Public procurement notice: Prior Information Notice Without Call For Competition
Published: 2017-12-07
Buyer: University of Southampton
Country: UK
Contract type: Supplies
CPV classification: 48000000 | 48100000 | 48170000 | 48180000 | 48190000

Technical requirements: The University of Southampton is currently exploring a range of system options to support its Enabling Services in the management of their business and appointment booking. The University is keen to explore all options that may be currently available in the market. Further information can be found at section VI.3.
Interested parties are invited to complete and return the Soft Market Testing Questionnaire, the deadline for the receipt of completed questionnaires is Tuesday 23 January 2018 (12:00 p.m.).
Responses received as part of this exercise shall be used to help shape the University's final specification of system requirements and scope any resulting procurement process.
Please Note: This soft market exercise is intended to allow interested organisations with appropriate experience to outline their views and provide impartial information to the University with no commitment to themselves or the University. This is not a call for competition at this stage.
The University of Southampton is currently exploring a range of system options to support its Enabling Services. The University is keen to explore all options that may be currently available in the marketplace.
The University’s “Enabling Service” exists to provide support to students with a disability including for students with long-term health condition, mental health problems and learning difficulties. Students (and applicants) may access support through 1-1 sessions with a specialist practitioner, access to assessments, non-appointment based drop-in sessions, specialist workshops, and development of reasonable adjustments to ensure access to learning & study. The service provides direct support to 6,000 students through appointments, 1:1 support and other interactions; in addition through outreach activity, indirect support is provided to a potential further 5,000 students in line with growing service demand. The service is staffed by 18 core staff, 12 practitioners and 20 consultant assessors and support workers. Any system supporting this service would have around 50 back-end users, 30 concurrent.
The University is conducting soft market testing for a system solution that must include the following:
— Online self-service access for customers (make/view appointments, upload required documents, etc...),
— Ability to interface with other University systems in order to share necessary data, e.g. financial packages provided by WPM and Agresso; Student Records System,
This PIN has been issued in order to gauge capability and interest in the market to assist in our decision making. This is not a call for competition. There will be no prejudice to any future procurement procedure by participation in this PIN. Further information of the requirement can be found in the Soft Market Testing Questionnaire which forms part of this exercise.
The University is utilising an electronic tendering tool (In-Tend: https://in-tendhost.co.uk/universityofsouthampton) to manage this soft market testing exercise and to communicate with participating organisations.
Participating organisations are advised that there will be no hard copy documents issued to organisations and all communications with the University including the submission of soft market testing questionnaires will be conducted via the In-Tend portal. Regular monitoring of the portal is the responsibility of the participating organisation.
If you are not already registered as a supplier with the University of Southampton, you will need to register in In-Tend in order to access the tender documentation.
Once you have logged in: click on "Tenders"; locate the relevant project; and click "View Details". Once you are in the project screen, you will be able to register your company against the project and access all documentation by clicking "Express Interest".
7) Check all your response documents are uploaded and displayed in the “My Tender Return” panel. The system will only permit your organisation to make one return;