Digital government procurement document specification based on OFD format

In recent years, with the "east wind" of the Internet, government procurement transaction systems have been established in various places, but the systems are isolated from each other. Data cannot be connected, and the status of information islands is prominent. Suppliers and procurement agencies need to register multiple accounts and apply for different CA certificates to participate in government procurement, which virtually increases the cost of government procurement.

April 2022 , "Guiding Opinions on Strengthening the Construction of Digital Government" was released, proposing that digital technology be widely used in government management services, promote digital and intelligent government operations, and strengthen regional collaboration and linkage, so that public data can be distributed across departments, regions, and industries. Safe and efficient sharing is also the proper meaning of digital government. Accelerating the transformation and upgrading of government procurement platforms from electronic version 2.0 to digital version 3.0 is a trend to adapt to the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation.

This article mentions The OFD file format is a feasible means to achieve this transformation and upgrading. It can not only help government procurement documents to complete the conversion from paper files to electronic files, but also calculate, analyze, and compare the data in it, and process and quantify the data. . At the same time, thanks to the rigorous design, OFD format files are difficult to be tampered with, which can ensure the security of government procurement documents to the greatest extent. In addition, the OFD format file is a document format formulated in accordance with the national unified standard, which has a wide application base and can avoid the waste of original resources caused by the construction of a new global unified platform.

The evolution of government procurement documents from 1.0 to 3.0

1990s , my country has started to explore the informatization of government procurement. After decades of construction and development, online government procurement activities have been basically realized, and the form of government procurement documents is also constantly changing.

With the Internet The emergence of government procurement has entered the 1.0 era, that is, the information age. All provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government) use the local government procurement network as the official information release platform for government procurement. Suppliers obtain procurement announcements through the government procurement network and participate in bidding offline.

In electronic government After the completion of the procurement system, government procurement has entered the 2.0 era, that is, the electronic era. The system digitizes the paper documents that were originally submitted offline, and realizes online bid opening and electronic assisted review. However, government procurement transaction documents during this period were still mainly in WORD and PDF formats, which we call unstructured documents. The identification efficiency of unstructured file system is low, and it cannot form an effective government procurement data resource system.

Government procurement 3.0 era , the digital age. In the era of 3.0, the digital government procurement system abstracts and models a large number of unstructured documents in the transaction process, forms standardized digital documents, breaks through data barriers, and enables procurement transaction data to flow freely among the parties involved in the procurement and the system. Using RPA ( Robotic process automation) technology automatically identifies, analyzes and processes procurement transaction data to realize the intelligence of government procurement platforms.

Select the OFD format file as the digital file carrier of government procurement documents

Government procurement transaction process Documents include prequalification documents, prequalification application documents, framework agreement solicitation documents, framework agreement solicitation response documents, procurement documents, supplier bid response documents and bid opening records, clarification letters, clarification reply letters, bid evaluation reports, challenge letters, and complaint letters , bid winning (transaction) notification, etc. As mentioned above, in the 1.0 era, these documents were paper documents submitted offline; in the 2.0 era, these documents were unstructured documents that existed as WORD files or PDF files; in the 3.0 era, the above transaction documents need to be abstracted Modeling to form standardized digital files.

So, in the government In the procurement 3.0 era, should we redefine a document type as the carrier of government procurement digital documents, or adopt a common file format as the carrier? If a new file format is redefined, a general-purpose file generation system and file reading tool are required, similar to the PDF file generation system and reading tool, and such a mature new file format is difficult to form in a short time. Therefore, the digital file format for government procurement should meet the following three requirements: first, choose a mature file format that has been widely used to facilitate promotion and implementation; The third is to meet the requirements of non-repudiation and non-tampering of government procurement documents. By screening the commonly used file formats at present, it can be found that OFD format files fully meet such requirements.

Full name of OFD file It is "Open Fixed-layout Document", which is a national standard for layout documents (GB/T 33190—2016) formulated by the layout writing group established by the China Electronics Standardization Research Institute under the leadership of the Software Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. It belongs to China's own format Electronic files are an important part of national strategic resources. The OFD standard describes the layout format based on XML, which is convenient for application expansion and supports domestic encryption algorithms and other technologies. Since its release, the OFD file format has been widely used in digital bills, digital official documents, data exchange, and digital file management. Therefore, choosing the OFD file format as the carrier of government procurement digital documents not only has the support of the national strategy level, but also has a wide application base, which is convenient for circulation, promotion and application among purchasers, agencies, and suppliers.

Access to structured data based on OFD format government procurement documents

OFD is the text It is one of the basic file formats for national electronic file management, and it is completely consistent with paper files in terms of format, layout, font, and font size. unanimous. The characteristics of the layout document format make it an ideal document format for serious electronic document publishing, digital information dissemination and archiving.

The OFD file format adopts The file storage structure of "document + container", the container package can include OFD basic information and organizational structure description files, OFD pages, OFD password application-related files and extended attachments, etc. The "document" part belongs to the user-visible part, that is, the file uploaded by the user, and the container part is the machine-readable part. After the document is uploaded, the machine will perform structured processing on the read data and store it in the OFD in the form of a data file package. In the attachment node (attachs) of the file. Unlike PDF and other file formats that only have a single function, the OFD file format can be expanded according to user needs. Users include but are not limited to purchasers, regulators, agencies and other participants in government procurement activities.

In file upload to After the system, the OFD format file will become a data grabber. The user designs a unified demand standard in the system, and the system will grab the available information after receiving the command to extract file information. The page is displayed in a centralized manner. For suppliers, after the bidding documents are compiled and uploaded to the system in the form of WORD, the machine will start to read the data, automatically analyze the project name, project number, quotation and other information in it, and convert the structured bid documents according to unified standards Data is stored in the attachment node (attachs) of the OFD file. After the machine completes the calculation, analysis, and comparison, the bidding information of all suppliers participating in the project will be quantitatively presented on the buyer's background page, which is convenient for the buyer to review and filter. In this process, the bidding documents prepared and uploaded by the supplier and the content of the purchaser's background page belong to the part visible to the naked eye, while the process of machine calculation, analysis and comparison belongs to the machine reading part. For regulators, the OFD file format can not only be used in the monitoring of bid rigging and collusion, but also in the evaluation of the business environment: after the participants upload the file to the system, the machine will automatically calculate, Compare and analyze the participating projects, generate structured data according to the weight, and finally present all the participants' data on the supervisor's background interface.

Integrity assurance of government procurement digital transaction documents

Government Procurement Digital Transaction The integrity of documents, that is, the originality and authenticity of government procurement digital documents, and the ability to protect government procurement documents from tampering is a major advantage of the OFD file format. The OFD file is a ZIP file, which can contain various files in terms of technical mechanism. In order to support the anti-tampering mechanism, the OFD file needs to introduce an integrity protection description file, which will describe the uploaded file in a complex way and generate a signature.

According to "GM/ According to T 0099-2020 Technical Specification for Application of Open Format Document Encryption, if the files in an OFD file package are compared with all feature codes in the system according to "OFD.xml", "Encryptions.xml" and their derivative files If it is not recognized by any other files after pairing, it belongs to "entrained files (files after tampering)". The existence of "entrapped files" is a threat to the security and integrity of OFD files.

In order to ensure the Integrity, the following principles should be followed when generating OFD files: first, put all associated files of OFD content into a "list", that is, integrity protection files; Digital signature; the third is to pack the above two into the OFD file package.

when verifying integrity , according to the following steps: one is to verify whether the signature is correct; the other is to compare the file with the feature code, and if there is a file that is not in the integrity protection file list, it will be considered as an "entrained file".

In government procurement 3.0 In this era, the digital document standard is the basic standard of the digital government procurement platform. Only when the books are in the same text and the vehicles are on the same track, so that the government procurement data can flow freely between various systems, can we unite the forces of all parties, learn from each other's strengths, and use the most advanced ideas and cutting-edge technologies to establish a unified, open, mutual trust, and diverse Digital government procurement ecosystem.

(Author: Chengdu Buluo Software Technology Co., Ltd.)

Source｜China Government Procurement News

Author｜Xiang Bing

Editor｜Yang Wenjun