Multi-Category Decision (MCD) projects allow you to run bids that require multiple decisions to be made based on the Vendors' submissions. (If you haven't created your MCD project yet, please see our Setting Up a Multi-Category Decision Project page.) Due to the complexity of MCD projects, the evaluation process slightly differs from a regular project.
In this article, we will go over the following:
Scoring the Parent Project
The first step in the evaluation process is to evaluate any cross-category Evaluations (i.e., any pieces of criteria that are common across Decisions). Cross-category criteria are usually made up of all mandatory criteria (e.g., pass/fail criteria).
Releasing Your Primary Evaluation
To kick off this Evaluation, you will need to release the Evaluation Group responsible for carrying out the cross-category Evaluation. After your project has been closed for submissions, you will see a blue Pending Action banner on your project page. To release your Evaluation Group, click on the Evaluations Groups section in the left sidebar, then click Release on the group that you wish to start the Evaluation:
When you release the documents, the pop-up below will appear to double-check if you would like to unseal all the documents for the Evaluation Group. Click OK if you wish to proceed.
Now that you have released this Evaluation Group, you will see that it is now highlighted in green and can be withheld again at any point. Your Reviewers in this group will now be able to see the Requested Information assigned to their group and perform their Evaluation on the parent project.
Reviewers' Point of View
When a Reviewer in an unreleased Evaluation Group views their scorecard, they will see the Criteria greyed out:
When a Reviewer in a released Evaluation Group (in this example, that would be Group 1) views submissions on their project page, they will be able to click the Score button(s) and view vendors' submissions:
Reviewers can also view Submission files by clicking Submissions in the left sidebar, then clicking any of the dropdown menus under the Documents/Data column to open a file from that vendor's submission package. Files submitted to a particular Decision will be tagged accordingly:
Viewing the Submissions page will also show which Decisions a Vendor chose to submit for:
Once your Reviewers are done the initial mandatory Evaluations, you can move onto evaluating the rest of your Project.
NOTE: If any vendor submission files are blank or missing, amend the files prior to splitting the parent project. This will ensure the files are distributed correctly. Otherwise, significant manual correction may be required.
Splitting the Project
After all of the common criteria have been scored, you'll be ready to split the project into each separate Decision (ie. the child projects).
To do so, click on the Multi-Category Decisions section in the left sidebar. Then click on the Decisions tab, and then click Actions -> Create Project for each Decision:
Once you create a project for a Decision, you will see a clickable icon under the Project Link column appear. Clicking on the icon will bring you to the project page for the new child project that you have created for that Decision:
NOTE: When you create the child project, there is no connection back to the parent. Any activity carried out in the parent after splitting WILL NOT be transferred. Any scoring that has been done in the parent project before splitting will be copied over to the child projects.
You will also be able to navigate to each new project on your Projects Dashboard page:
When you split your projects, all of the Criteria, Reviewers, Existing Scores, and Evaluation Groups are copied over to the new child projects. However, only submissions made to each unique Decision will be copied over respectively (including the relevant files).
TIP: After you've split the project into the child projects, we recommend that you archive the parent project, which takes it off the main project page. If your parent project isn't Archived, there is a chance that Reviewers will go in and score within the parent project by accident. Scoring in the parent project only transfers into the child projects when you do so BEFORE splitting.
Setting up Evaluation for Each Decision
Now that you have split up your parent project into child projects, it is time to set up the evaluation in each new child project!
Adding Unique Criteria
Adding Unique Users
Once you have set up the unique criteria in each child project, you also have to add any unique Reviewers/Advisors/Observers. To do this, simply click on People in the left sidebar, then click whichever category of People you'd like to manage. Finally, click Manage, and then add in all of the required individuals for that project:
Releasing Your Evaluation Groups
Once you have added in all unique Reviewers/Advisors/Observers and the child project is ready for evaluation, you can then click on Evaluation Groups in the left sidebar and release any remaining Evaluation Groups:
In this example, all group members in Evaluation Group 2 (Technical Evaluation) can now begin the Category-specific evaluation.
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