360 Public Portal FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions:

Is 360 a government owned website?

No.  simplylogical.net (a software development company in Canberra) licences 360 to government and private industry.

Is 360 free to use?

Yes.  simplylogical.net does not charge providers to respond to a request for tender.

Can I use a tender consultant or submit of behalf of a subsidiary?

Yes (but not always).  360 has a separation between the company logged in (the “Provider”) and the company tendering (the “Respondent”).  The request manager can turn this feature off.

How do I find a Request for Tender?

There are 3 ways to find a request:

1. Browse

2. Search

3. Sign-in and to your Favourites (if you’ve registered your interest or been invited to respond to an invitation-only request)

See also: How to find a request (e.g. for tender) in the 360 public portal

Can I be notified when a request for tender is published?

Yes.  360 has a free subscription service based on Product/Service or Trade/Skill, and optionally Location, Request Type, and Price Bracket.

You just need to sign-in and create a subscription filter.

See also: How to change my subscription filter (notification) preferences in 360

How can I get a log-in?

Enter your ABN and email address into the sign-up page.  If your business is registered already, we’ll try to avoid creating a duplicate by asking existing users to let you join their team.  If not, enter a password and you’re good to go.

See also: How to register (sign-up) as a provider of goods and services in the 360 Public Portal

Is my data safe and kept confidential?

Yes.  360 is a secure system and all data is treated as commercial-in-confidence and/or personal-in-confidence.

Data safety

Please refer to the latest security statement published in 360’s page footer.

Confidentiality

360 applies best commercial-in-confidence procurement principles to all data:

1. The tender period must be closed and the electronic tender box must be opened by authorised people before the buyer can see responses.

2. If a tender is not submitted at the close of the tender period, it will not be available to buyers and its contents can be purged from 360 by the provider.

3. The request manager controls access to the responses such that evaluators can only see part of a submission (an important protection for when the buyer uses subject matter experts).

4. Business and staff contact details are made available to the request manager prior to submission (important for avoiding conflicts of interest).

5. Questionnaire completion progress is tracked so that the request manager can see which questions have been answered, by whom, and when.

Notes

Data protection is your responsibility too.

• Control who has access – providers grant (and revoke) staff access.

• Be mindful of who sees correspondence – 360 sends messages to all staff with access to 360 and the business email is CC’d.

• Be internet savvy – strong, site-specific passwords help prevent theft and you should always check the domain name. The domain names we use are:

  • apetsoftware.com.au

  • simplylogical.net

  • simplylogical.atlassian.net

See also: How to change my, my team's, and my company's contact details (as a provider of goods and services) in 360

What do I need to respond to a Request for Tender?

A good internet connection and a modern web browser.

For specifics, see What do I need (minimum system requirements) to use 360?

If I’ve got a question, who do I ask?

If it’s a question about the request’s contents, please contact the request manager.

If it’s a question about how to use 360 or if there seems to be an error with the system, please contact the technical support team:

• support@simplylogical.net

• 02 51 004 009

Notes

1. Enquiries are only sent to the request manager – not other respondents.

2. Enquiries are often answered with addenda and may quote the enquiry text.

3. It is normal for buyers not to answer enquiries close to the closing time.

4. The technical support team is not authorised to speak to a request’s contents.

How do I get a copy of my responses submitted to a request (for tender) in 360?

The copy of submitted responses can be downloaded from the Final Step page of a request (for tender).

See: How to export responses for a request (e.g for tender) in 360 public portal

What are do all these strange words mean?

Getting the right words in a computer program can be pretty hard.

Please see: What are the key terms in 360? (definitions/lexicon)

Can I reuse responses from previous tenders?

Sometimes, yes.  If the buyer has correlated questions and you've answered it previously, the Use Previous Response feature is displayed.

See also: How to reuse a response from a similar question in 360 public portal