July-August 2023
In This Issue ...
Procurement professionals and agency leaders,
It’s hard to believe another fiscal year has passed! We are still making changes within OMES Central Purchasing to better serve you as our customer. Our Procurement Innovation team is focusing on four main areas to increase our quality, velocity and efficiency:
- Create standardized evaluation tools catered to the scope and complexity of the solicitation.
- Analyze the federal government’s procurement tools such as mandatory interviews and confidence ratings to down-select the pool of bidders.
- Improve CPO training quality and content.
- Continue to expand our rolling RFPs for statewide contracts to create more competition and quick availability of vendors to our agencies.
Related to the rolling RFPs mentioned above, the next solicitation of that type will be for Non-IT Temporary Staffing services. We heard your feedback that there is only one current option available and are working hard to get you a solution. Look for upcoming CPO announcements to learn more.
A quick reminder on Cost Savings Reports: Please remember to submit your agency’s Cost Savings Report to OMES Central Purchasing before Sept. 1. This submission is required by all CPOs, and we will be diligently tracking submissions to make sure we have received each one.
If you ever have any questions related to the contents of this newsletter, please reach out to my team for assistance.
Warm regards,
Amanda L. Otis, Esq.
State Purchasing Director
Office of Management and Enterprise Service
Central Purchasing metrics
Statewide Contracts
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The Statewide Contracts team provides contracts for products and services for all state agencies, higher education, cities, counties, K-12 schools, and tribal governments to procure their needs. The increased statewide contract spend is the result of combined efforts of promotion and education by the Procurement Outreach team and the increase of products and services available on the statewide contracts.
Agency Acquisitions
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The Agency Acquisitions team executes agency-specific acquisitions on behalf of state agencies that have a value exceeding the agency acquisition threshold.
News and updates
Brown Bag Webinar coming up!
Join us on Aug. 24 for a free webinar covering what’s new in Central Purchasing. This course is approved for one CPO continuous education unit.
What: Brown Bag Webinar – What's New in Central Purchasing.
When: Thursday, Aug. 24, at 11 a.m.
Speakers: State Purchasing Director Amanda Otis, Central Purchasing; Compliance Manager Lisa McKim, Risk, Assessment and Compliance; and Procurement Service Manager Lesli Bajema, Central Purchasing.
Supplier and payee registration improvements
The supplier-payee registration process continues to evolve. We heard your feedback and have made some big changes!
Supplier Registration and Payee Registration are together again. This reorganization allows us to streamline processes and create consistency and efficiency. While you may experience temporary delays as we respond to the change, it will result in a much-improved registration experience. To date, we’ve:
- Eliminated 26 fields of information from what we previously required.
- Changed to simple verbiage that is easy to follow.
- Reduced and combined options to eliminate confusion.
- Removed requirements from the registration process that were repeated at the CPO buyer level, such as COI and SOS.
- Updated training materials to reflect all changes.
As we move forward, there will be changes in processes and previously allowed exceptions. We are transitioning payees to utilize the self-service eSupplier Portal. We appreciate your patience and cooperation as we work to make that happen and strive to best meet your needs!
CPO announcements
Review the latest announcements for certified procurement officers.
Helpful tip
Common e-requisition error
If an e-requisition is non-IT, is not a Type 8 sole source, doesn't have a contract attached to the line and is over your agency threshold but is NOT routing to CP when it should, the most common issue is that the category code is not in the CP tree and needs to be added.
Please submit a Service Desk ticket or contact Blake DeVaughan to get the category code added to the CP tree.
Articles and resources
Recognizing excellent service
Nancy McFarland, Procurement Specialist II
I grew up in Portland, Oregon, and was a buyer in the private sector for five years before moving to the Midwest. My government procurement journey began in 2006 with a state agency here in Oklahoma. While working as a senior buyer, I pursued my CPO, CPPB and CPO2 certifications. I had the honor of being the OkAPP Membership Secretary and named 2013 Buyer of the Year. In the fall of 2021, I joined the Central Purchasing Acquisitions team.
Customer service and innovation are my passions. During my tenure with the state, we have gone GREEN; ditching our paper files embracing change and streamlining our processes with tenacity. As we embrace the 21st century with Workday@OK and electronic bidding processes, we have some challenges, but these are exciting times! Serving our agency stakeholders and meeting their needs is my top priority.
My husband and I live in Guthrie, Oklahoma. We enjoy traveling and exploring, but most of all we treasure time with our family. That family includes seven grandchildren (and their parents), two rescue dogs and a calico cat one of the children left behind when they moved out.
