Hi all, I am Hasan Agh again and today we are going to learn about affiliate marketing, its basics, how to be successful as an affiliate, and we are going to give you some tips for using the best affiliate marketing network on the web : click bank .

First of all, affiliates are people that sell products of other people willing to increase their sales, and for every sale the affiliate gets as a “gift “that you can call a commission. This commission that you (the affiliate) get varies between approximately 25% of the product price and 75% is the maximum it can reach .Also, the commission can be for only the time when someone buys the product, it also can be every month or every week or year when the customer repays for the product renewal and for its updates and special offers.

Best affiliate marketing networks

There are many networks for affiliate marketers on the web that spread everywhere , but there is about 3 or 4 networks that are the most trusted and have many option , and also what I care for legit. These four networks are:

1-   Clickbank.com : clickbank is the #1 affiliate marketing network on the web , for me it is the best and the best for really making money with variety of options and ability to search easily , I personally recommend clickbank for you to use .

2-   Cpalead.com : cpalead is the #2 on the web you can make money through it , also it is easy to use and very user-friendly  , if you were not satisfied with click bank let cpa lead be your second choice always

3-    Amazon associates: amazon associate obvious from its name is the network by amazon, I personally do not recommend it for you since a used it, it does not make money since the commission is always low and people are not always interests in the products.

4-    EBay partner network: eBay is the worst between the above networks, I really advise you not to use it, all the above are really better so why use it?

Ok, now that we have stated the most important affiliate marketing networks on the web, we will learn together the basics of being affiliate marketing and all our work will be on clickbank which is the most essential one.

Now , the first thing you should do before signing up to clickbank is to think of the product that is most compatible to your website , for example if your website is about snowboarding the most compatible product will be for example a book about snowboarding tips or it can be a snowboard .

Now, after you have chosen the most compatible product you should signup to clickbank. Then, they will send you a confirmation code, you should keep this with you since it will be your account password and unfortunately you cannot change it ever. After you login to your account, go to the marketplace and then you will see many categories on your left hand side, choose any category you are interested in. After that, you will see many products and you will see words on the left that really look like Chinese. They are not Chinese and hopefully I will be able to persuade you to my point, first the gravity term means how much this product is bought. But, you should not look at the products you find with the highest gravity since they will have very high competition and you will sell them rarely, and you also should not choose a product with very low gravity since people are not interested in it .You should choose a product that has a gravity between 80 and 140, it will be the best trust me. All other terms are not important and not necessary for learning how to be an affiliate marketer, except the average$/sale term , this is so easy and it means that how approximately you will earn for each time you sell this product , and if you want to understand it more it is your profit from the whole process .

Now that you have chosen your product, just promote it and copy the link then post it on anywhere you want in your website. You should now think on how to encourage the visitor of your website to buy the product

How to encourage the visitor to buy the product?

Putting the clickbank link on your website won’t be useful if no one saw it and no one clicked on it, it might be negligible by the visitor or the visitor might enter to the link and buy the product. There is a wide difference between these both cinereous.

To encourage the visitor to click on your link and buy the product there are two ways:

The first you can use is by putting the link in the sidebar with an interesting high quality image that grabs the visitor’s attention and then add in the top of the image any phrase that really lets the visitor click the link like “ recommended by us “ “ we advise you with “…

The second way of encouraging the visitor to click the link is by providing a review page for this product, and always try to say something that is different from that present at the affiliate site, and provide the negative sides even if there wasn’t any, they will feel with your website’s credibility and will really think that you are saying the truth.

The last and best way for persuading him to click the website, is to contact you affiliate and request a review item from the product, then make a full review for this product with pictures the reveal that you bought this product and not lying.

Finally, I hope that you make so much success in being and affiliate since really this domain makes so much money , keep in contact and up to date with all our latest posts and articles since we will be presenting nice topics and categories . I was hasan with you thanks for reading this article , bye .

Introduction

Hi all, it is Hasan Abdelghaffar from Rensoftglobal.com again and today I will be discussing the ways to make money from your website/blog. It is a very nice post, so keep focusing in it; here is your first step for making millions on the web.

Ok, there are several ways to make money with your website; I wish I mention them all during this post.

The juicy money

If you wanted to make money with your website, you should always remember that you should always be patient and wait a minimum 6 months of daily posting, and backlinking, and social networks. Then, you should start thinking for making money with your website, you have several ways. I will post them according to my priority rules of making money:

1-    Affiliate marketing:   the most awesome way for making money on the web is affiliate marketing. It is simply that you sell a product of another person, and for every sale you make, you take a “commission “for selling it , your commission might reach 75% sometimes. Then, you might take for a product of 100$, 75$ for each sale. But there are some simple rules for affiliate marketing. First, always when you want to be an affiliate marketer you should always have clickbank.com as the first choice since it is the best. Then if you we ‘rent comfortable with, you can with the amazon associates or that of eBay. We will talk more about affiliate marketing in the coming days so keep up to date with us. So, this is a way to make money on the web and it is the best.

2-    Advertisements: another way you can make your money through your websites is through advertising. But there are many ad networks and much type of ads. So, you should think what is the most appropriate for your website/blog and choose it then. We have discussed before AdSense and its   alternatives so check the post now for more info.

3-    Donations: also a well-known way for making money with your website is to put a donate button on your website, do not think that people are stingy and won’t pay anything. If the visitor for your website found that you have a nice content He WILL PAY!

4-    Private Forums: if you want to make money from your forum you can add a private forum that needs money to be in, or also you can use the special members that donate to the forum or pay in order to have the ability to rep anyone.

5-    Selling anything: you can make so much money with your websites if you tried to sell anything. You can sell an ebook to make money, and writing an ebook is not so hard just think of something that is special and a topic that people are searching for and are interested in .Also, you can sell any ebook that you have the right in to buy, but beware sometimes they specify the amount you should sell your website with. Moreover, to make money with your website you can buy any wordpress template that you design, btw designing a template is not a miracle you can just learn css and php with some creativity you can create any theme that can be profitable.Ok , you can also sell a program or a product you make , programs yes are hard to code they need to lean several programming languages .But , making a product is not hard , you can make a product that is about losing loss or any other topic of series of several modules and videos with an ebook then market your product and copyright it .Voila , you have made a product and finished it.

6-    You can make money with your website by selling a service; a service that you sell could contain website making, or hacking something, or even buying something for him. There are many services you can offer to your visitors , just think of your website’s content and what is much compatible service to your website .Services I personally used to sell on my websites are article writing and backlinking and developing a website …

7-    Finally, selling the website. Selling the website is the last way anyone of us should ever think about, let it always be your last choice. If your website is making nothing and not having any visitors although you worked on it and were patient for more than a year. Then, should think to sell your website. You could sell your website to anyone of your friends or relatives out the web , that I never used since my society is not much knowledgeable about web development … ok , to buy your website there are many websites you can use , but the best if flippa.com . Flippa requests 20$ for selling your website normally in if, but never feel that 20$ is so much. When you put your website on flippa you will have many bids and will never regret for these 20$ you pay. Since flippa lets you make more than these 20$ you pay .but please , count to ten before selling your websites since you can always make money when having it online , of course one of the ways that I said and that will say will work for you , if none . Then, you haven’t read the article we wrote on choosing the right keyword for your website, or also How to choose the right domain? Since these are the essentials for your website and its seo.

Finally, thanks for reading this post. I hope you focused on all the post and also hope any way are all they ways work for your website and you start making so much money with your website/s. Keep up to date with our topics we post they gonna make you so much informative I was hasan abdelghaffar with you .Thank you

Hi all, it is Hasan Agh from Rensoftglobal.com, and today we are going to talk about backlinks; what are backlinks? And how we can do backlinks? Can we benefit from backlinks? So please try to focus in this post since backlinks are essentials for the website’s development.

What are backlinks?

Backlinks are links that link back to your website from other websites, through the blog roll or using comments. And they give authority to your website, or you can say they make reputation for your website on the web. So, when you visit a blog or a website you will see a box named blog roll, or related links, or even links alone. These are backlinks, and other type of backlinks, are backlinks that you see in the name of someone in the comment. Just try to click on someone’s name and you will see that another website will open, and this is the most used type of backlinks on the web. If there was not the backlink commenting, I am sure that more than half the backlinks on the web wouldn’t be available, because people do not have time to comment. Some webmasters even do not read the article that they are commenting at; they just want a backlink to their website/blog.

What you should avoid in backlinking?

When backlinking you should always avoid illegals, and illegals on the web are the programs that make spam comments on blogs and in forums. These programs include the programs Xrumer and Senuke, and many other programs that make spam for your website. More illegals are the websites that you put your website’s name in, and then “it starts backlinking “. These are totally lies, they make nothing for your website, and they improve nothing, unfortunately they do the opposite of developing. You should also avoid the random directory submissions that are totally negative, small submissions to the top directories are recommended by us. One more thing you should avoid when backlinking are stupid sites that have low page rank, and have no visitors, even if this was your website.

Why I am telling you to avoid these types of backlinks?

I am telling you to avoid these types of backlinks since they all interfere in blocking your website from Google, Bing, and all other search engines. Yes, sometimes you may have a chance and do not get blacklisted by Google, but almost all websites are getting blacklisted. And the risk of getting blacklisted is beg, that you do not need these backlinks, you need backlinks from high rank websites that help your website.

How to make backlinks for your website?

There are many ways for making backlinks for your website; I will start with social networks. You can make backlinks from social networks by sharing every new post you do on different social networks, like facebook, twitter, reddit, digg, delicious, stumbleupon, and fark. These backlinks other than that they make you backlinks, they also increase your traffic to these posts. Another way in making backlinks is to submit your website to directories, as I said before you should always try only to submit your website to high page rank websites only. Submitting your website to low rank websites will affect your website negatively as I have said before. You can also make backlinks to your site by contacting admins of websites similar to yours, and telling them to exchange links of websites in the blogroll of each of you. Another way to make backlinks for your websites as I have said before, is to comment on articles that are related to your website’s content. Ok how to do this? Search on google for the name of latest article you posted , and the first results you find enter to them , then you will find in the comments ; name and website and email address , just fill them all with putting your article’s link in the website place . Here you have made a commenting backlink. You can also make backlinks for your website by putting its link in your signatures in forums, these backlinks are very good backlinks for your website. One  more way to make backlinks for your website is by searching also for your article name in google , then every yahoo answers result you found enter to it , and answer the question and then putting your website’s address in the refer place . You can also make backlinks, by searching for squidoo websites that are related to your website’s content and make a backlinks for your website. The last way for making a backlink for your website I will say is by making squidoo and wordpress.com blogs of your same website’s name and making a perfect backlink for your website .

Best types of commenting backlinks

In making a commenting backlink for your website, the best type is by putting the name of your website in the name place .The second way in making a backlink for your website is by putting yourname@yourwebsite’sname.com   in the name place . The third way for making a backlink is by putting your name only in the name place. You can look at the comments that were accepted, if you did not find any backlinks that has only the website’s name, just put you name since having a normal backlink is much better than having nothing.

Pingbacks

Pingbacks are the best types of backlinks I prefer. You can do backlinks by adding at the titles of other website’s articles related to yours and with two lines of the article content at the end of your article. A very good tool that helps you in making pingback and that tells you which websites enable backlinks is market samurai, you can; in two click perform three or more pingback to your website. Try to use this tool because it is awesome, and we will soon publish an article that helps you in using this awesome tool.

Finally, have fun with these tips in backlinking, and always keep in checking Rensoftglobal.com for the latest post, that help your website be much profitable. Thanks for reading the article; I am hasan abdelghaffar with you. BYE

Introduction

Hi all, it is Hasan again from Rensoftglobal.com and today our post is so important so please focus in the post.

Ok, this post is your first post in entering to the internet marketers’ world, now you will learn what keyword should you choose work on and make about in a website. I might sometimes call the “keyword “your “website niche “so in case you wondered.

So, the niche/s will be your future business/es and might be your major source of money you will get, it is also considered the general topic of your website/s.

Let us begin, when you first searching for a keyword to use, there are always basics you should know.

Warning! : Rensoftglobal warns you from purchasing any keyword finder or something near, they all are just scams.

Choosing a niche BASICS

When choosing a niche you should always take in considerance that the niche you will choose should have a big audience (many people want it), also the niche should be a topic that can be Witten about. Other than it can be written about the niche should be also something you are at least slightly interested in, to write about. Something also you should now that you should not have a big competition on your niche, since then your website (in spite of your website content and abilities) will not be reached except from social networks.

The juicy thing

The juicy thing is when you choose couple of keywords, list them on your notebook, then eliminate them one after one .So, you should now take your notebook out and start thinking of your interests in a place where you relax, and keep it with you for the next 24hrs even in school or college or work, since you will of course remember one during the next day (for example: snowboarding). Try to write more than twenty keywords since you will, definitely, eliminate so much in the next time. After you have finished from your notebook thing, you should now sit back on your computer and try searching for different keywords, even if you weren’t interested in, and write them on your notebook.

Congratulations, you have finished the first step now.

Next Step

The next step you should do is to start eliminating the keywords that do not meet the requirements of an acceptable keyword. The requirements of choosing a keyword are that it has more than 3000 searches per month and also with low competition .So open the Google Adwords Keyword Tool Estimator by this link https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__u=1000000000&__c=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS#search.none  and try every single keyword you wrote on your notebook. While trying the keyword tool, of course you will remove many keywords from your notebook.

Choosing your keyword

Now you have to choose a one, and only one keyword, to use. This will be using your own sense after you have eliminated the keywords that cannot be used by us. Try choosing the one you think that is the most compatible one, and you like to write about them. Then, you have to purchase your Domain name. We discussed some tips in choosing a domain name in a previous post, so please try to check it.

Finally, you have chosen the keyword you will work on your website, but make sure that you love this keyword from your heart, and you are interested in writing content for it.

After making your website

After you make your website you should publish it on the web and out the web. You can publish your website of the web my distributing T-shirts and mugs having your website logo with its link on it.  You can also post advertisement sheets for your website in the place they belong for, tell your entire friend about it let the whole world want to enter your website and see its unique content. You can publish your website on the web by sharing every single new post on facebook , twitter , reddit , stumble upon , delicious, digg , Fark , Xinga ….

These social networks let your website full of visitors checking, you’re content. So, you should always try to have a unique content and nice design that is comfortable to view. Another way of publishing your website on the webs is by making ads by google adwords or bidtraffic … For a small period of time that makes your website popular enough with.

Finally, try to make your website easy to surf between the pages, with high quality posts that impress the reader and convinces him to revisit the website again .The design of your website should be smooth and nice and creative, but not so flash with distracting stupid ads .These tips have been used by me, and till now I have a good (not great) success. I will not lie on you and say that I made 100$ in the first day like others, I just say what I hopefully guarantee that will happen. Always keep the hope in your website, do not surrender from the third post and try to use something else that you think will have a change, focus on one website keep posting until you are satisfied with its income. We have a way when we have a will, so please do not surrender and be always ambitious.

Hope you enjoyed this post, and benefitted. I also hope that you make a website that drives you to success, keep in track with our latest posts and articles on Rensoftglobal.com since we are having many incoming juicy topics in the coming days .Hasan agh was you and bye! J

Useful links:

Choosing a domain name: http://www.rensoftglobal.com/2012/01/11/choosing-a-domain-name/

How to install WordPress: http://www.rensoftglobal.com/2012/01/10/how-to-install-wordpress/

Hi Rensoftglobal users, today we are going to discuss the best domain names you should choose for your keyword.

First, you should take in considerance that the domain name represents your company on the web, or represents your keyword you will be using in the website.

The short-name phenomenon:

The short-name phenomenon has become a much diffused one on the web. However, this phenomenon is totally WRONG! I will persuade you to my point:

1) First of all, short –domains, logically, most of the time do not have any sense and cannot be easily remembered by the visitor.

2) Short-domains also, with respect to SEO do not help your website in getting an advantage on other websites of same niche.

So, short domains cannot be benefitted from and they can be substituted with better domain names I am going to talk about them now.

So, before choosing a domain, you should describe the domain name you want. First, the domain should be clear and easy to read, it also has to be easy to remember to increase the number of returning visitors. Moreover, your domain name should be helpful for you new site’s SEO in Google, yahoo, Bing…

Keyword in Domain name:  

After you have chosen your keyword you want to work on, on your website, you should try to include the keyword in the domain name. This helps the Seo of your website so much.

What if the domain name including my keyword was taken?

If the domain name of your keyword was taken you should try to find a domain name that includes the keyword, but has either a word before it or after it.However, you should always take in considerance the order of words in your keyword should always stay as it is.

Another point I should add is that you should always try to purchase a “.com” domain. Why?

I prefer that you buy a website ending with “.com” has more authority, has better seo, and also are more profitable by the audience (people surfing the web)

But, if you did not find a “.com”, domain you can then try “.org” then “.net” and so on.

Warning! : try to never use any domain ending with “.biz” or “.cc” or even “.info” since these domains have very bas seo, are easily hacked , and do not give any credibility .So, please try to prevent them even if the domain name was awesome.

And so on, but again always try to buy a “.com” domain.

An easy tool that can help you in choosing your domain name is the domains section in market samurai. I highly recommend that you try the trial version of this product or buy it, since it helps in everything not only choosing a keyword, in backlinking, detecting the competition on your keyword, finding products…

Congratulations, you should have chosen your domain name for your keyword/company now.

But, now you should purchase the Domain name.

So, now you enter to godaddy.com and register a new account, if you have not registered one before, then type the domain name you want to buy in the search box and then add the website to the cart and purchase it.

But be aware of godaddy’s offers that full up all your page .Just ignore them all, they all can be substituted by free stuff with the same quality and better.

Now, you have a domain name, but how can you connect it with your hosting account ?

You can connect your hosting account and your domain by two steps:

The first step is that you set the nameservers as given in your hosting account in your domain setting. Then in the second step you should press on add-on domains if you already have an account or purchase one if you do not have any. Fill all the fields needed .congratulations you now connected your domain name to your hosting account.

Extra

An extra account I am going to add is how you can increase your websites’ alexa ranking.

(www.alexa.com)

Let’s Start:
Many of you guys think that really alexa measures the traffic of each website and then updated the list. Well, i don’t know. But what i am sure of is that putting their widget in your site/blog affects the ranking and many other things.
Ok, alexa is very important for your site, why? Since any publisher will take in considerance your alexa before making any advertisement. ( it helps also in google ranking and adsense of course )

the first way to increase your alexa traffic rank it to post a widget in your site blog this is the most important thing it lets your alexa traffic rank higher in 1 million ( of course if it was 900,000for ex it will not become -100,000 )
my alexa traffic rank for my blog was 3,522,22 before posting the widget but after posting the widget it became 2,636,14 and every day its increasing i swear
the second way is by installing their toolbar and visiting your website using this toolbar and this will also increase the rank .

Try to focus as much as possible on increasing the rank of your website, not just in alexa but all the rankings possible, since this will add credibility to your website and authority also.

Finally, please keep up to date with the latest articles we are posting, Rensoftglobal will always have informative and full of benefits articles.

Hi Rensoftglobal users, it is Hasan again. We are going today to discuss wordpress and how to install wordpress.

Ok, first let us make simple definition about wordpress:

WordPress is blogging software to be installed on a website that is so much user-friendly and is also perfect in SEO (search engine optimization). An example of a wordpress site is Rensoftglobal; yes it is blogging software.

Other cms that can be installed in a website are Drupal, magneto, joomla…

But , we ( Rensoftglobal admins ) advice you to use wordpress , since as i have said before it is user friendly and has perfect seo , add to this it can be installed in a minute , and has wide support worldwide.

However, now we are going to learn how to install wordpress. First, you should purchase a website; we will discuss how to choose the right domain for your seed keyword later. But, now we will consider that you have a domain name. Now, you should have a hosting; a simple definition is that you host your website files in a company’s computer/server that is 24/24 on. This is why you cannot use your own computer; unfortunately you have to pay money.

Moreover, now you should choose a hosting i recommend you use either hostgator.com or bluehost.com

Ok, after you purchase hosting, you should now install wordpress. So, open the cpanel, then go directly to install wordpress or quick install.

Now, you will receive your password .Login to your account at www.yousite.com/wp-login.php/

The first thing you should do after logging in is to install a theme, you should always keep in mind that the theme you want to install should be user-friendly and beautiful to impress the visitors.

Some threads are premium, but you I personally advise you to use this link http://wordpress.site5.net since the themes there are professional and nice. However, you can just search in Google for other themes to use.

Now, you have installed wordpress, and then you should install the main plugins to use.

Plugins are php files that add power to your blog. The main plugins I advise you to start with in every new blog are:

1-    all one seo pack : a plugin that improves the seo of your website and is the best one

2-    Disqus commenting software : it is a plugin that controls the comments on your website and helps you in getting rid of spam

3-    Xml maps generator : it is a plugin that helps in improving the seo do not get impressed by “xml” and “maps” words , you aren’t expected to now this

After you installed the plugins, you can start in publishing the content. Here, you should always focus on the tags, they are very important also the categories write these, do not just ignore them.

Here, you’ve learned everything about wordpress, from A to Z and I hope you contact us for any suggestions or question. Also, keep in track for all our new posts since they are going to be so much juicy.

Before we can start , i will provide a small definition of adsense :

Google AdSense is a program run by Google Inc. that allows publishers in the Google Network of content sites to serve automatic text, image, video, and rich media adverts that are targeted to site content and audience. These adverts are administered, sorted, and maintained by Google, and they can generate revenue on either a per-click or per-impression basis. Google beta tested a cost-per-action service . for more info try wikipedia

1- Using Flixya.com :

Flixya.com is one of google network site, Upload photos and Videos and Write Quality articles and Apply Google Adsense Account, With in 2 to 3 days get Adsense Approved Account.

Knol.google.com is also of google network site, u can write 3 or 4 knols and then go to preferences –>  adsense  and register a new account and here we go .

One more way to get fast google adsense approved account , is that you normally provide your website with a high quality content . Add to this you should try to get traffic to your website . We will discuss later how to bring traffic to your website in many ways , as seo and social networking …

ok , you also should  be honest in applying to adsense , the address should  be 100% correct  . Also , the names and website url should be correct . You should prevent putting  pornography topics in your website , and should also have an elegant website .

Keep in track with the latest posts , we will post useful ways in publishing your website later , enjoy high google profits .

 Hi, all it is Hasan from   Rensoftglobal. Today we are going to discuss the AdSense alternatives.

First, what might be the causes for going to network other than AdSense?

Causes might be:

1-           Want to accept money by PayPal

2-           Did not get approved by Google AdSense

3-           Want to choose specific ads to put on their website/blog

4-           Want to put pornography ads ( specific ads )

Ok these are the main causes. AdSense main alternatives are:

1-           Bidtraffic ( a Russian ad network that can pay by PayPal )

2-           Yahoo publisher ( by yahoo )

3-           Chitika ( is special with its noticeable  ads )

4-           Adbrite ( special by its full page ads   )

The most popular ad network is bidtraffic, and it is special with its pornography ads and paying threshold that can be determined by publisher.

Adbrite is currently one of the best alternatives there is to Google’s adsense. While they do not offer the same large selection of ad formats that Clicksor and Google Adsense provide you they do offer the most commonly used ones.

chitika has now progressed, however, into a fully fledged advertizer service. The eMinimalls initially evolved into advertizing units that would show adverts based on what people searched for to get to your site.

The Yahoo! Publisher Network (abbreviated YPN) was an advertising network launched on August 2, 2005 by Yahoo! and effectively closed on April 30, 2010. The service only accepted US-Based publishers. YPN provided cost per click contextual advertising as well as various tools and services to assist publishers in building and improving their websites.

However, Rensoftglobal advises you to use AdSense. Why?

We recommend using AdSense since it is the most trusted network. Moreover, the ads are delivered directly to your website just by inserting the code. Add to this, ads cost might reach 1$ per click which is awesome.

When Rensoftglobal does advise not to use AdSense?

Rensoftglobal does not advises you to use AdSense when you are so excited to put ads directly after   publishing website  since AdSense takes time to review the website , it might take up to 20 Days  , and it might , however , do not accept it . Good news, Rensoftglobal will soon publish an article telling you how to be accepted be AdSense so fast   . Back to our previous topics, we also do not advise you to use AdSense when you want to receive payment by PayPal, or want to receive one before having 70$ in your account .

For Chinese and Indian publishers , I am sorry to tell you that according to AdSense policies  , you should have published the domain before 3 months from signing up to AdSense .

Ok, in the coming days , we will post useful post for applying to AdSense and using it , so keep in track ! And we wish that you choose the best advertising network , and that is most compatible for your site and your capabilities .

Sincerly ,

Hasan Agh

Liberty Reserve portal is existing site that acts as a secure interface for financial transaction and deposition among various providers. This project includes need for development of various provider gateways and integration into a common platform from which a common currency flows between various services. Rest all functionality remains same for the project as per the existing system.

1.1 Purpose:

The main purpose of this portal is to provide common interface and payment gateway along with security features to facilitate user upload funds, transfer funds and payments between various providers and users and withdraw funds with best suitable option among various ranges of providers.

1.2 Scope:

This portal has a wide scope in the present scenario situation as this provides a platform where there is no language or location bar. Many users belonging to different locations of the world can access here without any discrimination among them regarding locations, languages and chose the suitable and preferable payment option. Also this portal itself checks the location of user for protection of funds and provides interfacing and transfer between various service providers, internally and acts as a combined complete portal for money exchange.

1.3 Technologies to be used:

• PHP
• MySql
• AJAX
• XML
• Web 2.0
• Payment gateway integration

1.4 References:

• http://www.paypal.com
• https://www.libertyreserve.com

2.0 Overall Description:

2.1 Product Perspective:

This portal is a new self contained product. It contains all the specifications required for the designer to build it. It is documented in such a way that anyone can easily understand it and work on it. This shows all the modules and diagrams needed by the designer.

2.2 User Characteristics:

There are three different types of users provided by this portal. They are listed as follows

• Administrator
• Users

All listed above can be work as single or multiple users i.e. one member at one time realize functions of member, guest or administrator depending upon authorization provided.

2.3 Constraints:

• Secure Login
• Multimedia player integration
• Integration with online payment gateways like paypal, moneybookers, egold, etc.
• Security
• Transaction and funds management.

2.4 Interface:

Software Interface

-I- Front End Client:

Any browser

-I- Environment:

Linux

-I- Web Server:

Apache

-I- Data Base Server:

MySql

-I- Back end:

SQL

Hardware Interface:

Workstation, 250GB storage, 4MB RAM, 1MBps Connectivity

2.5 Architecture Design:

• To develop E-Sourcing development and RPF website on already designed pages.
• To develop Business Collaboration Workspace for Business & Company.

Functional Specification - USER INTERFACE

Part-1 INSTRUCTIONS TO PROPOSERS AND PROPOSAL CONDITIONS: For the purposes of this Request for Proposal (RFP) and any subsequent contract the following definitions, unless otherwise noted, apply.

• Company
• Contract
• Contractor
• Proposal
• Proposer
• Requirement

Summary of the Requirement: Company invites user to submit a Proposal for the development of a bespoke eSourcing software platform.

Objectives: The purpose of the RFP is to identify the supplier most suited to meet the Company prospective needs and requirements. The RFP process is designed to meet the following objectives:

• to give Proposer details about the technical and commercial requirements of the Company in order to enable an accurate proposal response;
• to provide a platform to enable Proposer to promote their products, expertise and capabilities, identifying where they may be of benefit to the Company. In some cases Proposer’s may tender alternate products or services that meet the same requirements but are of equal or better quality or capability.

Structure of this document

Company contact

Queries and questions during the RFP period: Proposers are to direct any queries and questions regarding the RFP content or process to the Company contact. No other Company personnel are to be contacted in relation to this RFP unless directed to do so by the Company contact. Company reserves the right to disqualify and reject Proposals that do not comply with this requirement. All questions should be submitted in writing through the online messaging service.

Company may choose to convey responses to submitted questions and queries to all Proposers so that each is equally informed.

Amendments to RFP documents: Company may amend the RFP documents by issuing notices to that effect to all Proposers and may extend the RFP closing date and time if deemed appropriate.

Alternative Proposals: Proposers may submit alternative Proposals it they feel it may offer the Company additional benefits whilst still complying with the Requirement. Company reserves the right to accept or reject any proposed alternative either wholly or in part.

Evaluation of Proposals: The minimum selection criteria to be used in the evaluation of Proposals include, but are not limited to, the following:

1) Quality   2) Supply Process Quality   3) Added Value   4) Technological Innovation   5) Productivity Improvements   6) Track Record   7) Company History

Proposers to inform themselves: Company has taken all reasonable care to ensure that the RFP is accurate, however the Company gives no representation or warranty as to the accuracy or sufficiency of the contained information and that all Proposers will receive the same information. Proposers are required to inform themselves fully of all conditions, risks and other circumstances relating to the proposed contract prior to submitting a Proposal. Proposed prices shall be deemed to cover the cost of complying with all the conditions of the RFP and of all things necessary for the due and proper performance and completion of the Requirement.

Confidentiality: Except as required for the preparation of a Proposal, Proposers must not, without Company’s prior written consent, disclose to any third party any of the contents of the RFP documents. Proposers must ensure that their employees, consultants and agents also are bound and comply with this condition of confidentiality.

Inconsistencies and omissions: Proposers must promptly advise Company in writing of any inconsistencies and omissions they discover in the RFP.

Proposal acknowledgement: By participating in this RFP Proposers are indicating their acceptance to be bound by conditions set out in this Part.

Part-2  Requirement – Project Scope

The eSourcing website will combine several elements of procurement software in a single suite, for the initial phase (Phase 1) of development the suite will comprise of:

Phase 1

• Request for Information (RFI),
• Request for Quotation (RFQ),
• Request for Proposal (RFP),
• Procurement Forward and Reverse Auction
• and Contract Management.
• Website design and development to promote the product with CMS
• SEO

Subsiquent development phase’s (Phase 2) & (Phase 3) may be planned so the developer needs to consider the eventuality of expanding the website. Mainly ensureing that the platform and data base design will be able to adapt additional elements:

Phase 2

Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)

Key Performance Indicator tracking (KPI)

Phase 3

Project Management and Workflow

Spend Analysis

Reverse Auction Overview: Reverse auctions, as the name implies, are not run like traditional auctions. In most auctions, a seller offers a good or service. Bidders offer prices and compete with one another in a way that drives the price up. At the end of the auction, the highest bidder wins the item. With reverse auctions, things are different. First, the buyer is the one who starts the auction. The buyer creates a description of his particular needs. Next, the sellers are the ones who place bids during the auction. Their bid is based on how much they would charge to fulfill the buyer’s needs. Then, the competition between the sellers ends up driving the prices down, instead of up, so the buyer pays less. Finally, the buyer chooses the winning bidder. The winner is not necessarily the highest or the lowest bidder but is selected by the buyer on the basis of a number of factors. Price is often an important one. Reverse auctions provide a number of benefits for buyers. Obviously, since sellers are competing against one another openly, prices will be lower. Businesses that have used reverse auctions for raw material purchases have seen cost decreases around 8% on average. However, price reductions are not the only benefit of reverse auctions to buyers. These auctions also save time. In the past, the vendor selection was incredibly time-consuming. Businesses would send out requests for proposals to all potential vendors, wait for them to respond with their proposals, sift through all of them, then make a decision. Because of the format of the delivered proposals, direct comparisons between the vendors were often more difficult to make which meant the process often went on even longer. With reverse auctions, the buyer simply posts his request online, invitations to pre-selected vendors are distributed automatically by email, interested sellers place their bids, and the buyer can compare prices, qualifications, and other factors at a glance. As a result, the time between creating the request and choosing the vendor is considerably shortened.

Competitive Bidding: Lets assume Buyer A has a new project coming up and that project is going to require him to purchase 500 rolls of wire. He may already have a supplier he uses for the purchase of wire but perhaps that supplier charges $100 a roll and he wants to see if he can get a better deal with another vendor. Buyer A decides to use a reverse auction. The first step in the reverse auction competitive bidding process is for Buyer A to explain in writing his particular project needs. He needs to be clear, of course, so that potential vendors will understand his requirements and will be able to bid accurately. Buyer A can then send this description, along with an invitation to bid, to as many possible vendors as he would like. He can also include his current vendor as well.

Existing Procurement Suites: There are several existing online procurement suites on the market, and some provide extremely complex scenarios for bidding and the subsequent analysis. Typically these platforms would be provided under a fixed-term user license with unlimited use of the suite, technical support, and training included. The model of the eSourcing suite is to provide a simpler auction platform which is extremely user-friendly, less complex than competing suites, and available on a pay-as-you-go, or shopping basket basis. In some respects, this may be considered similar to eBay, but used purely in a B2B environment.

Overall Description

Product Perspective: The eSourcing platform is a new, self-contained product which includes the internet-based GUI, background software procedures, the supporting database structure, and payment transaction handler.

Product Features: The major elements which constitute the most basic requirements for the eSourcing platform and some of the features that each element will allow are shown below, with specifications in brackets where more than one interface is required to separate data that is visible to different parties:

1) Login Screen  2)  Buyer Account function

a. Buyer Account preferences  b. Create RFQ  c. Create RFI  d. Create RFP  e. Create Contract  f. Create Auction  g. Live Auction Interface  h. Manage Events  i. Manage Contracts

3. Supplier Account function

a. Review / Respond to RFQ, RFI, RFP, eAuction  b. Live Auction Interface

c. Data Export  d. View Events  e. Manage Profile

4. Client Account function a. Buyer / Supplier Account Administration

b. Manage Customer Events  c. Manage Contracts  d. Auction Interface

5. RFQ Interface function

a. Create Item Lots (buyer)  b. Create Items (buyer)  c. Event Calendar (buyer)  d. Select Currency (buyer)  e. Create Bid Fields (buyer)

f. Manage Participant List (buyer)  g. Data Import / Export (via Excel, or Comma Separated Variable file formats)  h. Convert RFQ to eAuction (buyer)  i. Review RFQ (supplier)  j. Respond to RFQ (supplier)  k. Document Upload / Download (buyer / supplier)

6. RFI Interface function

a. Create survey Sections (buyer)  b. Create Questions (buyer)  c. Event Calendar (buyer)  d. Select Weightings (buyer)  e. Create Response Fields (buyer)  f. Manage Participant List (buyer)  g. Data Import / Export (via Excel, or Comma Separated Variable file formats)  h. Review RFI (supplier)  i. Respond to RFI (supplier)  j. Document Upload / Download (buyer / supplier)

7. RFP Interface function

a. RFI + RFQ = RFP (the RFP function is the request for both a RFI and a RFQ together. It would be a case of combineing both the RFI and RFP functionality so if can be packaged as a single event.)

8. Auction function

a. Instant Messaging System (buyer / supplier)  b. Manage Participant List (buyer)  c. Bid Submission / Auction Interface (supplier) d. Bid Monitor / Analysis Interface (buyer)  e. Manage Bidding Rules (buyer)  f. Manage Lots / Items (buyer)  g. Pause / Resume / Extend Auction controls (buyer)  h. Delete supplier bids / Remove suppliers during event (Buyer)  i. Surrogate Bid management (buyer)

9. Contract Management

a. Create standard contracts using standard terms and clauses. (Buyer)  b. Standard menus, lists and auto-fills for population of contract data. (Buyer)  c. Authorized users to edit, update, renew or cancel certain types of contracts and agreements (Buyer / Supplier)  d. Ability to set contract / agreement parameters (e.g. start, end date)  e. Ability to define and archive “final” contract version (Buyer)  f. Ability to set automatic archiving parameters (Buyer)  g. Ability to view contract history (Buyer / Supplier)  h. Ability to display the current status of the contract. (Buyer)  i. Ability to view contract attachments and amendments (Buyer / Supplier)  j. Ability to monitor supplier performance to contract (Buyer / Supplier)  k. Ability to create dashboard views for executives of overall contracts expiration dates, etc.  l. Ability to preview and print stored contracts (Buyer / Supplier)  m. Ability to generate contract profile and summaries (Buyer)

10. Tutorial Videos (buyer / supplier)

User Classes and Characteristics: In order to maintain the simplicity of the platform, users will fall into one of five categories: client, buyer, buyer observer, observer and supplier; the main dependencies being the visibility of data, event control, and interface.

1. Client “Super User”: This refers to a member of the eSourcing site administration team, and allows them access to any view / function of the site. A client user will have the same abilities as the supplier and buyer user classes, but do not have restricted visibility to events either by creation or participation as buyers or suppliers do, respectively.

2. Buyer “Normal User”: The buyer class has a permanent user account stored on the user database, and has control over account preferences. The buyer may create events (RFQ or eAuction) upon a purchase transaction, and may invite suppliers by registering an email address. The buyer has visibility restricted to events they have purchased / created. The buyer has visibility of the participating supplier’s bid data for any events they have purchased / created.

3. Buyer Observer “Scoring User”: The buyer Observer class has a user account stored on the user database, but does not have the ability to create or edit events. The buyer Observer can log on and see the events they have been invited to so they can score the supplier responces to RFI’s. They can also see the supplier responces to the RFQ’s but can not edit the information

4. Observer “Observing User”: The Observer class has a user account stored on the user database, but does not have the ability to create or edit events. The Observer can log on and see the events they have been invited. They can see the supplier responses to the RFX’s but cannot edit the information

5. Supplier: The supplier class has visibility only of events they have been specifically invited to. Access is granted via the event invitation. Upon accessing the eSourcing site, the supplier is taken to the event participation screen via a web browser, where they input an organisation ID and user ID, which is only visible to the buyer and client users.

General Application Information

Project Management / Workflow Management

A. Ability for application to provide system-generated alerts to notify users of specific actions (e.g., eRFX release, contract completion, etc.)

B. The system can monitor workloads of users, roles and groups.

C. Ability to configure alerts

Templates

A. Ability to create, store and use templates for key RFX’s

B. There is no limit to the number of templates that can be created and maintained.

C. Ability for templates can be designated as “Read Only” or editable

D. Ability for authorized users to manage template access and edit rights

General Reporting and Inquiry

A. Users can search documents by browsing folder structures.

B. Ability to use rules-based “exception” reporting (e.g. time, multi currency value, due date, etc.)

C. Ability to generate reports showing the audit trail / history of document changes, event activity, etc..

Commodity Applicability

A. Ability for the software to handle different commodity types such as ‘Direct’ production related materials (e.g. raw materials, components), ‘Indirect’ non-production spend related materials (e.g. MRO, Office supplies, IT Software), Services (e.g. Contract/Temp Labor, Janitorial, Security)

Auditing and Controls

A. Ability to record all performed process steps (e.g. user, data changes, approvals, notices, and alerts) using date/time stamp.

B. Ability to manage document version control

eRFX and eAuction Functionality: Internal and External Collaboration – Create, Collate and share Information

Supplier Portal Capabilities:

A. Ability to provide supplier portal with buyer defined access rights for supplier to manage RFx, auctions, responses

B. Ability to provide a portal for suppliers for the following activities: a. Supplier registration

b. Supplier company information and classification

c. Ability to respond, manage, submit RFP’s, auction bids, contract changes

d. Ability to notify suppliers of events via e-mails

e. Ability to create, rate, and store supplier profiles, including information such as:

f. General Company Information

g. Diversity Qualifications

h. Geographic Coverage

i. Financial Position

j. Financial Measures – Revenue, Revenue Growth Percentage, Cost of Goods Sold, Operating Expenses, Operating Income, Net Profit (Loss)

k. Manufacturing Qualifications

l. Technical Qualifications

m. Supplier Scorecard

n. Key Performance Indicators – Quality, Delivery, Cost Improvement, Customer Care

o. Understand there Standard Commercial Terms

RFX and eAuction Types and Creation – designed for private event only

A. Ability to create RFI and RFQs and ability to default RFI questions and responses into the RFQ and/or eAuction

B. Ability to create open bid, closed bid, reverse & forward auctions

C. Ability to select valid categories the supplier provides, facilitated by a Commodity Tree

D. Ability to update/change/edit/save RFP templates (e.g. by commodity, supplier, function, business process)

E. Ability to support comprehensive item definition, including: a. Item name.

b. Item SKU, or other identification number.

c. Short description.

d. Long description.

e. HTML tags for formatting for description.

f. URL assignment to link to detailed description.

g. Images, either loaded into the platform or referenced through URL.

h. Item category.

F. Ability to preview Supplier view of the RFX before it is published

G. Ability to set parameters for RFx release (e.g. time, date, etc.)

RFX and eAuction Parameters and Attributes

A. Ability to create Custom Item Attributes

B. Ability to define acceptable values, including any value, ranges and list of choices.

C. Ability to define a default value for the attribute.

D. Any number of attributes can be added to a line item.

E. Ability to review bids by commodity

F. Ability for owner to manually close auction

G. Ability for buyer to suspend/reactivate a pending or open RFX, halting all maintenance and bidding activities on RFX

H. Ability for buyer to close RFX manually

I. Ability to control Information release during a specific event, including: a. Which suppliers (or groups) are allowed, or not allowed, to see other bids.

b. Which suppliers (or groups) are allowed, or not allowed, to see the number of suppliers participating in the event.

c. Which suppliers (or groups) are allowed, or not allowed, to see other supplier’s aliases.

d. Which suppliers (or groups) are allowed, or not allowed, to see the quantity and price of other suppliers participating in the event.

e. Which suppliers are allowed, or not allowed, to view global comments from other suppliers participating in the event.

f. Which suppliers are allowed, or not allowed, to view the bid rankings during an event.

J. Allows for single or multiple winners of an eAuction event. Effectivley this mean that more than one person can match the leading bid.

K. Ability to support quantity control parameters for a specific event and covering all or specific items, including:

L. Ability to require suppliers to bid on all items in the event.

M. Ability to set control parameters for Revised Bids from suppliers for a specific evet. Revised bids must improve by price, including the minimum decrement allowed.

N. Ability to set Pre-Bidding and Previewing process parameters for events, including: a. Ability to turn the “preview function” on/off prior to an event

b. Previewing ends at a specified future date and time, or after a specified duration.

O. Supports parameters to control the Timing of a specific event, including: a. Event started when launched by the user at the buying organization.

b. Event launched at a specified future date and time.

c. Bidding period ends after specified, including Fixed running time, including ability to specify time.

d. Inactivity period, including ability to define inactivity period after last bid.

e. Extend running time until inactivity period is met, including ability to define inactivity period after last bid and maximum event length time.

f. Bidding event duration, with no limit on length of time (i.e. minutes, hours, days).

g. Bidding event ends after a specified date and time.

h. Ability to auto-extend auction parameters (times, etc.)

i. Ability to support control parameters for the Extension of an event, including:

j. Reduce the minimum required price decrement by a specified percentage.

k. A minimum for the price decrement adjustments.

Assigning Ranking and Weighting to Attributes

A. Ability to view and change/customize scoring and weighting schemas

B. Ability to rank suppliers

C. Ability to conduct side-by-side comparisons of suppliers

Pricing and Award

A. Ability to support price control parameters for a specific event/items covering all or specific items, including: a. Initial price to start the bidding, and the unit of measure for this price.

b. Current price the buying organization pays for the item (not visible to supplier).

c. Target price the buying organization wants to pay for the item (not visible to the supplier).

d. Minimum decrement under the quote price.

B. Ability to view RFx summary and be able to drill down by section

C. Supports multiple line items for an event.

D. Supports attachments that can be accessed by the bidders.

E. Document attachment can be of any type.

F. Ability to automatically calculate rolled up score for entire Supplier Bid

G. Ability to view supplier rankings by defined parameters

H. Ability to view auction progress graphically

I. Ability to view supplier bids vs. baseline graphically

J. Ability to show / hide supplier information, bids, lowest bid, amounts, etc.

K. Ability to set proxy bids

L. to define award type by goods, services, license, off site hosting, on site services, etc.

M. Ability to automate Tie Breaking after sorting by price, including: a. By earliest bid.

N. Ability to send reminder notices to suppliers to complete the RFx

O. Ability to notify suppliers of event status (open, closed, award, disqualification, etc.)

P. Ability to send notification/invite team members

Q. Ability to generate a Contract and SLA upon completion of an eRFX / auction event and include: l. Market risk assesments

m. Corperate social responsibility documents

n. Ethical statements

o. Reporting / Inquiry

P. Ability to generate within the application eRFX / eAuction reports

Q. Ability to search and report on RFX’s (RFI, RFQ, RFP) and eAuctions – drafts, current and historical

R. Ability to run supplier status report showing which have responded, declined, accepted, etc

S. Ability to generate final bid summary report

T. Ability to generate reports of auction results by time, rankings, attendance, etc.

Integration

A. Ability to import RFPrice from PDF,MS Word or Excel

B. Baseline spend by supplier

C. Baseline spend by commodity

D. Summarised line item extracts

E. Specialised site delivery instructions

F. Current service related performance

G. Ability to export pricing terms from RFX to auction

RFI – Request for Information

A request of information is an online questionnaire that a buyer invites the suppliers to fill out and score suppliers according to the responses. This helps the buyer determine the eligibility/cabability of a supplier.

An RFI is quite similar to an online survey so an ‘online survey’ module could be reused for this purpose with some minor changes.

Other features reflect the subtleties of tendering:

• Creating questionnaires or surveys

• Applying weighting to questions or sections which will determine the final total score.

• Issuing the questionnaires to Suppliers

• Enabling Supplier to save answers, sometimes with features for preview and teamwork.

• Scoring responses

• Calculating weighting totals and providing reports / charts etc. to find the best Supplier

More advanced features include:

• Rich Questions – Provide the ability to create questions that combine many answer elements such as file attachments, essay-style answers, and auto scored multiple choice questions..

• Multiple scoring sets (scorecards) – the same answers are scored multiple times by different analysts.

• Detailed Auditing – buyers operating in highly regulated markets may need to provide a detailed audit trail of their actions.

• *Regulated Environment Rules – The scope of these may be curtailed in some environments (Public Sector, especially the EU), where it is stipulated that all suppliers must see exactly the same information from the Buyer.

• Vendor Response Importing – In some sectors the same vendors respond to similar RFXs repeatedly. RFx software can cut down duplication of effort in such areas by providing tools for vendors to import (and edit as required) previous answers. Scoring information entered by evaluators can be imported at the same time, thus providing time savings and greater consistency.

RFQ – Request for Quotation

RFP – Request for Information

Reverse & Forward Auction

Contract Managment / Supplier Performance

Functionality

A. Ability to create standard menus, lists and auto-fills for population of contract data.

B. Ability for authorized users to edit, update, renew or cancel certain types of contracts and agreements

C. Ability to set contract / agreement parameters (e.g. start, end date)

D. Ability to drill down to contract details

E. Ability to define and archive “final” contract version

F. Ability to view contracts based on total value or quantity amount

G. Ability to monitor and view contract compliance

H. Ability to view Master Agreement for comparison to PO

I. Ability to create, view, save Supplier KPI scorecards

J. Ability to view contract history

K. Ability to display the current status of the contract.

L. Ability to view contract Terms and Conditions and attach them to PO’s if different to the standard T’s and C’s

M. Ability to view contract attachments and ammendments

N. Ability to monitor supplier performance to contract

O. Ability to create dashboard views for executives of overall contracts expiration dates, etc.

P. Ability to display term sheet with most current terms in effect based on original contract, renewals, updates, amendments (In-Effect view)

Q. Ability to display and retain scanned images of all contracts.

R. Ability to store and access all contracts in a single location (e.g. contract library)

S. Ability to provide a recycle bin where deleted documents can be stored and erased

T. Ability to track maverick spenders by commodity type, position and location

U. Ability to renegotiate / renew existing contract or put services out for rebid

V. Ability to automatically renew contracts or export to eRFx tool

W. Ability for suppliers to respond to performance issues and collaborate with Client to resolve

X. Ability to support multiple addresses and contact information for suppliers

Y. Ability to differentiate between prospective and existing suppliers (e.g. to help manage NDAs, etc.)

Z. Ability to assign each contract a unique ID. This unique ID should exist for both manual and auto-created contracts.

AA. Ability to preview and print stored contracts

BB. Ability for each contract ID to have multiple versions.

CC. Ability to add annotations or comments to a contract record or supplier contact. The entire comment history can be recalled.

DD.Ability for contract pricing and payment schedules to be automatically recalculated from updated contract content.

EE. Ability to easily change service-level agreements, equipment, or customer information on a contract.

FF. Ability to support Umbrella Contracts. All ‘child’ contracts can be systematically linked back to the original parent contract.

GG.Ability for an end user to update multiple contracts simultaneously.

Contract Managment / Supplier Performance

Functionality

A. Ability to create standard menus, lists and auto-fills for population of contract data.

B. Ability for authorized users to edit, update, renew or cancel certain types of contracts and agreements

C. Ability to set contract / agreement parameters (e.g. start, end date)

D. Ability to drill down to contract details

E. Ability to define and archive “final” contract version

F. Ability to view contracts based on total value or quantity amount

G. Ability to monitor and view contract compliance

H. Ability to view Master Agreement for comparison to PO

I. Ability to create, view, save Supplier KPI scorecards

J. Ability to view contract history

K. Ability to display the current status of the contract.

L. Ability to view contract Terms and Conditions and attach them to PO’s if different to the standard T’s and C’s

M. Ability to view contract attachments and ammendments

N. Ability to monitor supplier performance to contract

O. Ability to create dashboard views for executives of overall contracts expiration dates, etc.

P. Ability to display term sheet with most current terms in effect based on original contract, renewals, updates, amendments (In-Effect view)

Q. Ability to display and retain scanned images of all contracts.

R. Ability to store and access all contracts in a single location (e.g. contract library)

S. Ability to provide a recycle bin where deleted documents can be stored and erased

T. Ability to track maverick spenders by commodity type, position and location

U. Ability to renegotiate / renew existing contract or put services out for rebid

V. Ability to automatically renew contracts or export to eRFx tool

W. Ability for suppliers to respond to performance issues and collaborate with Client to resolve

X. Ability to support multiple addresses and contact information for suppliers

Y. Ability to differentiate between prospective and existing suppliers (e.g. to help manage NDAs, etc.)

Z. Ability to assign each contract a unique ID. This unique ID should exist for both manual and auto-created contracts.

AA. Ability to preview and print stored contracts

BB. Ability for each contract ID to have multiple versions.

CC. Ability to add annotations or comments to a contract record or supplier contact. The entire comment history can be recalled.

DD.Ability for contract pricing and payment schedules to be automatically recalculated from updated contract content.

EE. Ability to easily change service-level agreements, equipment, or customer information on a contract.

FF. Ability to support Umbrella Contracts. All ‘child’ contracts can be systematically linked back to the original parent contract.

GG.Ability for an end user to update multiple contracts simultaneously.

HH.Ability to provide folder and sub-folder structures to organize electronic documents. (emails, amendments, scope, etc)

II. Ability to assign validity period and lifespan to all stored contracts

JJ. Ability to define different types of business rules for different types of documents (access rights, retention management, workflow steps and decision points, etc.)

KK. Ability for user to download entire contracts to their local systems.

LL. Ability to transmit documents and folders in secured encrypted format.

MM. Ability to provide a repository with text fragments that can be used for composing and modifying documents. Access to compose and modify documents will be based on a users access level.

NN.Ability to define volume based pricing in a “Tiered Pricing Table” whereby price/discounts may vary depending upon the accumulation of order size or spend volume

OO.Ability to display available “running” balances of contract and enforced to ensure that the contract will not be over-spent.

PP. Ability to store contracts in a single repository along with complete transactional history, services terms, delivery and all associated legal attachments.

QQ.Ability to set limits at both the header and line-item level.

RR. Ability to specify item term limits as amount or quantity based.

Workflow Management

A. Ability to define / change / update contract management processes

B. Ability to notify users of contract expiration

C. Ability to notify document owners of retention-related events.

D. Ability to alert Client Procurement leadership and Lead buyers of negative trends in supplier performance

E. Ability to link document revisions to original/parent.

F. Ability to notify internal stakeholders of contract completion and file location

G. Ability to notify suppliers of contract-related events (e.g. initiation, expiration)

H. Ability to manage changes and revisions to the contract as well as subsequent versions

Reporting / Inquiry

A. Ability to generate canned Contract Management reports

B. Ability to create custom Contract Management reports at the user level

C. Ability to report on contract status (e.g. cancelled, current, future)

D. Ability to search expiring contracts using date parameters (to end by X date)

E. Ability to link contract to activity to determine actuals- post event / award

F. Ability to query/report on user or predefined KPIs by supplier

G. Ability to query spend by contract vs. contract liability

H. Ability to create report of “off contract” spend

I. Ability to generate contract profile and summaries

J. Ability to compare volumes / contract values against forcasted usage

K. Ability to search contract information for scanned contract images

Integration

A. Ability to support contract data from outside sources. (i.e. other systems)

B. Ability to feed results of RFP / auction to contract management tool

C. Ability to integrate to ERP systems (to access supplier master list, etc.)

D. Ability to accept data via: GUI Manual Input

E. Ability to send completed contracts to suppliers

F. Ability to link to sources transactional data

External Interface Requirements

• The coding of the system must be done in ASP.NET 2.0 or later, 3.5 preferably

• SQL Server 2008 must be used as the DBMS

• The system to should be optimum to work on a 500MB application pool. Sufficient caching needs to be done so that database and filesystem hits are kept to a minimum. A diagnostics page would be required to monitor the memory in use by the system and purge individual cache items if required to release the memory for the application pool.

• The application should be able to reside on a different server while the DB on a separate database server. Application design should be such that it can be load balanced across web servers if need be

• The application will need to be hosted on IIS 7 or above

User Interfaces

• What browsers and version are supported?

• Ability to create custom dashboard by user

• Does your current production release support XML standards? If yes, which schemas are supported?

• Is the data maintained or accessible in XML format?

• Does your product use cookies?

• If so, to track what?

• Are the cookies encrypted?

• Are the cookies in memory only, or persistent?

• Can the system work across a proxy server?

• Describe how the user interface can be customized and personalized At the department level and user level, and what tools are required.

• How are error messages handled?

Software Interfaces

In the future the software may be connected to company ERP systems .

Communications Interfaces

In the future the product may require to have the ability to interface “out of the box” with third party applications such as ERP (GL, AP, Procurement), PeopleSoft HR and legacy mainframe applications.

Therefore it is in both Procure Sourcing and the developers best interests that interfaces are considered for systems supported for the various modules – eRFX/eAuction, Contract Management and in the future Spend Analysis and Project Management.

It is also nessasarry that Procure Sourcing have the ability to implement modules separately from the eSourcing website. Effectivley allowing Procure Sourcing to turn Modules on or off. We plan to be able to turn the Contract Management or the eRFX section of the website off depending of the Clients requirements. An admin section is required where when a customer signs up, they can be assigned access to the specific modules which they have paid for.

Integration with third party systems will be via web services so the architecture should allow for extension points where either SOAP or RESTful services can expose and receive data from external systems.

Performance

The system will need to be performance tested and allow for a minimum of 100 concurrent users at any moment in time. The ideal page load time should be 1 – 2 seconds inclusive of the network latency. Database and filesystem hits should be minimum and caching should be utilised. Cache should however be no more than 500 MB.

In future, depending upon the traffic, the application may need to be load balanced across multiple web servers, so any session management should take care of a web farm scenario and not rely on a single web server.

A diagnostics page will be required to monitor the cache size and some additional metrics such as number of users per hour.

Security

User Security needs to be taken into consideration at :

• The overall Application Suite Level

• The Module Level (eSourcing, contract management etc.)

• The Screen or form Level

• Database Level – no plain text passwords should ever be stored. They should all be hashed

• Https will be required for the login page

Role based security will be required for the system. Users will have access to certain functionality based on the role they have been assigned. Following are the roles required for the system

• Super User – Can do anything, including setting up of buyer/seller accounts and manager portal configuration.

• Buyer Admin – An admin account for the buyer to create further sub-users for their organisation

• Buyer

• Supplier Admin

• Supplier

Besides the entire above module About Us, Contact Us, Feedback, Privacy Policy, Terms, Help & FAQ modules would be added.