The Future of the In-tend FE Shared Portal

In-tend have issued the following statement:

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As you may be aware there has been some discussion recently on the provision of the In-tend FE shared services portal. Having reflected on input on your behalf by CPC, we thank you for your understanding to allow us at In-tend to provide you with a more appropriate product to meet the ever changing Public Procurement regulations.

Lite Users

As you may be aware, Lite access to this shared services portal has been provided free of charge for some time, and users have enjoyed the ability to publish their tenders onto this e-procurement portal, thus starting the process of introducing e-procurement into the FE sector.However, due to the way this service has been funded, In-tend Lite can no longer still be offered as a free service to users and will therefore be withdrawn on 31st January 2017.

In terms of allowing organisations using this product access to continue to publish your tenders, we are now offering access to the Lite + service, which offers a greater number of benefits with added functionality over the Lite service.

Features and advantages of Lite+ system are as follows:

• Administered by In-tend
• Ability to run many types of procurement exercises including Quick Quotes, Mini Competitions and OJEU Projects
• Complete the full process of Issuing the project, evaluating within the system and awarding to the chosen supplier
• Publish projects to a FE Branded Portal
• Access to over 15,000 suppliers
• Access to other modules such as Contract Management and e-Auctions
• Correspondence and Clarifications through the system
• Excellent value proposition if a full branded system is not required

Furthermore, for those wanting a bespoke own College standalone system, the features and advantages of this service are as follows:

• Control over your own bespoke standalone system
• Administered by you with access to all Administration and preference settings
• Access to all the USER and CUSTOMERS (departments) together with rights & permissions functionality - You control your staff and users
• Branded supplier portal to your Colleges own identity e.g. Birmingham Metropolitan College
• Emails to suppliers bespoke to your College with branding and identity (previously unbranded and state FE Portal generic wording)
• Create your own bespoke templates, Standard Text, Approved Supplier Lists
• Run Reports and only see YOUR activity
• Supplier Database controlled by YOU
• Start from a blank system or suppliers from the shared system imported into new bespoke system.

In-tend will be happy to discuss the benefits of either option with you directly should you decide to take advantage of either of these services and added functionality in the short term before the termination of Lite.

You will, of course, be able to continue to have access to and to publish your opportunities until the free access is closed down at the end of January.

Some organisations have enquired whether it is possible to provide historical reports on tenders published through the free Lite service and, whilst this is possible, it will take some time to run reports on an individual basis and there will be a cost associated with this. Please contact us directly to discuss the timing and costs involved.

Lite + Users

For those users of the shared portal who subscribe to the Lite + service, your services will continue to operate as they have done with no changes planned.

As an innovative organisation striving to continually provide the best service and solution we can, we will look to engage users of the shared portal to guide future use and development and we welcome your attendance at our next Community Conference to be held on 24th May 2017 at Cranmore Park in Solihull. Should you wish to reserve your place now please contact as well as for any enquiries for a quotation for your own bespoke organisational branded portal, or to upgrade now to Lite +.