Explanation
Background: The purpose of this legislation is to temporarily waive a provision of the Columbus City Codes Chapter 329 which require the opening of bids at the time designated in the invitations for bids.
The Department of Finance and Management has become aware of a Microsoft platform issue that affects how bid due times are displayed in invitations to bid posted on the D365 bidding platform for some vendors of the City. Certain vendors see bid due times displayed within D365 in the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) zone, in a 24-hour clock format, rather than their own time zone or the Eastern time zone. The time displayed, however, is not labeled with the time zone, and adding a time zone label is not an available platform option at this time. The UTC time zone is five hours ahead of the Eastern time zone. Due to this display issue, some vendors believe they have five additional hours after the City's stated bid deadline in which to submit a bid.
Neither the City nor any given vendor have a way of knowing in advance if accounts are affected by the incorrectly displayed time zone issue. The City cannot know ahead of a bid if a vendor with the account issue will attempt to bid. While the Auditor’s Office is actively working with Microsoft to get a fix for this prioritized and completed, there is not an internal option at this point to allow the City to directly correct the issue.
In order to support and maintain fair bidding practices during the duration of this Microsoft platform issue, the Director of Finance and Management, in consultation with the City Attorney’s Office, recommends and directs that all City bids processed through D365 remain sealed until at least five (5) hours after the City's stated bid due time to allow for any vendors experiencing the above-described Microsoft system issue to timely report that issue to Vendor Services and for Vendor Services to timely report it to the City bid requester. Where a vendor is determined to have ...
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