation, oral presentation, risk assessment, and a combination there of

13. Flexibility in assigning evaluation tasks to evaluators (different evaluators can evaluate different criteria and not all evaluators need evaluate all proposals)

14. Flexibility in combining initial evaluation, oral presentation, and risk assessment through flexible weights and computational methods

15. Flexibility in allowing online vendor response for certain criteria

16. Flexibility in evaluator interface (evaluators can evaluate all criteria of one proposal at a time or one criteria of all proposals at a time)

The magic of eRFP comes from the configurator. This helps in selecting a process, selecting metrics, and selecting evaluation project specific issues. It is saved as a template in a template library. Future templates inherit properties and attributes from other templates in ”single inheritance architecture”. The system has a default template. Users create templates modifying this default template or modifying another previously created user template. All templates use criteria from a central criteria database based on user definable categories of criteria. This database consists of registered criteria used within the agency. As the agency starts using the architecture, the template library grows and soon the task of criteria registration and selection becomes a non-factor. The template holds process attributes such as rating system, past performance models, strength and weakness attributes and other quantitative parameters.