In OCDS each contracting process can have only one planning and tender stage. There are a number of cases where it is important to know about related planning and tendering processes, including:
- When one planning process results in many tenders;
- What a contract is awarded following two or more invitation to tender processes, such as in some processes involving pre-qualification, of frameworks with mini-competitions;
- When a contract results in the award of sub-contracts also tracked through OCDS data;
- When a contract is coming up for renewal or replacement, and there is a contracting process to award the renewal/replacement contract;
In all these cases, the relatedProcess
block can be used to cross-reference between the relevant open contracting processes using their OCID
.
A related process can be declared at two points in an OCDS release.
(1) A the release level - used to point backwards to prior processes, such as planning, PQQ or framework establishment.
(2) At the contract level - used to point onwards to sub-contracts, renewal or replacement processes that relate solely to the particular contract the property appears in.
As well as providing this machine-readable link between processes, publishers may also provide links to human-readable documentation in the relevant documents
blocks. For example:
- When recording a
release/relatedProcess
pointing to the ocid of the planning process that resulted in a tender, atender/documents
entry with adocumentType
of 'procurementPlan' and a link to web pages about the procurement plan could be provided; - When recording a
contract/relatedProcess
pointing to the ocid of a sub-contracting process, acontract/documents
entry with adocumentType
of 'subContract' and a title that describes it as the subcontracting process, could be provided; - When recording a
contract/relatedProcess
pointing to the ocid of a tender process to renew a given contract, acontract/documents
entry with adocumentType
of 'tenderNotice' and a title that describes it as the successor process, could be provided;
The relatedProcess codelist is given below.
Code | Title | Description |
---|---|---|
preQualification | Pre-qualification process | This contracting process follows on from the related pre-Qualification process. The qualified suppliers are listed in the award section of the related process. |
preSelection | Pre-selection process | "This contracting process follows on from the related pre-selection process which sought to identify, prior to solicitation, a limited number of suppliers or contractors that best meet the qualification criteria for the procurement concerned. These suppliers are listed in the award section of the related process." |
framework | Framework agreement procedure first stage | This contracting process follows on from the related process to establish a framework. The suppliers on the framework are listed in the award section of the related process. |
planning | Planning process | This contracting process follows on from the related planning process. |
parent | Parent contract (for sub-contracts) | This contracting process may result in a sub-contract of the related process. |
prior | Prior process | This contracting process is the renewal or replacement of the related prior process. |
unsuccessfulProcess | Unsuccessful process | This contracting process follows on from an previous unsuccessful process. |
subContract | Sub-contract | The related process may result in a sub-contract of this contract. |
replacementProcess | Replacement process | The related process may result in the replacement of this contract. |
renewalProcess | Renewal process | The related process may result in the renewal of this contract. |
See issue #371.