This guide explains how to use the Illinois Higher Ed Bulletin to find and bid on solicitations published by the participating institutions, as well as award notices published by buyers and general information published by the Chief Procurement Office.
Creating an account on the Bulletin allows you to download solicitation and notice documents, electronically bid on solicitations that allow e-bidding, and sign up to receive email notifications when notices you may be interested in are posted. You can only have one company connected to a single Illinois Higher Ed Bulletin account and you may edit your account settings in the My Account section of the site at any point.
Create Bulletin Account
There are two main ways vendors find solicitations or awards: having them sent to you via email notifications or by searching on the Bulletin website.
For many vendors, email notifications are the most efficient way to find relevant solicitations or notices. You can sign up for email notifications and adjust your notification settings in the Email Notification page under My Account so that you only receive notifications for the notice types, institutions/regions or NIGP Codes that are of interest to you. The notifications will be sent to the email associated with your account.
The vendor is solely responsible for ensuring emails, sent from the Illinois Higher Ed Bulletin via the no-reply email cpoPandA@uillinois.edu, are received and are not filtered into other folders such as spam, etc.
Vendors can search for solicitations or awards by keyword or procurement number from the Homepage or the Search page. You can also use the Advanced Search page, which allows you to also search based on Notice Type, Status, Institution, NIGP Codes or Due Date.
You can further narrow your search results using the filters on the left-hand side of the results page. You will be able narrow the results to only see notices in a particular status, that are a specific type of notice, or that come from a specific region or even individual institution.
There are two main types of postings on the Bulletin: competitive solicitations and noncompetitive notices. You can see a full explanation of each solicitation and notice type on the Glossary page.
Competitive solicitations are ones where vendors can respond to them, whether that be submitting a bid, a proposal, or just information. Examples of competitive solicitation types on the Bulletin are Invitations for Bids (IFB), Requests for Information (RFI) and Request for Proposal (RFP). There are some specialized competitive solicitation types for specific commodity areas, including Construction bids, Professional and Artistic Request for Proposal, Real Property Lease RFIs, and Request for Professional Services Qualifications (QBS).
All competitive solicitations are required to be published for a minimum of 14 days prior to the due date.
Noncompetitive Notices refer to announcements of awards already made that are generally not available for vendor action. The exception to this is Sole Source notices, which are used to announce contracts that are awarded to a vendor on the assumption that they are the only one capable of providing the technical expertise or proprietary goods required. The awarding of a Sole Source includes a hearing that vendors are allowed to attend if they wish to protest the award. Other notice types include Emergency, Exemptions, and General Awards.
While there are some differences in content across different types of postings, you will find the same general information on both competitive solicitations and noncompetitive notices, including procurement number, the institution that posted the solicitation, a general description, and contact information. Competitive solicitations will also include due dates and instructions on how to submit our bid, proposal, or information.
Competitive solicitations and noncompetitive notices can have file attachments that contain important information. You can either download files directly or have them emailed to the address associated with your Bulletin account. You must be logged into your Bulletin account in order to download or email documents. When you download or email a file, you are automatically signed up to receive email notifications for that solicitation. Emails will be sent if there are any updates to the notice.
Any updates for a notice will be posted on the original notice. These include information about:
Buyers can choose to allow vendors to electronically submit procurement documents in response to procurement opportunities. Whether or not e-bidding is allowed on a specific solicitation will be indicated in the notice itself. You must be signed up to e-bid.
To use the e-bidding feature on the Bulletin, a vendor must have an Illinois Higher Ed Bulletin account and also be registered in the Illinois Procurement Gateway (IPG) and hold an IPG registration number that is in good standing.
Once you have registered with the IPG you can then sign up for e-bidding on the Bulletin by visiting the Company page under My Account. You will see a question that asks if you have an IPG number for your company. Answer "Yes" and enter the IPG number in the text box that appears and hit the "Look up Company" button. If your IPG number is valid it will pull up your company name and you will be asked to confirm this is your company. If the company displayed is not correct, double check your IPG number and then consult with the Illinois Procurement Gateway. Once you have confirmed your company, save your changes. You are now ready to e-bid.
Not all solicitations will allow e-bidding. It is at the discretion of the buyer and institution associated with the procurement to determine if they want to allow vendors to e-bid.
You will know if a solicitation allows e-bidding if you see that sealed bids will be allowed via E-bidding in the solicitation information and an "E-bidding" box is present on the right side of notice under the Documents Box. If you are logged in and you've registered your IPG number, you can begin the e-bidding procedure by clicking the "Start E-bid" button in the "E-bidding" box.
A modal window will open. You will be able to upload documents one at a time, identifying which kind of document it is for each file. You should consult the solicitation information to check what documents are required.
After uploading the documents, you may close the window. This does not submit the e-bid documents - you will be able to update your documents up until the deadline listed on the solicitation, at which that point they will be automatically pulled into the system by the buyer, and they will no longer be available for editing.
You can view all e-bids you've started that have not yet past their deadline on the My E-bids page. On this page you, or any other members of your company that are registered with the same IPG number on the Bulletin, may manage the documents of any e-bids up until the deadline time and date listed on the solicitation.
Occasionally, buyers will require more information from vendors before making a decision. This may come in the form of clarification questions or the request for a "Best and Final Offer" (or "BAFO"). If this is the case, all vendors whose Bulletin account is connected to the IPG number in question will receive an email notifying them of this request, and they may visit "My E-bids" to view the requested information and upload their response documents. Like the e-bid documents, these documents will be editable until the response deadline set by the buyers, after which they will automatically be sent to the buyers.
Important information about both the Bulletin and procurement in Illinois will be posed in the News & Announcements section. In addition, records of campaign contribution violations, conflicts of interest, exemptions, and CPO Waivers are posed here.
