VCD - Virtual Company Dossier

About the Virtual Company Dossier

The Virtual Company Dossier (VCD) is part of the e-SENS WP5.1 (e-Procurement) pilots. The pilot documentation can be found here. The goal is to create a set of tools software libraries based on the specifications created by DG-GROW for the ESPD and the VCD BIS.

VCD, an extension to the ESPD Document, provides an interoperable electronic document solution that supports the exchange of evidences across borders. Apart from the electronic documents used to transport the evidences from economic operators to contracting authorities, the e-SENS VCD pilot has developed additional tools to ease the process for both economic operators and contracting authorities.

The e-SENS VCD/ESPD implementation is intended to support the creation of artifacts needed for the qualification procedures in pre-award, awarding and post-award processes that involve any Economic Operator and any Contracting Authority in any European country. The VCD System, based on the VCD BIS, provides an interoperable implementation based on the specifications of qualification procedures in online public procurement within the European Union (EU) in accordance with the EU directives 2014/23/EU, 2014/24/EU and 2014/25/EU. Thereby, it supports the Economic Operators (EOs) in

1. creating a self-declaration (the European Single Procurement Document - ESPD) to assert along tendering the Economic Operator's formal qualification via the exclusion grounds and selection criteria issued by the Contracting Authority,
2. assembling into an electronic package the evidences required for demonstrating a proof of the EO's formal qualification and capabilities (Virtual Company Dossier - VCD) along tendering, awarding and post-awarding procedures,
3. supporting communication between Economic Operators collaborating in consortia along tendering and procurement procedures to assemble the relevant qualification documents (ESPD or VCD), and
4. submitting the ESPD or VCD electronically to the Contracting Authority via the e-SENS e-Delivery infrastructure.

The VCD/ESPD implementaion will also support Contracting Authorities in

1. creating an interoperable and machine-readable ESPD Request or VCD Request to communicate the list of criteria for exclusion grounds and qualitative selection in a structured way to interested EOs,
2. publishing this ESPD or VCD Request or transferring it, so that the Economic Operators interested to the specific tendering or procurement procedures can retrieve or receive it, 
3. receiving and viewing the filled ESPD or VCD from Economic Operators or by some aggregator in the name of the EO, and
4. retrieving evidences referred to in an ESPD or VCD from an aggregator site or directly from the relevant issuing bodies (in the case, where the evidence documents are not directly included in the VCD).

Tools and Libraries

• ESPD/VCD Schema, a software artifact that provides a java implementation of the ESPD and VCD Schema files for integration.
• ESPD/VCD Model, a simplified data model that sits on top of the ESPD/VCD Schema and greatly simplifies the creation and validation of an ESPD or a VCD
• ESPD/VCD Builder,  a software library that can be used for easily creating, transforming and parsing any ESPD and VCD artifact.

You can find the development documentation of the ESPD/VCD Framework here (Release 1.0.2).

The ESPD/VCD Designer, a standalone web application that provides a full range of ESPD and VCD functionalities to the economic operators and the contracting authorities, such as:

• The initial creation of Criteria, Requirement Groups and Requirements for the ESPD Request or VCD Request (CA Functionality)
• The fulfillment of these Requirements for the creation of the ESPD (EO Functionality)
• The finalisation of a validated VCD Container, a container that contains a valid ESPD with the evidences embedded in an ASIC container (CA Functionality) 
• The validation of an ESPD or VCD  (CA Functionality)