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Tenders are invited for Procuring Entities Digital Consultation Platform. General objective The platform will enable procuring entities to submit procurement-related questions through the PPA portal and allow PPA Board members and authorized personnel to collaboratively review, discuss, approve, and publish official responses. The solution should reduce reliance on fragmented email exchanges and informal communications, improve response time, maintain a complete institutional record of questions and decisions, and progressively establish a searchable public knowledge base of PPA guidance. Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities should be incorporated to assist in identifying similar previously answered questions and supporting the classification and organization of submitted questions. Specific objectives Establish a centralized and structured digital channel through which procuring entities can submit procurement-related questions to PPA. Introduce a controlled internal workflow for assigning, drafting, reviewing, approving, and publishing official PPA responses. Improve the timeliness and efficiency of PPA responses through automated deadlines, notifications, reminders, and escalation mechanisms. Ensure confidentiality of internal deliberations while maintaining a complete and traceable record of the review and approval process. Develop a searchable public Q&A knowledge base that enables procuring entities and other stakeholders to access previously issued PPA guidance. Reduce repetitive and duplicate inquiries by using AI-assisted similarity detection to identify relevant previously answered questions before a new question is submitted. Improve the organization and retrieval of institutional knowledge through AI-assisted classification, categorization, and tagging of submitted questions. Provide PPA management with operational dashboards and analytics to monitor response times, workload, recurring questions, and key procurement topics. Description of the Mission and Deliverables Scope of Work The contractor shall design, develop, integrate, test, deploy, document, and support the Fast Track Q&A and Knowledge Management Module as an integrated component of the existing PPA portal. The solution shall cover the complete life cycle of a question, from initial submission by a procuring entity through assignment, drafting, internal review, approval, publication, and subsequent retrieval through the public knowledge base. The module shall integrate with the existing portal authentication, user-management, notification, and security mechanisms, where applicable. Functional Requirements Question Submission Authorized procuring entities shall be able to submit questions through a dedicated and user-friendly interface. Each submission shall support, at minimum: Question/title. Detailed description. Rationale and relevant context. Procuring entity. Procurement or process reference, where applicable. Category/topic. Supporting attachments, where applicable. Submission date. Automatically generated unique reference number. The submitting entity shall receive confirmation of successful submission and shall be able to track the status of its question without access to PPAs internal deliberations. Workflow and Assignment Upon submission: Designated PPA Board members shall be automatically notified. A PPA Board member shall be assigned as the Response Owner. The Response Owner shall prepare the initial draft response. The draft shall be circulated electronically to designated reviewers. Reviewers shall be able to approve, comment, propose amendments, or object to the proposed response. The Response Owner shall be able to revise the response based on received feedback. Internal comments, drafts, discussions, and individual reviewer positions shall remain confidential. The system shall maintain version history for draft and final responses. Review and Approval Each designated reviewer shall be able to: Approve the proposed response. Propose amendments. Submit comments. Register an objection or disagreement. Provide justification for an objection or proposed alternative. The system shall support a configurable approval mechanism based on governance rules adopted by PPA, including where required: Unanimous approval. Majority approval. Quorum-based approval. Final authorization by a designated official. An answer shall not be automatically published while an unresolved objection exists. Deadline The system shall support a configured x working days deadline for internal response , the number shall be defined by the System administrator. The module shall: Automatically calculate the applicable deadline. Support configuration of official working days and holidays. Clearly display the applicable deadline and remaining time. Issue automated reminders to reviewers with pending actions. Flag cases approaching or exceeding the deadline. Escalate overdue cases to designated users where configured. Treat non-response after the defined deadline as deemed approval/no objection, where this business rule has been formally adopted by PPA. This feature shall be configurable by the Administrator and shall include a manual pause/override function for cases requiring additional or complex legal review, preventing automatic approval or publication solely due to the expiry of the deadline. Record automated actions and deemed approvals within the audit trail. Suggest answers to similar questions in the system for the board members. Resolution of Objections Where a reviewer objects to a proposed response, the system shall allow the objection and its justification to be recorded and circulated internally. The Response Owner shall be able to revise the draft and initiate a subsequent review cycle. The system shall prevent publication while a blocking objection remains unresolved. Final Approval and Publication Following completion of the internal approval process, authorized PPA board member shall be able to approve and publish the final question and official response. The public record may include: Question. Official PPA response. Category/topic. Publication date. Reference number. Relevant procurement stage or subject. Related questions or guidance. Internal comments, draft responses, reviewer identities, individual positions, objections, and internal discussions shall not be publicly disclosed. PPA shall retain the ability to determine whether an approved response should be: Published publicly. Provided only to the submitting entity. Retained as an internal/restricted record. AI-Assisted Features AI capabilities shall be introduced as supporting tools for information retrieval, classification, and knowledge management. AI shall not generate, approve, or publish official PPA responses. Intelligent Similar-Question Detection Before a procuring entity submits a new question, the system shall analyze the question and search the existing published Q&A knowledge base for semantically similar questions. The user may be presented with: Similar previously answered questions. Relevant official PPA responses. Related published guidance or documentation. The functionality shall help reduce duplicate submissions and allow procuring entities to obtain existing authoritative guidance without initiating a new review process where appropriate. The user shall retain the ability to proceed with submission where the suggested existing responses do not adequately address the specific question. Searchable Public Knowledge Base Published Q&A , on the PPA portal , records shall form a structured and progressively expanding institutional knowledge repository. Users shall be able to search and filter published content using criteria including where applicable: Keyword. Topic/category. Procurement stage. Date. Reference number. Procuring entity type. Search results shall provide clear access to the corresponding official PPA response. The system should suggest relevant related Q&A records when a user views an individual published question. Dashboard and Analytics An administrative dashboard shall provide PPA with operational and management indicators related to the Q&A process. The dashboard shall include, at minimum: Total number of questions received. Questions currently under review. Questions awaiting action. Questions approaching the deadline. Overdue questions. Average response time. Percentage of questions processed within the target period. Questions organized by category/topic, with links to the relevant articles of the law, related memoranda, and applicable decisions already published on the portal Questions by procuring entity or entity type. Most frequently raised topics. Published versus restricted/non-published responses. Reviewer workload and pending actions. Trends in question volumes over time. Authorized users shall be able to filter relevant analytics by date, category, status, and organizational entity. Notifications and Alerts The module shall provide configurable portal and email notifications for key workflow events, including: New question submitted. Question assigned. Draft ready for review. Reviewer comment or objection received. Response revised. Approaching review deadline. Deadline exceeded. Final approval completed. Response published or finalized. Notification rules, recipients, frequency, and escalation mechanisms shall be configured by authorized administrators. User Roles and Access Control The solution shall implement role-based access control (RBAC) and shall reuse and integrate with the existing PPA Portal user accounts, authentication mechanisms, and available user information, avoiding duplication of user records and separate account management. Procuring Entity UserSubmit questions, provide supporting informa Tender Link : https://daleel-madani.org/civil-society-directory/expertise-france/calls/procuring-entities-digital-consultation-platform
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