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Table 1 - Web service operations provided by the XVergabe Bidder Interface.
Messages
The operations sendMessage and getMessages define a relatively open interface for exchanging messages between bidder client and tendering platform. Table 2 lists the type of messages that can be exchanged. Some messages are to be sent from client to platform, others from platform to client. The structure of the messages is specified in the file xvergabe-messages.xsd
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Message | Sender | Receiver | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
ClientInquiry | client | platform | Contains a document sent from client to the platform. This document can for example contain questions concerning a tendering procedure. These questions can then be answered via a ServerInquiry. |
InvitationToParticipation | platform | client | Contains the documents needed to take part in a participation contest of a tendering procedure. |
InvitationToTender | platform | client | Contains the tendering documents needed to take part in the bidding phase of a tendering procedure. |
Notice | platform | client | Contains the notice information of a tendering procedure. |
Offer | client | platform | Contains the offer documents. With this message a bidder takes part in the bidding phase of a tendering procedure. |
OfferDeliveryReceipt | platform | client | Contains an affirmation for the duly received offer documents. |
OfferWithdrawal | client | platform | With this message, a bidder can withdraw a previously submitted offer. |
OfferWithdrawalReceipt | platform | client | Contains an affirmation for the duly received offer withdrawal. |
Participation | client | platform | Contains the participation documents. With this message a bidder takes part in the participation phase of a tendering procedure. |
ParticipationDeliveryReceipt | platform | client | Contains an affirmation for the duly received participation documents. |
ParticipationWithdrawal | client | platform | With this message, a bidder can withdraw a previously submitted participation. |
ParticipationWithdrawal-DeliveryReceipt | platform | client | Contains an affirmation for the duly received participation withdrawal. |
Response | platform | client | Technical response of the platform to a request by a bidder client. May contain an error code. |
ResultNotice | platform | client | Contains information about the result of a tendering procedure. If a bidder won a procedure, he may be notified via ResultNotice. |
ServerInquiry | platform | client | Contains a document sent from the platform to the client. This document can for example contain answers to bidder questions previously sent via ClientInquiry. |
TenderMetaInformation | platform | client | Contains meta information about a tendering procedure. This message is sent each time some attribute of a tendering procedure changes so that all bidders are up to date. |
Table 2 -Messages that are exchanged between bidder client and tendering platform via sendMessage and getMessages.
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Scenarios
To illustrate the possibilities of the XVergabe Bidder Interface, the following sections describe the exchange between bidder client and platform in some exemplary scenarios.
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Subscribing for an open Tendering Procedure
The scenario in Figure 2 shows how a bidder client can subscribe a tendering procedure and download the tendering documents using the XVergabe Bidder Interface.
- The bidder subscribes to an open tendering procedure he is interested in. The client calls the subscribe operation on the platform to make his interest known. The platform registers his subscription in its database.
- The bidder synchronizes his local data with the platform's data to become up to date. The client calls the getMessages operation to retrieve all messages directed at the client's user. The list of messages returned contains a TenderMetaInformation and an InvitationToTender for the tendering procedure he previously subscribed for. The TenderMetaInformation message contains all the data about the procedure the client needs. The InvitationToTender message contains the IDs of the tendering documents among other information.
- The client recognizes that the InvitationToTender message contains IDs of tendering documents and calls getDocument with these IDs to download the documents from the platform. After the download, the bidder can review the downloaded tendering documents.
Figure 2- Subscribing to a tendering procedure and downloading the tendering documents via XVergabe Bidder Interface.
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Exchanging Questions & Answers
The scenario in Figure 3 shows how a bidder can send questions concerning a tendering procedure and receive the answers to the questions via the XVergabe Bidder Interface.
- The bidder composes a set of questions (in the form of a PDF document, for example) concerning a tendering procedure he previously subscribed for. These questions are sent to the platform by a call of sendMessage. The message is a ClientInquiry containing the questions document. The platform stores the questions document to be answered by the contracting authority.
- The contracting authority answers the questions and stores the answers in another document (again, this might be a PDF document) on the platform. Afterwards, the bidder synchronizes his client to the platform. The client calls the getMessages operation and receives a ServerInquiry message (potentially among other messages). The ServerInquiry contains the ID of the answers document.
- The client recognizes that the ServerInquiry contains the ID of a document and calls getDocument to download the document from the platform. The bidder can then review the answers.
Figure 3 - Sending Questions to a tendering procedure and receiving the answers.