Procurement

The Browse Opportunity feature in the menu bar gives you several different ways to look for opportunities. Here is a brief explanation of each:

• Open Opportunities - This option displays a list of all opportunities currently open in ORPIN. It will be listed in order of which opportunities are closing soonest.
  
• By My Profile - This option displays only those opportunities that match the goods, services and location preference you set up on your profile during the registration process. (If you chose not to turn on automatic email notifications for your account, this is a great place to check for those opportunities that match your goods and services!) 
  
• By Product - This option displays current opportunities grouped by the commodity category they fall under. 
  
• By Organization - This option displays a list of agencies with current open opportunities. This is a great resource to use if you know that a specific agency has an opportunity available but you don't have the opportunity number or title. Choose whether you want to sort by the Issued By agency or Issued For agency, and then click the Search button to see all of the agencies with open opportunities.
  
• Advanced Search - This option allows you to get more specific in your searches. You can search by a title keyword, the opportunity number, or many other options to narrow down the search results. (Pay attention to the Issued From and Issued To dates at the bottom of the search screen. If you search for an opportunity and don't get any results, try moving the Issued From date back a bit. It could be that the opportunity you are looking for was issued prior to the date that was showing in this field.)

The ORPIN site acts as an online bulletin board for opportunities and notices. Agencies post their own opportunities on the system, so while the ORPIN support staff can help you locate a specific opportunity on the program, we do not have information about the postings themselves. 

First be sure to read through any attachments on the opportunity in ORPIN. (Look for the Attachments Exist folder in the middle of the screen directly under the state seal image.) If you still have additional questions, contact the “Issued By” Contact shown on the opportunity document. This person will be able to assist you with any questions or concerns you may have.

​There are a few things that might cause this. Please check the following:

• You must be logged into a registered supplier account. If you are just browsing as an Anonymous User you won't be able to access attachments. Did you enter your username and password before pulling up the opportunity? If not, you haven't logged in yet.
  
• After you log into the system and pull up an opportunity, you must add your company to the Interested list before you can open the attachments. To do this, click on Express/View Interest in the menu bar. Select whether your company is interested as a Primary Contractor or a Subcontractor, and then click the Submit button. This will place you back on the face of the document and you will be able to open the Attachments Exist folder.
  
• If you try to express interest and get an error message indicating you are not affiliated with a company, it means that you created a user account but your account isn't officially tied to a company yet. See the Suppliers FAQ​ page for more details on how to correct this.

It only looks like this to you. The other companies in the list don't see your first and last name but do see their own. This is to let you know who expressed interest on behalf of your company.

This being said, there is a Show Details button at the top of the Interested list. If you click this button, it will expand the list and display contact information of every company in the list. This allows for networking between Primary contractors and Subcontractors.

Agencies may choose to post items such as a Preliminary Results list, Evaluation Spreadsheet, Intent to Award letter, etc. All of these documents will be available for you to search under the menu option called Browse Award Results. 

Open this menu option, select the appropriate type of document, and then enter the Opportunity number (include dashes or other special characters). Pay special attention to the date range in the search. You may want to push back the starting date so that it will look for attachments posted at an earlier time. Hit the Search button and if the attachment exists, it should display at the bottom of the screen.

If you have not found anything under these menu selections, contact the opportunity administrator and ask the status of the bid results.