Cape Town-based ValueCard has released the source code of for its TenderSystem procurement suite under an open source license. TenderSystem is an Internet based system to source, award and manage the total procurement process. Insurance companies in Southern Africa currently use TenderSystem to decrease their largest expense, namely claims payments.

The software has been released on Sourceforge.net under a modified Mozilla Public License called the TenderSystems Public Licence.

TenderSystem has been well received by the open source community and has already exceeded 280 downloads at SourceForge.net since the launch. "We are extremely impressed with the interest shown in TenderSystem, especially when considering that it is not a consumer product. The open source marketing and distribution model will definitely place pressure on traditional software company margin's in the future." says Christiaan Erasmus, ValueCard's managing director.

Note: Published at Tectonic, Africa's source for open source news

TenderSystem OS 0.4 Alpha Released

We are extremely pleased to announce he release of TenderSystem 0.4 Alpha.

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NEW FEATURES
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1. TenderSystem is now much modular based

2. Messenger: Admin can email or sms user(s), branche(s), company(s) or user type i.e. suppliers / organisations

3. XML language editor - create and edit language templates

4. Supplier link is now available under Organisation Admin to view or edit all panel suppliers for the organisation. Previously suppliers could only be linked from Supplier Admin

5. Firefox search plugin for Users

6. Public RFQ display

7. RFQ templates are automatically generated from XML files

8. SMS / SMTP and POP test functionality in settings

9. Optional quantity field for RFQ

10. RFQ brand and other brand merged to eliminate confusion

11. Full audit trail displayed

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IMPROVEMENTS
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1. API & Module inclusion is dynamic and logic is now in /application/generic.php which is included

2. Excess and Salvage checkbox are now optional as it is only for insurance replacements

3. Email templates are now language independent

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BUG FIXES
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1. Sourceforge.net #1236717 - Purchase orders not displaying in certain circumstances has been fixed

2. CVS corrupted xls (Excel spreadsheet) have been replaced with correct spreadsheets

3. Many smaller bug fixes - please remember it is still Alpha

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INSTALLATION
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Follow the installations in the install_manual.pdf found under /manuals/en/

Administrator, user and supplier manual are also found there.

Should you have any problems please go to the forum at http://www.tendersystem.com

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UPGRADING
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If you are upgrading unpack the files over the original installation excluding /config.inc.php and /application/include.config.inc.php and run upgrade.php

We are extremely pleased to announce the 100th TenderSystem download that was reached within 2 weeks of the first release. Our activity has also moved up to 90.17% making this the 1134th 99.39% making this the 828th most active project at SourceForge.net.

We want to thank you, the community, for your great support and interest.

Because of the overwelming interest we have moved the August release a month forward and will be releasing TenderSystem 0.4 Alpha at the end of July. This release will have a XML language editor, user email / SMS, SMTP / POP / SMS settings testing and supplier panel activation as additional features.

We have also fixed the purchase order display bug (SourceForge.net bug #1236717).

Should you require any additional features please let us know in the forum so that we can improve TenderSystem for everybody’s benefit. We are also looking for FAQ material and bugs that you have discovered.

For the next release we want to improve TenderSystem’s modular approach and include a public display module. We will also look at including additional features that you have recommended.

Please note that this software is still in Alpha state, i.e. being tested, so please do not use it in a production environment as it will have issues untill we have stabilised it enough for a Beta release.