OpenProcurement.io

We all want to live in a comfortable environment with nice neighbours and smart government. Unfortunately, there is a wide gap between the real world and utopia. State organizations can’t work properly and protect country’s large resources and data while being stuck with outdated technology and procedures. Their upgrade requires a lot of money and intelligent people who will be in charge of investing funds in our future.

Small steps today may result in a huge meaningful change tomorrow. Let’s take public procurement sphere as an example. Complicated bureaucratic rules, non-transparent procedures, piles of paper documents… There may be a lot of reasons public procurement in your country is not efficient. The obvious answer to this issue is e-procurement system. And since we are talking about public procurement, the less it costs the better. Open source software would be the best option.

One of the small number of open source solutions available on the market is OpenProcurement.io toolkit. It was designed specifically for the procurement of goods and services on behalf of public authorities. The toolkit was developed for the Ukrainian Prozorro public procurement reform, but later was also used in other state and commercial projects in Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia.

OpenProcurement.io architecture

OpenProcurement.io is a high-load and multi-platform software. Its components can be used together or separately as a part of procurement solution.

• Central database is the main database that stores all information related to the organization of procurement and manages business processes. The toolkit was developed to be scalable and high-load, so it avoids imposing restrictions on the size of database and/or number of conducted procurements.
• e-Auction module is responsible for conducting auctions. Reverse, Multivariable, English and Combined (based on Dutch) auctions are currently available. See openprocurement / openprocurement.auction
• Document service stores documents registered during the procurement process and enables interaction with all the platforms involved. See openprocurement / openprocurement.documentservice
• Chronograph is a synchronization instrument that is responsible for tracking when an event ends and launching the next task. See openprocurement / openprocurement.chronograph
• OCDS API structures data into the OCDS format. The toolkit was developed in cooperation with the Open Contracting Partnership. Their Open Contracting Data Standard was developed to enable data disclosure and increase contracting transparency. By using a common data standard more information will be available for a deep analysis. See openprocurement / ocdsapi

OpenProcurement.io is open source and flexible. You can fork it and tailor it to the specific requirements of your local authorities or other government institution that requires changes.