Glossary

Aboriginal Business: An Aboriginal business has six or more full-time employees, at least 33 percent of whom must be Aboriginal persons, and this ratio must be maintained throughout the duration of any contract awarded on the basis of the contractor being an Aboriginal business.
Active: A firm is eligible for sourcing
Address Type: A code that identifies an address as to its purpose, e.g., mailing address.
Advance Contract Award Notice: Notice of intent to solicit and negotiate with only one firm. However, any landlord, construction contractor or consulting firm that feels that it can meet the requirement may indicate interest and demonstrate its capability by contacting the contracting officer. Requirements over $100,000 that are to be negotiated on a sole-source basis are posted in advance on GETS.
Allocate: Allocate routes a captured requisition to the workload manager who will then assign it to a contracting officer.
Assign: Assignment is the process of making a requisition available to a contracting officer for action.
Automated Buyer Environment: The ABE system is a highly specialized, client/server based system designed for the procurement community within the Government of Canada. ABE provides end-to-end electronic support of procurement activities with standard departmental office automation tools.
Business Size: The number of employees in Canada, including corporate affiliates
Candidate File: List of qualified firms, ordered by distance from the worksite, and by number of opportunities. The results are displayed in the scoreboard.
CIRC: A Contractors Index Review Committee operates in each PWGSC regional office to review the information provided in your application and to assess whether your firm is qualified to be registered in the Index.
City Centre: Postal code chosen by the region as the approximate centre of the city.
Commission (Mandate): The business entrusted to an individual or firm, by Her Majesty, in response to which the individual or firm provides the professional services described in a consultant agreement.
Commodity Code: A code for a commodity (goods, services or construction) based on the Federal Supply Classification system.
Contract Quality Assurance System: Contract Quality Assurance System tracks all post and pre-awarded review processes conducted by CQAB, regions and Supply Sectors.
Cost of Services: This includes both total Fees and Disbursements paid by the Crown for a commission. Fees are the costs relating to a professional/technical including those of the Prime as well as those of sub-consultants and specialist consultants. Disbursements are other costs referring strictly to reimbursable expenses.
Country of ownership: An International Standards Organization identifier of a country that identifies the supplier's Country of ownership
Data Base: The collection of machine-readable data maintained as part of the SPEC A&E Index obtained from information submitted by consulting firms registered in the SPEC system, and including other data resulting from the SPEC procedures.
DATACAP: Datacap is a remote application available to other federal government departments and agencies to be used as a data captures tool for the purpose of reporting procurement activity. This application is available through the Federal Government Extranet site or on diskette.
Delete Firm: An RPC user can logically delete a firm from the database.
Delivery and Payment Tracker: Delivery and Payment Tracker is a stand-alone application utilized by PWGSC, Washington office and reports against customer requirements on delivery, payment, disbursement and refunds made to vendors.
Designation: Designation is used to choose a specific vendor to add to an invitation list.
Disbursement: Disbursements are the direct, out-of-pocket expenses applicable to work as stipulated in the Agreement and subject to prior approval. Normal operating costs for the firm are excluded.
Discipline: A field of professional and/or technological expertise in which a firm is qualified and authorized under provincial law to offer its services.
E-Purchasing: E purchasing is a Web-based application piloted by PWGSC introducing a range of on-line purchasing activities. E purchasing allows registered federal government buyers to place, receive and track orders for goods and services electronically. This application constitutes the pilot project and initial phase of the Electronic Supply Chain pathfinder project.
Evaluation Board: A board established by PWGSC/DCC to evaluate Statements of Qualifications of proposals.
Experience Profile: A profile of the various types of project or professional services in which a firm has qualifying experience.
Firm Maintenance: An intranet application that will allow authorized users only to: Maintain registration, Firm Search, Review and Approve Registrations, Transfer Employees, Merge Firms, and Delete Firms.
Firm Registration: An internet application that the firms will use to register to do business with the government.
Firm Search: Allows an RPC SRA to find firms on the supplier database.
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade: (Agreement on Government Procurement) - a multilateral trade agreement to which Canada is a signatory. It introduces gatt principles to the area of government procurement policies and provides a set of rules aimed at reducing discrimination against foreign suppliers.
Geographic Capability: The geographical area where a company can supply
Goods and Services Identification Number: A code number assigned to goods and services to provide standardized identifiers for public sector procurement. Federal, provincial and foreign governments are working to harmonize product and service identification to provide consistent coding. The use of gsin numbers (see Section 11) in all obs notices is compulsory.
Government Electronic Tendering System: MERX is Internet-based and advertises government bidding opportunities to potential suppliers to the government across Canada. Users with Internet access can search the MERX database for notices of proposed procurement and then request the bid documents online. MERX also provides a bid document printing and distribution services.
Government-Wide Procurement Reporting System: The Government-Wide Procurement Reporting System captures procurement information and produces the official government reports for NAFTA, WTO, AIT, Treasury Board Secretariat and Intellectual Property. Data is sources from AIS, UABEI, SPEC/ACCORD and DATACAP.
GSIN: Goods and Services Identification Number. It is the unique commodity identifier based on the Federal Supply Classification System.
Industrial Sector: A code for a type of industry (such as agriculture or retail), which classifies a supplier according to the goods or services, it sells.
Invitation Opportunity: The opportunity that an individual or firm has to submit a proposal and/or undertake a commission after having been selected, either individually or with other firms.
Language Preference: The language in which a supplier prefers to communicate.
Legal Name: The legal name of a supplier.
Level of Fees: The value of a commission for which an A&E firm may qualify and wish to be considered.
Maintain Registration: Allows an RPC user to enter and a PBN and then view and possibly update any firm's registration
Manage list: Displays the names of firms selected so far.
Merge Firm: Initiated by a firm requesting that another firm's data be merged with theirs.
MERX: PWGSC advertises most architectural and engineering consulting services worth $76,500 or more on the electronic tendering service MERX and for Construction and maintenance services For further details, refer to Government Electronic Tendering System
New: A firm's status is NEW if this is their first time registering in SELECT. The status stays as NEW until they have indicated that their registration is complete.
North American Free Trade Agreement: A trilateral trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico aimed at liberalizing trade and investment across North America (Chapter 10 of the nafta defines the obligations concerning Government procurement).
Notice of Proposed Procurement: An invitation to participate in a proposed procurement, published in GETS.
Operating Name: The operating name of a supplier, which may differ from the legal name.
Opportunity points: Every time a firm is invited, they are assigned an opportunity point. Firms are selected based on their number of opportunity points.
PBN (Procurement Business Number): Procurement Business Number. This number consists of the first nine digits of the supplier's Canada Customs and Revenue Agency Business Number plus two letters (PG) and four numbers identifying the company's procurement account.
Penalty point: When a firm is deselected from a selection, the firm may be assigned a penalty point. A penalty point increases the number of opportunity points assigned to a firm by one.

The SELECT user makes the final decision as to whether or not a penalty point is applied in a particular case. However, each deselection reason has a default suggestion regarding applying penalty points.
Pending: After a firm has completed its application and there are no errors, the registration is set to PENDING status and put in a queue to be reviewed and approved by the Real Property Contracting Directorate.
Performance Evaluation: The performance of all contractors is monitored for quality of work and delivery date. Unsatisfactory performance, as well as failure to respond to invitations to tender, will be considered just cause for removal of a contractor´s name from the database
PM Project Manager: A PWGSC or DCC/DND employee authorized to manage an A&E project.
Postal/Zip Code: The Canadian postal code or US zip code where the supplier is located.

To search on this field, enter only the code - no spaces or dashes, e.g., 'K1A0S5' or '906705031'
Prime Consultant: A firm of joint venture selected for a commission with a direct contract with the Crown. This firm or joint venture may be coordinating the input of several other firms or individuals in producing a completed study or design. The prime consultant has full responsibility and liability for both the financial and performance of all firms or individuals under its jurisdiction.
Principal: An individual in a firm who alone, or together with other principals, possesses legal responsibility for its management. A principal may be an owner, partner, corporate officer, associate or administrator.
Procurement Allocation Directory: The PAD is an electronic directory of purchasing contacts in PWGSC. The directory includes names, addresses, telephone numbers and commodity information.
Procurement Business Number: The Procurement Business Number is created using a company's Canada Customs and Revenue Agency Business Number. The PBN uniquely identifies a company that wants to sell goods or services to the government
Project Phase: Usually one of four distinct periods in project implementation, for which consulting firms can register experience on the SPEC Application for Registration Form.
Province / State: For Canada and the US only. Equivalents for other countries are included as part of the street address.
Public Works and Government Services Canada: A department composed of the former departments of Public Works, Supply and Services, the Translation Bureau, the Government Telecommunications Agency, and other entities.
Qualified Firm: Firms that satisfy the skill requirements (trades for construction and maintenance, discipline, experience profile, phases for consulting), set-aside requirement, remote location and any licensing requirements, which are attached to a requested trade or discipline.
Qualifying Experience: The experience of a professional and/or technical member or members of a consulting firm which qualifies the firm for registration in the A&E Index of the SPEC system and for selection for commissions.
Radius (multi-centre): Selection is carried out much like 'radius-single' at each site. The results of the three selections are combined by processing the vendor base through a series of steps. Results are provided according to zone and not by site.
Radius (single): Firms are sorted by distance from the worksite and the number of qualified firms in each of the zones is displayed.
Radius with exclusions: Firms are sorted as for radius but exclude all vendors with a postal code that is within the range identified in the list of excluded postal codes.
Random: Random selection is used for non-competitive tendering. No rotational scheme is applied, but selection is random from a pool of qualified registered firms.
Re-application: A firm's status is set to Re-Application when they have previously been suspended, the suspension expiry date has passed and they successfully login into the SELECT registration module. The user must reapply by completing the registration process as if it was a new registration. All previous data will be history only.
Remote Location: A location is considered remote when it has any of the following characteristics: is remote from the populated areas; surface access is seasonal (sea lift, summer river navigation, frozen winter roads, ice bridge, etc.); is accessible only by light aircraft or helicopter; or the design of the facilities must reflect special transportation logistics.
Reporting: A stand-alone client server module that produces 7 canned reports, available to all users.
Request for Consultant Services: The form submitted by a Project Manager to request A&E services for a specific project.
Request for Proposals: The portion related to negotiation of a competitive selection process involving the submission by consultants of detailed proposals, where the cost of the services is an element of the evaluation.
Review and Approve Registration: All firm registrations new or changes must be reviewed and approved before they are eligible for sourcing.
Rotational sourcing: Rotation is based on Opportunity points and not on $ value of opportunity. One single point is awarded where a consultant or contractor is given an opportunity to do business with the government. Points are adjusted where the government accepts the firm's explanation for not submitting a proposal.

A Superior Performance evaluation reverses the award of an Opportunity Point.
RPSB/DCC Database: An intranet application that RPSB and DCC users will use to do their contracting up to their delegated authority.
SELECT: SELECT is an automated vendor selection system (rotational) for Real Property requirements which is being developed to replace the current selection system i.e. ACCORD - for construction requirements and SPEC - architecture and engineering (A&E) requirements. SELECT is being designed using the functionality's of ACCORD and SPEC.
Selection List: List of qualified firms from the Candidate file according to sequence number.
Set-aside Indicator: This identifies a company that is eligible to submit bids under the Set-Aside Program for Aboriginal business.
Sourcing: A client server module that interfaces with ABE
SRI Password: It must be six (6) to ten (10) characters in length, including one digit.
SRI Username: It must be eight (8) characters or more.
Standard: Standard selection is used for requirements greater than the limit for random selection, and less than the limits for public tender. It identifies all candidates meeting the requirements of the selection, and returns the number available in an appropriate format. The results are left in order of least opportunity, so that they will be ready for the invitation process.
Standing Offer Distribution System: SODS maintains a mailing list by commodity for the distribution of standing offers to all departments and agencies.
Standing Offer Index: SOI provides federal government departments and agencies with a detailed listing of Standing Offers established by PWGSC.
Sub-Consultant: A firm or individual retained by a prime consultant to undertake a specific part of a commission. The sub-consultant is responsible to the prime consultant for its performance.
Supplementary: Supplementary selection is used to find additional vendors after a standard selection fails to return enough names.
Supplier Registration Information: The Supplier Registration Information service contains data on registered suppliers interested in doing business with the federal government. The information provided by suppliers is used by federal government departments to identify sources of supply for the goods and services they buy.
Suspended: A firm will be suspended if either:

Login information (i.e. SRI Username, SRI Password or PBN) is incorrectly entered three (3) times in a row.

OR

It fails to meet the minimum bid response requirements
System Management: A stand-alone client server application that all users will have access to. Sub activities are: maintain groups, maintain users, CPERF (review and CIRC decisions), table maintenance, selection query, correspondence, joint ventures and foreign firms, firm search, preferences.
Trade/ Specialty: Applicants registering as trade/specialty contractors may register in only those trades/specialties that they can carry out with their own forces. A record of work experience in support of the application for each trade/specialty must be provided.

Applicants registering as general contractors may not apply to register in a trade/specialty that they subcontract, in addition to their particular general contractor trade(s).
Transfer Employee: Initiated by the firm requesting that an employee be transferred to their firm.
Type of Ownership: Identifies the supplier as a corporation, sole proprietorship, partnership or other.
Under Review: A Real Property Contracts agent is reviewing the firm's application. No modifications are allowed.
Universal ABE Interface: UABEI provides full requisitioning functionality and direct feedback capabilities for external procurement applications that must exchange information with ABE. It provides a solution that fully automates the capture, transmission, and feedback of requisitions and contract statistics from external applications. UABEI interfaces with CSI, ABE, GWPRS, and e Purchasing.
Vendor Information Management: VIM provides information for procurement activities, including vendor tombstone information (name, address contact, phone), commodity information, Employment Equity certification numbers, comments, sanctions, aboriginal status, etc. VIM is capable of linking vendor information from SRI and receives changes in common vendor information from SRI on a nightly basis. The VIM system replaced the National Supplier Information System and continues to generate the NASIS vendor code, until November 2001.
Vendor Information Management/Customer Information System Report: This system provides an interface with the Vendor Information Management and Customer Information System databases to produce a variety of reporting and label options to users.
Voluntary Deactivation: Option to deactivate your firm from the selection list for a period, which cannot exceed one year. Upon the end of the deactivation period, the firm will be reinstated on the list without any negative impact.
WebSACC: WebSACC provides for a method of electronically distributing new procurement related Standards Acquisitions Clauses and Conditions to buyers
WebSM: WebSM provides for a method of electronically distributing new procurement related Supply Manual information to buyers.
Weight Factor: The weight given to resources, qualifications and experience or criteria used in the evaluation of soqs and proposals and in the performance review process.