Data sources and registers
Finding public tenders: when portals draw the line
Starting questionHow do we combine public tenders from many portals into one picture that matches our profile?
Result
Works with conditions
Works for openly accessible portals. Behind a login, the terms of use decide, not the technology.
A search service queries the tender and project portals, caches results, extracts text from the documents, and matches it against the firm’s own skills profile. What matters is an honest assessment of every source: many portals overlap, and behind a login the terms of use decide.
What we built
We built a search service across numerous procurement and project portals, with caching, text extraction from documents, and matching against our own capability profile.
Each portal was tested live for its technical hurdles. Two portals first rated as hard to connect turned out to be easy on a second look.
What it means for business architecture
Data sources differ in how you reach them and in what they are worth. An honest assessment of what a source adds saves effort on integrations that deliver little.
Lessons learned
- A diagnosis, once made, deserves a second look when assumptions change. Two of our assessments were wrong.
- Many portals overlap in content. The added value of yet another source is often small.
- Behind a login, the question becomes one of terms of use, not of technology.
- public tenders
- procurement portals
- data sources
- tender overview