Introduced in August 2013, the Hawaii Electronic Procurement (HIePRO) System has experienced high user adoption and widespread acceptance throughout 2014. A successful replacement of the previous e-procurement system, HEPs, HIePRO was implemented and maintained by HIC at no cost to the State of Hawaii or SPO. Designed to include and surpass all functionality that existed in HEPS and other eProcurment systems available, our goal was to also simplify the process steps to make them more streamlined.
The end result has produced an application that provides a consistently positive user experience that also addresses all accessibility (ADA) requirements. Extensive workflow processes have been migrated into the system to reduce unnecessary manual steps. Innovative ideas for future development have been recorded for future development on a platform that has gained national interest from numerous states across the country. A cohesive and well trained customer support team effectively uses online chat, web based collaboration and ticketing systems, text messaging and email to work with the SPO and HIC project teams to ensure the highest levels of user satisfaction.
A successful pattern of improvements/enhancements continues to push HIePRO to the forefront of electronic procurement solutions. Most importantly, the users and SPO regularly and consistently compliment HIC on the ease of use, and now have become part of the collaborative fabric by requesting new features and/or subtle adjustments for future consideration.
Throughout 2014, HIePRO passed the projected first year goals for dollar amount of contracts awarded, number of solicitations, and number of awards. These successful milestones have pleasantly surprised the HIePRO project teams, who were concerned that vendors and new users would be slow to embrace the new electronic procurement solution. Calendar year 2014 shows monthly HIePro adoption gains between 15 and 40% in numerous categories related to solicitations created and awarded.
Key Features
- A public search function, which contains limited information, allows the general public to search for solicitations and awards.
- Users must log in to the system to see detailed information.
- This real time presentation of public information resolved many issues regarding the double posting of information and the varied lag times related to the process of the previous system.
- One of the key requirements for vendors to be awarded a contract is vendor compliance as required by the State of Hawaii and specifically, the SPO. A key feature of the vendor profile includes up to the minute cross checking of the compliance status with another HIC-SPO collaborative service Hawaii Compliance Express (vendors.ehawaii.gov). Most of the vendors who use HIePRO were already users of the HCE system and were able to use the same login for HIePRO.
- HIC handles customer support for HIePRO through chat email and phone to ease burden on SPO staff.
