Contracting authority onboarding

In order to register, you will need to answer a few basic questions about your organisation - these are described in more detail below. Once the information is provided, the application will be sent to the Cabinet Office who will either accept the application based on the information provided or get in touch with the administrator in order to confirm any anomalies before accepting. This checking process will allow us to mitigate the risks of duplicative or fraudulent accounts being created. When setting up your organisation, if applicable, please refer to the gov.uk list of departments and their agencies to ensure the name you enter matches exactly.

Once the organisation is registered, as the administrator, you can then add more administrators, editors or users as needed.

You can start to prepare all of the information that you, as the first administrator, will need to complete the registration process. This is set out in the table below:

The contracting authority ‘role types’ that will be available on the platform as follows:

 The supplier ‘role types’ that will be available on the platform are as follows:

The way in which we use and share data under the Procurement Act 2023 is different to the methods of data sharing that exist today.

Data protection obligations will be covered by a Joint Controller Agreement that we have prepared, which sets out Cabinet Office and your organisation’s shared responsibilities for handling the supplier information

The purpose of the Joint Controller Agreement is to explain the nature and treatment of the personal and sensitive data collected and shared on FTS. It is a requirement under Article 26 of Data Protection Act 2018 and is quite commonly used in Central Government, for example on Civil Service Jobs and for the People Survey.

Completing the Joint Controller Agreement will be part of your organisational set up on the CDP, that process is outlined below:

• You will be able to set up your organisation as per the instructions above.
• Our support desk will review the account and approve, as per the instructions above.
• Once you have saved your organisation and submitted it for approval, a new action will be made available, this is the 'signing' and acceptance of the Joint Controller Agreement.
• The agreement itself can be downloaded and taken away for internal review within your organisation.
• The person who 'signs' the form within your department does not need to be your organisation administrator within CDP.
• Whoever signs the agreement within your department (for your own audit purposes) will need to give permission to your organisation admin to confirm acceptance of the agreement within CDP.
• You will not be asked to reupload the completed agreement.
• The organisation admin will then, within CDP, tick to confirm that the Joint Controller agreement has been 'signed' by your department.
• The requirement is that you sign BEFORE ISSUING A TENDER NOTICE (i.e. at the point suppliers are invited to send information).
• The CDP will record that the agreement has been signed and the date at which this was confirmed.
• The CDP will not prevent you from generating API Keys for your eSender if your department has not signed the Joint Controller Agreement.
• The CDP will issue regular reminders via email notifications to your organisation administrator if you have not signed the Joint Controller Agreement.

You will have some time between registration and first procurement to agree the Joint Controller Agreement.

Your current and prospective suppliers will be able to start to register on the Central Digital Platform from Monday 24 February 2025. You will be able to support your suppliers to get ready by directing them to the how to videos and guides available at Information and guidance for suppliers on GOV.UK

What can I do as part of onboarding?

You can:

• register and set up your organisation.
• add more users to your organisation profile.
• generate an API Key to share with your eSender.
• complete the Joint Controller Agreement.

You cannot:

• access the noticing element of the service.
• create notices.

The service is being made available for early onboarding of contracting authorities only. The noticing element will go live on 24 February 2025.

Please note: Find a Tender will be offline on the evening of 23 February as we prepare for launch of the new Procurement Act.

Where do I go for additional onboarding support?

Cabinet Office will be offering workshops for contracting authorities who require a little more support when onboarding. At these sessions, Cabinet Office will walk through the organisation registration process and be available to answer any questions.

These sessions will run daily from 3 - 21 February and places can be booked in advance via eventbrite.

A helpdesk will be available via a form on the Central Digital Platform.

Or you can email us with questions via tppdigital@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Register on OneLogin

You must register yourself first on OneLogin before adding your organisation or adding other users to the organisation.

When you register on OneLogin (before the organisation is registered) you must use a named email address (e.g firstname.lastname@governmentbody.gov.uk) - not a shared email address.

This is for security purposes as OneLogin uses multifactor authentication attached to a single person. We encourage using a shared inbox when registering the organisation at the next step.

The shared inbox will provide contingency for your organisation as it can be accessed by many people.

Organisation details

When inputting your organisation’s name, please input it to match exactly as it is listed on GOV.UK or other official documentation.

If the name you input does not match exactly to the official list, the account will be rejected by the managed service and the admin will need to input the information again. This allows us to manage the data quality across government services.

Registration error

What should I do if my organisation registration is rejected due to an error in the name?

Please just amend your organisation name. There is no need to register a new organisation to replace the ‘rejected’ org. Amendments will be reviewed and approved as per the standard process.

Invite other people

 As the admin, once you have successfully added the organisation don’t forget to invite other relevant people in your organisation to join so they can also access the organisation account on the Central Digital Platform.

The admin can add as many users as they need, using their email address to invite them to join the organisation on the platform. Those users will need to register themselves on OneLogin and then view the organisation on the CDP.

Other approved buyers

As you register the organisation and input text into the organisation field, we have built some functionality to show you any similar approved buyers already in the system that you can request to join. The join request will be sent to the administrator(s) to accept and approve.

For example, if you input “Justice”, the following bodies will be returned as options for you to join:
“Ministry of Justice”, “Academy for Social Justice”, “Advisory Committees on Justices of the Peace”, “Civil Justice Council”, “Department of Justice (Northern Ireland)”, “Family Justice Council”, “Youth Justice Agency of Northern Ireland”, “Youth Justice Board for England and Wales” (as long as all the listed bodies had been registered and approved at the time)

Please see the 2 below images as an example.

Image

and

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Multiple authorities

If you administrate multiple authorities you should register them separately on the CDP.

It is possible to register and be linked to multiple organisations with one email address. These will show as separate organisations in your account once registered.

Role types

The contracting authority ‘role types’ that will be available on the platform as follows: