How to use this service
Before a large public contract is signed, somebody has to be able to say whether the price is reasonable. This is where that question is asked, answered and recorded — and this guide explains how, whether you have used the system for years or are opening it for the first time today.
Where to start
- New to the Office, or to any of this? Read what the platform is for, then what happens to a submission. Twenty minutes, and the rest of the system will make sense.
- You work at a ministry, assembly or agency and need to send a contract: recording a submission.
- You work at the Office: what your role lets you do, then assessing and deciding.
- You are holding a certificate and want to know whether it is genuine: checking a certificate.
- Something is not behaving: if something does not work covers what it usually turns out to be.
- You want to know how the platform actually works — where a project comes from, how a figure reaches the Office, what happens when a system it depends on is down: the system documentation draws and describes each flow.
1What this platform is forWhy the Office exists, what it assesses, and what it issues.2What happens to a submissionThe journey from arrival to certificate, and where the clock runs.3What your role lets you doWhy two people signed in side by side see different menus.4Signing inYour address, your password, a six-digit code, and how long you stay in.5Finding your way aroundThe sidebar, and how every list works: search, filters, sorting, pages, actions.6Recording a submissionEntitiesFor entities: what to send, what is checked, and what comes back.7Assessing and decidingThe OfficeFor the Office: intake, comparison, recommendation, decision.8Certificates, and how to check oneWhat a certificate says, and how anybody can confirm it is genuine.9Words used herePlain meanings for the terms that appear on screen.10Where the figures come fromIntegration operators, and anyone who wonders where a number came fromThe four systems the Office reads, and what happens when one of them cannot be read.11If something does not workThe handful of things that usually turn out to be the cause.