Prequalification Training (Video)

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Video Transcript:

 

Welcome to the Planet BIDS Business Certification for Pre-Qualification Training.

Here we're going to start on the vendor side of the system.

I've already registered, and now I want to log back into my profile.

Now that I've returned to my profile, let's take a look at vendor details.

Here, vendor details, you can see that certain fields are locked, and I have to withdraw my pre-qualification application in order to change those fields.

Those fields are related to the pre-qualification review and so we don't let them change it unless they resubmit.

Other fields are open to the vendor and there is a place for vendors to say whether or not they hold other certifications.

Notice the MEP subcontractor and the prime subcontractor is not editable by me the vendor.

That's because I've already pre-qualified for both of those.

And here, we can enter in our DIR number and our contractor license information.

And at the bottom, we're going to enter in our category codes.

Once the vendor submits and completes their basic registration, they can either go immediately to prequalification or, in the case as I am doing, I exit my application and come back later to go to prequalification.

Here, they will answer yes or no to your question.

If they say no, the form will adjust.

If they say yes, it will adjust as well and show you the application that they need to complete.

The instruction area here is configurable by you, the agency.

And so we will put the information that you want to impart to them, including hyperlinks and email addresses.

Now, let's look at our pre-qualification status.

I've already been certified once, so you can see my status is currently approved.

I want to go ahead and click Reapply, and you'll notice the application now says Applying.

When I first enter in, it will say Applying, and the application status will adjust as I go through the motions.

Once I complete everything, it will then say, and I hit Submit, it will then say Submitted.

Once you, the agency, open up the application and start the review process, the status is going to change to Pending, and the vendor will not be able to make any edits while it's in Pending mode.

If you deny the application, they will receive a denial notice, a denial letter, and they will no longer be able to submit their application to you.

If they want to reapply, you do need to push their application into deficiency.

Deficiency will allow you to tell the vendor what items on their application they will need to correct.

those deficiency reasons will show up here right underneath the status.

We'll take a look at that later and then once I am approved I will be able to get my approval letter and here's my current approval letter.

As a vendor if I click on it I can then see the letter itself including any approval comments you want to include in the letter.

The type of qualification you can have one type or multiple types.

So here we're setting up for Prime Contractor and we can go through the form.

If I select MEP the form can adjust and have the different questions that you want to apply for those particular applications.

We can change the titles to whatever you would like it to be titled.

Let's do Prime Contractor. Each section can be turned on or off during the implementation process.

Some of those questions will be mandatory at time of registration and or at time of renewal.

Depending on what I answer there may be additional fields that will come up.

My contractor license information if I have completed in vendor details can come over and then I can update it Same with the business information.

As you can see, when I go to reapply, I need to put in that information all over again.

Other information, business affiliation information, owner's information, and the instructions for what it means to be an owner is configurable by you, the agency.

Client references, and again, this area is configurable by you, and the system will ensure that they're giving you as many references as you require.

And here we can see all the references.

I can click on add to add more references.

I can edit current references and I can remove them.

Same with supplier references.

This section can be turned on or off.

Your instructions on what it means to be a supplier and again I can add, edit, or remove.

The bonding information can be turned on or off.

The EMR rating can also have your instructions and if they try to enter anything higher than a 9.9 it will warn them that is the highest that it accepts.

In the questionnaire can also again have your own instructions and then they can go through and answer the questions.

Depending on how they answer certain questions there may be a text box, may also be a disqualifying answer.

Here, if I hit discard, it will completely cancel the application, or I can continue.

It will warn me that I am answering it in a way that will most likely disqualify me.

When you review this application, you will see that disqualifying notice as well.

And this way the vendor can attempt to get, and this way the vendor can receive a formal rejection letter from you, or you can pass them if you decide to give a waiver.

When we go through and put a yes in all of these fields, okay now that I've answered all of those questions we can also do a safety questionnaire section and then your attachments.

The instructions for the attachments is configurable by you the agency and can include attachments to be downloaded or hyperlinks to other web pages.

And here you can see the mandatory items are denoted with a red asterisk, the optional items are not.

At the end, they will have to click on I certify to confirm the truthfulness of their answers.

They may save their application as a draft, whether it's the first time they are applying or they are renewing. And now I'm going to hit submit.

If I've missed anything, it will warn me and make sure that I answer their question.

If I turn back to my application, we can see my application is now in submitted status and I can make any necessary edits until the agency opens it and changes my status to pending. Let's go take a look at this from the agency's point of view.

Access to business certification is permission-based, so you can separate the applications from regular vendor registration.

In vendor registration, anybody that has been approved, you'll be able to find them under vendor type, and then search whether it's MEP or prime, and it will denote under vendor types.

This is strictly viewing the approval. This is strictly viewing which vendors have been approved.

There will be no access to the actual application in vendor management.

In business certification, We can then see all the applications that have been submitted and the types that they have submitted for. When do they submit?

The current status of their application, their effective and expiration date if they've already been approved once.

Here they have never been approved and we can see their upcoming project date if we're recording that information.

You may search for your vendors by any of the criteria across the top.

You may also click on the plus to add additional items that you want to search your vendors by, including contractor licenses.

Here we're going to search for my test vendor, and we can see that I've applied for Prime Contractor when I submit it.

If I go ahead and open up the application, the first tab is the vendor information tab.

This is the main vendor registration profile, and so we can see how they filled out all the information there, including all of their classifications, and we can go out and verify their DIR.

You can also verify their CSLB.

The prequalification will show you the application itself.

Notice the status is now pending.

We will see when the application was first created, last modified by the vendor, and last modified by the agency, which application they applied for, and then how they completed all of the questions in the application. Here we can see a disqualifying answer and another.

And all the way down at the bottom we can see all of the attachments that the vendor submitted and I can click on the attachment to open it up and take a look at it.

The notes and attachments tab is strictly private to you the agency.

Here you can upload any additional documents you to upload. You can write any custom notes.

The Comments and History tab is strictly private to you as well. The Comments and History tab is strictly private to you as well.

Here you can write a general comment.

You can also see all of the history from the application, including the documents that were submitted at the time they applied.

If they were marked deficiency, you can see the reasons why you marked them deficiency.

You can sort my vendor updates, agency updates, and general comments.

Now let's return to the pre-qualification application page.

If I click edit, I can now change the status.

If I deny it I can input the hard denial date and I can select from a list of deficiency from a list and I can select from a list of denial reasons that I have configured in admin for business certification.

I can then select the appropriate reasons. I can also create one on the fly.

Once I save it, my vendor will receive that notification and they can retrieve their denial letter.

If I mark it deficient, I can then select from the pre-configured list that I created in admin for business certification as well.

Once I select them, notice I've only selected two, and I hit save, the vendor receives an email notification.

When they return to their application, they will see they're deficient and the reasons that you've selected.

Again, they can make the necessary changes and hit submit. And that starts the application process over again. Let's return to the agency.

I'm going to refresh the page so we can see we're back in submitted stage.

Now when I return pre-qualification and click edit after I've reviewed the necessary changes and agree that this is a good application I can mark them approved.

If you want we can also configure for the maximum amount approved to be shown internal only or shown also on the vendor side of the system in their approval letter, their valid date range, and any approval comments.

Now we can see that the vendor is approved and the vendor has received a notice.

Let's go look over at bid management and how it ties together.

Earlier we looked at how it connects with vendor management. It also connects in bid management as well.

When I am creating a bid, after I've selected my category codes, I can come in here to vendor type for outreach and narrow it down to just one of the classifications or both classifications that I'm that I'm pre-qualifying on.

I notice my vendor list has reduced.

I can also do by invitation only and again select the pre-qualification type and then only invite those that have been pre-qualified.

Or I can open up my registration or I can open up my bid notification to anybody qualified or not.

But then I can place a restriction on the bid by going to the restriction area and restricting it to the documents to be downloaded and e-bidding or simply e-bidding.

And then under classification, I will then select the type that I am restricting by.

And now only prime approved contractors can bid.

If we go over to the vendor portal and look at our application, you can see I'm now approved and I can retrieve my approval letter.

On top of that, if I go back to the home on the vendor side of the system, you'll see certified vendors.

Any registered vendor, whether they have been certified or not, can go into certified vendors and search your approved vendors.

They can search by vendor types, license types, county, state, and any other information listed up here. With vendor types, they will be able to sort and search by prime or MEP.

So if you have multiple application types, they'll be able to search by a specific type.

Once they find the vendor, they simply select and they'll be able to see their information.

And again, we can display how much they're pre-qualified up to. And this concludes our training for business certification.

 

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