Open Contracting Data Standard

 

An introduction

Introductions

Why Open Contracting?

A range of benficiaries

Government:

seeking value

for money

Corruption hunter:

detecting fraud 

& corruption

SMEs:

competing for public

contracts

CSOs:

monitoring service

delivery

Why focus on contracting data?

Detecting patterns

Deeper insights

Linking aid data and contract register for greater project-level insight

Contracting analytics

http://procurement-analytics.org/

Contracting analytics

https://www.contrataciones.gov.py/datos/visualizaciones

Tools for contractors

But:

  • Many current data-driven examples rely on proprietary data-sharing;
     
  • Most existing tools are custom-build for one particular country or context;
     
  • Where data is available, quality is often low;
     
  • Many countries lack any good quality published procurement data, or only have data on one stage of the process;

This is where OCDS comes in...

Interoperability

Quality

The Open Contracting Data Standard

A brief history

Built around data supply...

...and user need

Resulting in...

Field & identifier specifications

What to publish, and how to identify it consistently across the whole contracting process

 

JSON schema & flattened serialisations

How to publish data so that it can be read by different systems, and converted into accessible formats for different users. 

 

Publishing patterns

Stepping stones towards best practices for sharing data on the web: improving usability. 

The whole contracting process:

A worked example

1) Planning

2) Tender / formation

3) Enquiries

4) Award

5) Contract

6) Progress update

7) Contract ammendment

8) Completion

The pieces...

OCDS brings together data & documents from all stages of the contracting process

The contracting process

Planning

Tender/ formation

Award

Contract

Implementation

The contracting record

Releases and records

  • Real-time notices and updates;
  • As much information as the publishing system can share;
  • Linked to a contracting process ID;
  • Summarising the current state of the contracting process;
  • Bringing together data from different systems;
  • Providing change history;

Planning

Tender

Tender amendment

Award

Releases and records

Format & schema

Flat serialisation

Joining it up

OCID

Contracting process identifier

- Look for existing identifiers that join up the whole contracting process

Organisation identifiers

Master Road Builders Ltd

MRB Ltd

master road builders limited

MASTER ROAD BUILDERS LTD.

Maestro Camino Constructores Ltd

 

Or

GB-COH - 12345678

Implementation process

Basic

Publication Policy

Intermediate

Advanced

Versioned | Persistence | URIs

Implementation approaches

  1. Map existing information sources
    What data do you have now? What data that users demand is missing? 
     
  2. Identify the identifiers
    Can you identify a whole contracting process?
     
  3. Engage users
    Understand the needs of your user community, and what they can bring to implementation.
     
  4. Choose architecture
    Centralised vs. distributed
     
  5. Publish & improve

Architectures

Central

Database

API

Release & Records

XLS Data DumpsGenerated periodically for data portal

Planning

spreadsheet

Procurement

database

Contract

management

system

Conversion process

API

Releases

Mapping from existing API

Middle layer

Maintaining index of releases & generating records (inc. version history)

XLS Data Dumps

API & Visualisation

Government run

Independently administered

Implementation

examples

UK Government

(Work in progress)

Input API

Local 

tender 

systems

EU

TED


UK Government

(Work in progress)

https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/getOCDS?noticeId={ID}

OCDS 

Release

Output

Third party platform to aggregate into records

http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/vuesurlescontrats/

Montreal

Mexico City: OCP Sharing & Learning project

 

1. Mapping existing data systems;
 

2. Planning updates to SAP platform;
 

3. Creating module to publish data

 

4. Working with civil society data users 

 

Documentation and support

http://ocds.open-contracting.org

Help-desk:
data@open-contracting.org

 

  • Questions?
  • Supporting data validation
  • Information about tools
  • Standard updates

Discussion list:

 

standard-discuss@open-contracting.org

 

  • Community updates
  • Tool updates
  • Standard news & upgrades

http://github.com/open-contracting/

Inside the data

  • Line items
     
  • Documents
     
  • Values
     
  • Milestones
     
  • Dates
     
  • Locations
     
  • Organisations
     
  • External links

Contracting process identifier

OCID

Globally unique identifier

 

Used in each release for a contracting process

ocds-{prefix}-{identifier from internal systems}

Assigned by 

the helpdesk

Identified by 

surveying your own systems

Organisation identifiers

Master Road Builders Ltd

MRB Ltd

master road builders limited

MASTER ROAD BUILDERS LTD.

Maestro Camino Constructores Ltd

 

Or

GB-COH - 12345678

From organisation registration agency codelist

Registered company number

Documents & notices

Line items

Description

 

Quantity

 

Classifications

Location information

Extension: coming in version 1.1

Delivery address

Street address for geocoding

 

Delivery locations
gazetteer, points and polygons

Joined up data

Link out to other open datasets

Company register
 

Project registers
 

Budget data
 

Goods & services classifications

 

Etc.

Data walkthrough

Releases

  • All releases are contained within a package;
  • Packages can contain 1..n releases;
  • Packages contain key meta-data;

Releases

Identifiers

Release Tag

Organisation identifier block

Address & contact point block

Releases

Planning

Planning: budget

Planning: documents

Planning: anticipated tender details

Tender release: line items

Classification block

Quantities

Tender release: amounts

Tender release: process

Tender release: other elements

Tender amendment

Award release: overview

  • Awards is an array;
  • Awards should be matched with contracts;
  • Blocks repeated (e.g. items) to handle changes between tender and award;

Award release: detail

Award status

Suppliers array

Providing all available IDs

Contract period

Contract release

Reference back to award

Contract text

Implementation release

  • Implementation data belongs with the related contract block;
  • Allows progress to be expressed through documents, milestones and transactions

Implementation transactions

Bringing it together: merged record

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