3. Lessons Learned

The lessons learned in Milestone 2.3 of the 4^th National Action Plan will be used to influence and direct decisions to be made in future activities related to OCDS. Compiled below is the list of Lessons Learned throughout the process of completing This project.

3.1 Procurement data must be captured as structured data for all OCDS fields

As mentioned in section 2.3, the information collected for the pilot data is for the most part structured and can be easily mapped to the OCDS fields. However, unstructured information like the “rationale” or “milestones” field, which is important to communicate the overall status of the procurement instrument, is captured as an unrequired, free text input with no standardized template across the government sectors.

PSPC has suggested a solution of incorporating structured data for all future records inputted by the buyer through onboarding, training, and the adoption of the Electronic Procurement System (EPS) within the department.

3.2 Contract History should not have missing original contract records

PSPC has identified issues with data quality in the contract data during the early stages of sourcing the sample records. The contract data contains records with no original contract. This can be identified as not having an amendment value of 0. Contract data that did not have an original contract was filtered out of the 250 contract records. The sample records only have contract data that include the value of 0 for the specific CH field “CONTRACT_AMENDMENT”.

Senior management has been notified of this issue in the current and legacy data. Moving forward, PSPC has recommended that the issue be corrected for all future records inputted by the buyer through onboarding, training, and the adoption of EPS within the department.

3.3 Inaccessible documents and data pertinent to OCDS are to be digitized

PSPC has found that the information solicited from the sectors and regions were not often digitized and there was a lack of strict procedure for data clarity. In some instances, the documents were kept as hard copies or in email chains as attachments. Since the documents were meant for internal use and were often unilingual, the information needed from the documents was translated for use in the pilot data. These documents such as the 9200 and their amendments, Risk Assessment Documents and Contract Planning and Advanced Approval (CPAA), were not readily available to PSPC from the respective procurement officers. This issue has led to the omission of the OCDS Planning Documents and Planning Milestones sections.

The data that came from the sectors and regions for the planning milestone information, and planning amount value did not always align with the requisition value reported in AIS. This discrepancy can also be attributed to lack of access to documents, input error or ambiguity when requesting the data from the sectors. The case-by-case manual data extract from the sectors has provided the planning amount and currency fields which are included in the pilot data.

PSPC has suggested digitizing pertinent documents in the procurement process for structured and automated OCDS disclosure of future records.

3.4 Published procurement data must have a standard and direct link to Financial System records

PSPC has identified issue with the relationship between the contracting data found on BAS and the Financial System purchasing data. The issue is caused by an informal and nonstandard link between requisition and PO numbers. This issue was resolved by manually mapping the data, and each linkage between PO and requisition has been vetted case by case.

PSPC plans to remedy the issue for all future records through the incorporation of EPS as a unified system that attaches all procurement processes from planning to spending.

3.5 Official Languages and published content

PSPC has identified minor language issues that affected 4% of the sample records. These issues were identified while manually extracting the item data from the “Basis of Payment” sections in the solicitation documents found in the Tender Phase.

PSPC has resolved the issues for the pilot data by translating the documents with the aid of the OPI from the sectors and regions. This issue contributed to the decision made during QA to omit item data in the Tender Phase.

The language issues are mostly contained to published legacy data and has been reported to senior management.

3.6 Notice type for tenders are misidentified as Notice of Proposed Procurement (NPP)

Due to an unseen error, NPP was inadvertently incorporated as a viable input option for a tender’s Notice Type in the Tender Management Application (TMA) and is a legacy error in ABE. Procurement Officers are to therefore use one of the correct five following notice types in place of NPP:

• Request for Proposal (RFP)
• Request for Quotation (RFQ)
• Invitation to Tender (ITT)
• Request for Standing Offer (RFSO)
• Request for Supply Arrangement (RFSA)

In order to correct this issue for the pilot data, PSPC used a combination of AIS data on the solicitation type and manual data mining to map to the OCDS notice type field.

PSPC plans to remedy the issue for all future records inputted by the buyer through onboarding, training, and the adoption of EPS within the department.

3.7 Identified privacy and security concerns in the pilot data

Unit item information, free text Financial System item descriptions, supplier emails, sole proprietorship address blocks, and supplier business numbers will not be disclosed as there are privacy and security concerns. In place of business numbers as an identifier of a supplier, all supplier IDs in the pilot data have been changed to a unique four-digit random number. Due to PSPC departmental stakeholder feedback, the pilot data records have been reduced to 250.

3.8 Contract History date periods are inaccurately published on BAS

The contract start, expiry, and amendment dates inputted in ABE are subject to data entry errors from procurement officers and has led to the inaccurate values in the pilot data.

PSPC has consulted stakeholders to have the current issues resolved. The department plans to remedy the issue for all future records inputted by the buyer through onboarding, training, and the adoption of EPS within the department.