Online Submissions & Evaluations

Online Submissions & Evaluations

Online Submissions & Evaluations Overview

When external vendors submit bids for a project through the Authorium system, this process is handled by an Online Submissions workflow stage within the project. Later on, the received submissions will be routed to an Evaluations stage before project award.

Project owners and contributors will need to set up the Submissions and Evaluations workflow stages in the appropriate project template or project instance.

Topics in this section:

  • Adding an Online Submission Stage to Projects

  • Configuring Evaluation Workbooks

  • Adding Worksheets to a Workbook

  • Configuring a Project’s Submission Details

  • Beginning the Online Submissions Process

  • Responding to Suppliers’ Questions

  • Advancing to the Evaluations Stage

  • Scoring Submissions as an Evaluator

  • Award Selection

  • Completing the Evaluation Stage

Adding an Online Submission Stage to Projects

The Online Submission Stage is a workflow stage where vendors submit bids (and ask questions, if Q&A is enabled). 

To add an Online Submissions Stage, start from the Project Template Workflow Screen.

Select Add Stage to Workflow.

Select Online Submissions.

Fill in the stage name and description, but do not change the Stage Type.

Save Stage when finished.


Configuring Evaluation Workbooks

Workbooks track the information entered by suppliers and added by reviewers during the Submissions and Evaluations stages. They consist of one or more separate worksheets, which can themselves be divided into sections

In the Submissions stage, external suppliers receive the workbook and fill in their responses to each of the worksheet items. These worksheet items can be mandatory or optional, and should contain all of the information needed from the suppliers in order for their bids to be properly evaluated.

Each worksheet item can also have evaluation criteria attached to it. These evaluation criteria are not visible to the suppliers when submitting bids, and are instead used by evaluators to judge received submissions on predefined criteria.

Unlike documents and forms, workbooks are not created from their own, separate templates: rather, they are part of a project template. 

Adding & Configuring Evaluation Workbooks

To add an evaluation workbook, start in the Online Submissions Stage of a project or project template.

Navigate to the Evaluation Workbooks tab.

Select Add Workbook.

Fill in the workbook’s name and description, and select reference documents from the project document package. 

You can also configure the following options:

  • Whether the workbook is a Blocking Evaluation (which must be completed before other evaluations begin) or a Simultaneous Evaluation (allowing other evaluations to be completed at the same time).

  • Whether you want to assign evaluators via Individual Assignment (assigning specific evaluation criteria to specific team members) or Criteria Assignment Groups (assigning team members to groups of evaluation criteria).

  • Whether the workbook should be assigned a Lead Evaluator who can review evaluations that are in progress.

  • Whether or not to Lock the Workbook, preventing it from being viewed until previous evaluations are complete.

Save when finished.


Once a workbook has been added, you can select View Workbook to add worksheet items or evaluation criteria. You can also use the three-dot menu next to any workbook to: 

  • Edit the workbook’s configuration options

  • Change how the score totaling works

  • Make the workbook conditional

  • Change the ordering of workbooks, or

  • Remove the workbook altogether.

Adding Worksheet Items to a Workbook

To add items to a workbook, start from the Evaluation Workbooks tab of a project or project template.

Select View Workbook.

Select Add Item.

Enter a name for the worksheet item and add description or help text for the item as needed.

Choose the appropriate category under Item Response Format:

  • Text / Multiline Text / Rich Text

  • Number

  • Buttons

  • Dropdown / Select

  • Date

  • File Upload

Toggle Required Response if this worksheet item should be mandatory.

Select Save Changes when finished.



Adding Evaluation Criteria to a Workbook

Evaluation criteria determine how submissions are evaluated. They are linked to specific worksheet items. 

To add evaluation criteria to a worksheet item, start from the Evaluation Workbooks tab of a project or project template, then:

Select View Workbook.

Select Add Criteria beneath the appropriate worksheet item.

Fill in name and description as needed.

Choose the appropriate category under Evaluation Criteria:

  • Pass / Fail

  • Numeric

  • Percentage

  • Cost

  • Global Scoring Set

  • Open Ended, or

  • Custom Options (fill in key-value pairs for your desired options)

Toggle Criteria Required if evaluators should be required to respond to this criteria, and toggle Required Justification to require evaluators to include a written justification of their response.

When finished, select Save Changes.



Configuring a Project’s Submission Details

When you create a project from a project template with a Submissions workflow stage, you will have the option to configure project-specific submission details.

Submission details control: 

  • Start and end dates for the submission period

  • Whether to seal submission data

  • Whether submissions should be locked from editing once submitted

  • Whether Q&A should be enabled, and if so, start and end dates for the Q&A period

  • Whether the project is open to public submissions or by invitation only.

To configure the submission details for a specific project, start from the project’s Online Submissions workflow stage.

Select Edit Submission Details.

Select the time zone for dates, set the start and end dates for the submissions period, and select when to publish the project.

Adjust other settings for the submissions period as necessary:

  • Seal all Submission Data

  • Lock submissions from edits once submitted

  • Q&A period, with start and end dates if enabled

  • Open to public or Invitation only

Select Save when you are finished.


Enabling Supplier Q&A

Enabling supplier Q&A suppliers to submit questions during a given period, view other suppliers’ questions, and read responses from your agency. It is activated and configured as part of the Submissions stage.

To enable Supplier Q&A, start from the Online Submissions workflow stage of the relevant project.

Select Edit Submission Details.

Toggle Enable Q&A for submissions, then set the Start and End Dates for the Q&A period.

When you are done, select Save.


Managing Supplier Invitations

Within the Submissions workflow stage, you can add new suppliers to invite to bid on the project, or select existing suppliers to invite from the Supplier Repository. 

Invited suppliers will not receive an email until the submissions period has been started.

To add a new invited supplier, starting from the project’s Online Submissions workflow stage:

Select Add Supplier under the Supplier Invitations section.

To add a new supplier directly, simply fill in their Company Name, Primary Contact’s name, and Email Address.

To invite an existing supplier, go to Select from Supplier Repository, search by company name, and select the suppliers you wish to include.

When you are finished, select Add Suppliers.



Selecting Solicitation Documents

In the Submissions workflow stage of a project, you can select the documents for suppliers to fill out as part of a submission.

To do so, starting from the project’s Online Submissions workflow stage:

Go to Select Documents.

Search for and select the documents from the project you want suppliers to fill out as part of their submissions.

When you are finished, hit Confirm Selection.


Beginning the Online Submissions Process

After editing submission details, inviting suppliers and selecting solicitation documents, you are ready to start collecting online submissions.

To begin the Online Submissions process, starting from the Dashboard:

Navigate to the Project you want to begin the Online Submissions process for.

Select View Project.

Confirm the Submission Details, Supplier Invitations, and Solicitation Documents for the project are correct.

Select Publish and Start Submission Process.

Select Confirm and Send Invitations to publish the project and send suppliers an invitation to submit.


If for any reason you need to make changes to a project after publishing it, you can do so by clicking Unpublish and Edit on the main project screen. This will retract the published project and allow you to make changes to the Submission Details and other project elements. You will need to publish the project again after making the necessary changes.


Responding to Suppliers’ Questions

If a project has a supplier Q&A period enabled, suppliers will be able to submit questions for you and your team to respond to. You can find pending questions in the Q&A tab of the Online Submissions workflow stage of the project.

Note: Your responses will be visible to all suppliers after being published.


To respond to supplier-submitted questions, open up the project to the Online Submissions workflow stage, then

Navigate to the Q&A tab.

Select the Q&A question you wish to answer.

Type a response to the Q&A question. The response field supports rich text formatting — bold, italics, bullet points, etc. You can also attach a file to your response.

Select Mark as Ready to Publish when you’re done with your response. 

Note: Suppliers are not able to see responses until they have been published. 

To publish your responses and make them visible to suppliers, select Publish Answers, then tick the checkbox beside the question(s) for which you would like to publish a response. 

Lastly, confirm and publish answers. Your response to the Q&A question will now be visible to all suppliers.


Advancing to the Evaluations Stage

Once the online submissions period has elapsed, you may advance the project to the Submissions Evaluation workflow stage (assuming the project contains an Evaluations workflow stage).

During the Evaluations stage, evaluators will fill out workbooks with evaluation criteria so that the submissions can be scored and the project can be awarded to the selected supplier.

To begin the Evaluations stage, starting from the Dashboard:

Navigate to the Project which you want to begin the Evaluation process for.

Select View Project.

In the project’s active Online Submissions stage, select Complete and Start Evaluations.


Note: In order to close the Submissions stage on a project, it must have received at least one submission.


Assigning Evaluators

Project/stage owners can assign evaluators to begin evaluating received submissions. Evaluators can be assigned to all submissions or only selected submissions.

To assign evaluators, starting from the project’s Submissions Evaluation workflow stage:

Select View Details under the evaluation workbook to which you want to assign an evaluator.

Select Add Evaluator.

Find the evaluator you want to add, then check the appropriate box to assign the evaluator to the suppliers they should evaluate.

To remove an evaluator, select them by name.


Beginning Submission Scoring

Unsealed submissions can be viewed and scored by evaluators according to workbook criteria. 


To begin the submission scoring process, start from the project’s Submissions Evaluation workflow stage and then:

Select Begin Evaluation next to the workbook’s name.

Select Request for Evaluation and designate a completion deadline.

Select Send for Evaluation. Include messages to evaluators as needed.


Scoring Submissions as an Evaluator

To begin scoring a submission as an evaluator, start from the project’s Submissions Evaluation workflow stage and then:

Select Go to Evaluation beside the evaluation workbook you want to start with.

Use the navigation arrows to move between suppliers’ responses as needed. 

Fill in the assigned evaluation criteria for each of the worksheet items. 

Select Save Response when finished. 

You can change a saved response by selecting the X beside the response you wish to edit.

When you are finished editing the response, select Complete Response.


Award Selection

Admins, project owners and stage managers can designate or change award recipients at any time until the stage is marked complete. 

  • Awarded supplier information is saved as global project variables which can be referenced elsewhere as needed.

Once the Evaluations stage has been marked as complete, email notifications will be automatically sent to both the awardee and rejected suppliers.


To view details of evaluations and select a provisional award recipient, start from the project’s Submissions Evaluation workflow stage and then:

Navigate to the Scoring Summary tab.

Here you will find the Summary of Evaluations table, with the evaluation scores of each submission. You may filter or search as needed to find the evaluations you are looking for. 

To view details of a specific evaluation, select View in the ‘Scorecard’ column. 

When you are finished viewing details, close the scorecard to return to the Summary of Evaluations.

Once you have found the submission to be awarded in the table, select Award in the ‘Action’ column.

Select Confirm Award to set that company as the provisional award recipient. 

Award recipients may be changed by selecting Remove Award on the current recipient and repeating the process with the new award recipient


Completing the Evaluations Stage

Once the Evaluations stage has been marked as complete, email notifications will be automatically sent to both the awardee and rejected suppliers.

To complete the evaluations stage and award a selection, start from the project’s Submissions Evaluation workflow stage and then:

Navigate to the Scoring Summary tab.

Look through the table to find the . Filter or search if needed.

In the scorecard column, select View. Then close the scorecard to return to the Summary of Evaluations.

Select Award.

Select Confirm Award. Confirmations may be changed by selecting Remove Award.

Finalize the award by selecting Complete Stage and Award.

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