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Greetings,
What are you waiting for? The time is now to be a part of OhioBuys and do business with the State of Ohio.
All state cabinet agencies have onboarded and there are now more than thirty Agencies looking to do business with your company through OhioBuys. In September, over 360 solicitations were conducted in OhioBuys. Month over month, the number of solicitations conducted in OhioBuys continues to grow!
Don’t miss out!
Make sure your company is properly set up in OhioBuys to ensure you can receive notifications about and respond to relevant solicitations. To become set up correctly, we recommend watching this 24-minute video with this presentation deck for reference: OhioBuys Supplier Training Webinar Deck. These materials cover the following topics:
- Getting started in OhioBuys
- How to manage your profile, including managing contacts and selecting commodities
- Responding to Solicitations
- Reviewing and Acknowledging Purchase Orders
- Listing your organization's goods and/or services as part of a catalog
If your company is not set up as shown above, you will not receive notices about opportunities to do business with the State and may not be prepared to submit responses to solicitations when responses are due. Agencies also receive reporting on which suppliers are active in OhioBuys.
More information on becoming an OhioBuys bidder or supplier is available on the OhioBuys website.
New Agencies Coming to OhioBuys
As a reminder, the following agencies will start using OhioBuys next month:
- Attorney General
- Auditor of State
- Treasurer of State
- Office of the Governor
- Office of Consumers' Counsel
In addition to the agencies listed above, more than 20 additional boards and commissions will also begin using OhioBuys.
Upcoming Webinars
We have scheduled new supplier webinar trainings through December 16th. Our next webinar will be THIS FRIDAY, October 21, 2022, at 10:00 AM. This webinar will cover Access and Responding to Solicitations in OhioBuys.
To register for either of these webinars, go to the Webinar Training section on the OhioBuys website.
October
Friday, October 21
10:00 AM-11:00 AM
Topic: Access and Responding to Solicitations
November
Friday, November 18
10:00 AM-11:00 AM
Topic: Access and Responding to Solicitations
December
Friday, December 16
10:00 AM-11:00 AM
Topic: Access and Responding to Solicitations
Friday, December 16
10:00 AM-11:00 AM
Topic: Revenue Share Reporting
What would you like to see?
To provide OhioBuys users with the best experience possible, we want to expand and tailor our webinar offerings for bidders and suppliers. As we begin the 2nd quarter of FY23, we would like to hear from you and what topics you feel would be most beneficial to you, your team, and other users. Along with the training materials on the OhioBuys website, we currently offer hour-long webinars that cover accessing and responding to solicitations in Ohio Buys and how to report revenue share.
The user experience is decidedly different for everyone in OhioBuys. Based on the information typically covered in these webinars, is there a time commitment that works best for you? Would 30 or 60-minute offerings be more effective?
As you think about that, some of the topics we are considering are:
- Expand the Navigating in OhioBuys offerings to include weekly topics based on the components in OhioBuys that are most useful to users
- Responding to Solicitations
- A comprehensive explanation of the Quote Quoting process and how it fits into utilizing OhioBuys
- Walking through the RFP process for solicitations
If these topics interest you or have suggestions for future webinars as we continue to grow OhioBuys, please email us at supplier.ohiobus@das.ohio.gov. The OhioBuys team is constantly working towards providing the best user experience possible, and your feedback is important to us and much appreciated.
HELPFUL HINTS
Bid Tabulation and Award Letters in OhioBuys
Several suppliers have informed us that they have not received an automatic “bid tabulation and award letter” for solicitations or that they cannot find the bid tabulations for solicitations in OhioBuys.
While automatic transmission of a bid tabulation and award letter is not a feature currently available in OhioBuys, the agency conducting the solicitation can upload documentation (e.g., a bid tabulation, award letter, etc.) for some types of solicitations. When this is done at the end of the evaluation process, the documents will be publicly posted until the solicitation's publication end date is reached.
If the information being sought is still not available, suppliers may submit a Public Records Request in OhioBuys. Suppliers can find the link to do so on the Procurement Services homepage.
Please note that each agency is responsible for responding to the Public Records Requests submitted for their agency, so there is no standard turnaround time for how long an agency has to respond to a request.
When submitting a Public Records Request, the supplier should use the Public Solicitation field, if possible, to ensure they are selecting the proper solicitation. Suppliers should also specify the information/documentation being sought in the Description field.
 For more information, users should review the Submitting a Public Records Request Job Aid.
Thank you for partnering with us on this journey.
The OhioBuys Team
Mike DeWine, Governor
Jon Husted, Lt. Governor
Kathleen C. Madden, Director
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