ECSA/RFP01/2022 -Systems Renovation Scope and

RENOVATION OF

MICROSOFT DYNAMICS 365 CRM SYSTEM

AND POWER APPS PORTAL IN SUPPORT OF

ECSA’S STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES INCLUDING

DIGITALISATION AND AN ENHANCED CUSTOMER

EXPERIENCE AND TO ENABLE A FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION OF THE BUSINESS MODEL

Scope and Requirements

ECSA/RFP01/2022

Response deadline: Tue 31 May 2022 (15h00)

Version: 1.07

Date: April 2022

ECSA/RFP01/2022 Request for Proposal: Renovation of ECSA Dynamics 365 CRM and Portal

ECSA-RFP01-2022-Scope-and-Requirements-Dynamics-365-CRM-Renovation-v1.07 Page 2 of 80

DOCUMENT CONTROL

Date Version Changes Made

25/04/2022 1.07 Released for publication

NOTE THAT BIDDERS ARE REQUIRED TO WRITE THEIR RESPONSES WITHIN THE WORD TEMPLATE PROVIDED AT ecsa.co.za/SitePages/Tenders.aspx USING THE SPACES BETWEEN THE GREEN AND RED LINES AS DEPICTED IN THE EXAMPLE BELOW. HOWEVER, DO NOT INCLUDE ANY PRICING INFORMATION. PRICING PROPOSALS MUST BE IN A SEPARATE SEALED ENVELOPE.

Bidder Response:

https://www.ecsa.co.za/SitePages/Tenders.aspx



TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ACRONYMS ................................................................................................................... 5

1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 6

1.1 Request for proposals – qualifying the opportunity ................................................................................. 6

2 COMPULSORY SUBMISSIONS ............................................................................................. 8

3 ABOUT THE ENGINEERING COUNCIL OF SOUTH AFRICA ................................................... 9

3.1 Regulator of the engineering profession (numbering ~52 000 persons) ................................................. 9

3.2 ECSA does not receive money from the government ............................................................................ 10

3.3 ECSA has received unqualified audits for more than 10 years ............................................................... 10

3.4 ECSA's values .......................................................................................................................................... 10

3.5 ECSA organisation structure ................................................................................................................... 10

3.6 ICT organisation structure ...................................................................................................................... 11

3.7 Current systems architecture ................................................................................................................. 11

3.8 ICT systems history: the past five years.................................................................................................. 12

4 MANDATE FOR ECSA'S RENOVATION AND DIGITALISATION PROGRAMME .................... 13

5 SCOPE OF WORK FOR THIS RFP ........................................................................................ 14

5.1 Renovate and add, rather than bulldoze and rebuild ............................................................................ 14

5.2 Recommend Robotic Process Automation where appropriate .............................................................. 14

5.3 Schematic of system capabilities and platforms .................................................................................... 15

5.4 Summary of deliverables ........................................................................................................................ 15

6 REQUIREMENTS ............................................................................................................... 16

6.1 Transfer skills to ECSA's in house ICT team ............................................................................................ 16

6.2 Overhaul and extend the ECSA portal .................................................................................................... 17

6.3 Plug the process gaps in the existing CRM system ................................................................................. 17

6.4 Build and deploy a chatbot on the ECSA portal and website ................................................................. 21

6.5 Design, build, populate and deploy a data warehouse .......................................................................... 22

6.6 Develop reports, visualisations and dashboards .................................................................................... 24

6.7 Train internal users of the CRM system ................................................................................................. 26

6.8 Ensure data integrity and input validation ............................................................................................. 26

6.9 Verifiable certificates .............................................................................................................................. 27

6.10 Integrate with PaperTrail DMS ............................................................................................................... 27

6.11 Integrate with Sage (Pastel) Evolution ERP ............................................................................................ 27

6.12 Integrate with SHEQsys QMS ................................................................................................................. 28

6.13 Integrate with Ocular O!Connect contact centre system ....................................................................... 28

6.14 Maintain integration with SagePay/Netcash payment gateway ............................................................ 28



6.15 Integrate with SMS and WhatsApp ........................................................................................................ 28

6.16 Integrate with social media platforms .................................................................................................... 28

6.17 Advanced search options on ECSA portal ............................................................................................... 29

6.18 Compliance with POPIA .......................................................................................................................... 29

6.19 System performance .............................................................................................................................. 29

6.20 System security ....................................................................................................................................... 29

7 PLAN OF APPROACH ........................................................................................................ 29

7.1 A fixed price for a fixed scope of work ................................................................................................... 29

7.2 Dealing with scope change ..................................................................................................................... 30

7.3 Onboarding the team and building business knowledge ....................................................................... 30

7.4 Software development approach ........................................................................................................... 30

7.5 Project governance ................................................................................................................................. 31

7.6 Project timelines ..................................................................................................................................... 31

8 EVALUATION CRITERIA ..................................................................................................... 31

APPENDIX A BUSINESS PROCESS DESCRIPTIONS ................................................................ 33

A.1. Accreditation of Engineering Programmes ............................................................................................. 33

A.2. Manage the establishment and monitoring of ECSA Academies ........................................................... 39

A.3. Registration of Individuals in Various Categories ................................................................................... 48

A.4. Maintenance of Registered Persons' CPD .............................................................................................. 57

A.5. CPD Standard .......................................................................................................................................... 63

A.6. Recognition of Voluntary Associations ................................................................................................... 67

A.7. Management of Improper Conduct Case against a Registered Person .................................................. 69

A.8. Billing of Applications and Registered Persons ...................................................................................... 74

A.9. Handle customer queries and complaints .............................................................................................. 79



LIST OF ACRONYMS API Application Programming Interface BI Business Intelligence BU Business unit CC Contact Centre CEO Chief Executive Officer CHE Council of Higher Education CPD Continuing Professional Development CRM Customer Relationship Management (Dynamics 365 CRM) CSF Critical Success Factor C&U Commitment and Undertaking DMS Document Management System (PaperTrail) EA Experience Appraisal EC Education Committee ECSA Engineering Council of South Africa EDU Education business unit EPA Engineering Profession Act ERF Executive: Regulatory Functions ERP Enterprise Resource Planning (Sage Evolution) F&S Finance and Staff committee HEI Higher Education Institute HR Human Resources business unit IBMS Integrated Business Management System ICT Information and Communications Technology IEA International Engineering Alliance LA Legal Administrator LB Licenced Body LEG Legal function LM Legal Manager LSU Legal Services Unit MEA Mutual Exemption Agreement MRA Mutual Recognition Agreement PABX Private Automatic Branch Exchange PFMA Public Finance Management Act POPIA Protection of Personal Information Act QMP Quality Management & Performance Management BU QMS Quality Management System RFP Request for Proposal RO Registrations Officer SCM Supply Chain Management business unit SHEQSys Safety, Health Environment and Quality System SLA Service Level Agreement SMART Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-based (referring to planned goals) SRM Stakeholder Relations & Marketing business unit VA Voluntary Association VC Vice chancellor XML Extensible Markup Language ZAR South African Rand



1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Request for proposals – qualifying the opportunity ECSA values your time. This section will help you decide whether to invest your time in submitting a bid.

1.1.1 Fixed price bids to renovate and build on our existing systems

The Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) invites Microsoft Silver or Gold partners to submit fixed-price proposals to renovate and build on ECSA's recent investments in core IT systems and business process automation – primarily using Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM and Microsoft Power Apps Portals. The project is part of an exciting 3-year digitalisation programme that will enable a fundamental transformation of the ECSA business model. ECSA is determined to become largely self-sufficient in ongoing CRM and portal maintenance. The winning bidder is required to transfer the necessary skills to ECSA's ICT unit so that, at the end of the project, the ICT unit can support and enhance ECSA systems in house.

However, certain jobs will continue to be outsourced – it does not make sense to hire full time, permanent staff for occasionally needed skills. Likewise, when workload demands peak, ECSA may need to increase supply through use of external resources. The successful bidder will be well-placed to undertake this ongoing work under an SLA that may be negotiated.

To promote an effective skills transfer, for the duration of the development bidders will be expected to incorporate ECSA's analyst programmer and software developer into their developer team. Loading will be at 75% so that 25% of their time is available for non-project break-fix work and skills development activities.

ECSA is asking bidders for a fixed price for a fixed scope of work. We do have a partially functional system which is in daily use. Other work is currently performed off the system because processes are not built end to end on the system. The scope of work is to deliver a fully functional system. Appendix A BUSINESS PROCESS DESCRIPTIONS sets out what a fully functional system looks like, which pieces need to be renovated, and which pieces need to be built within the Dynamics 365 system. There will be some work to integrate Dynamics (CRM), Evolution (ERP), PaperTrail (DMS), Power Apps Portals (ECSA portal), Power Apps Virtual Agents (chatbot), O!Connect (contact centre), and SHEQsys (complaint handling). The winning bidder will also design, build and deploy a data warehouse for access through Microsoft Power BI.

ECSA does not prescribe the project management approach but asks bidders to set out in their proposals: the project management approach, project governance, and high-level timelines that they can commit to.

There will be a compulsory briefing session at which would-be bidders may ask questions. Attendees will see a demo of the current system. After the briefing session, attendees may submit follow up questions by email. Answers (though not the name of the attendee that asked the question) will be shared with all briefing session attendees.

Bidders will have around 4 weeks to submit proposals. We require one printed copy and one electronic copy on a memory stick. The financial proposal must be sealed in a separate envelope within the submission pack.



The successful bidder will be one that:

1. Can demonstrate a credible track record in CRM customisation, business process automation, data warehouse design, business intelligence, and systems integration – using Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM, Power Apps Portals, Sage Evolution, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents, and Power BI.

2. Provides ECSA with at least two reference clients who are willing to meet with us and answer questions regarding the bidder’s performance on a similar project.

3. Is a certified Microsoft Silver or Gold partner with competency in Dynamics 365 CRM.

4. Has a pool of qualified ICT professionals with the following skills that can be deployed full time or part time as appropriate, to deliver ECSA's strategically important project.

4.1. Dynamics 365 CRM configuration and customisation. This is where the largest volume of work lies.

4.2. Microsoft Power Apps Portals (formerly Dynamics 365 Portals) development.

4.3. Software testing, preferably with automated testing experience.

4.4. Project management, agile or waterfall or a blend of these as preferred by the bidder.

4.5. Data warehouse: design, build, populate and deploy.

4.6. Microsoft Power BI report and dashboard development.

4.7. Chatbot development, preferably using Microsoft Power Virtual Agents.

4.8. Systems integration between Dynamics 365 CRM, Sage Evolution, PaperTrail, SHEQsys, O!Connect, and Power Apps Portal using APIs, Transact-SQL, C#, JavaScript, Power Automate and Fetch XML.

4.9. Robotic Process Automation (using Microsoft Power Automate and Power Automate for desktop) to integrate modules where API or custom integration is not feasible.

4.10. Azure Data Factory for data warehouse deployment.

5. Will allow ECSA to assess the expertise and fit of submitted resources and reject a resource that does not meet ECSA's standard.

6. Is willing and able to commit a core team of named individuals to our project for the contract term1. See footnote.

7. Is willing to embed ECSA's analyst-programmer and software develop into their developer team.

1 The Partner shall apply reasonable endeavours to avoid churn in the core team. If the Partner replaces a member of the team, ECSA reserves the right to vet and approve/decline the replacement; and the Partner will bear the entire cost to ECSA of bringing the replacement up to speed. Unless shown otherwise, this cost is assumed to be two person-months of effort.



The successful bidder will be one that:

8. Proposes a SMART plan to transfer relevant skills to ECSA ICT and business personnel so that they can support and maintain the core systems in house.

9. Is willing to share risk by quoting a fixed price for a fixed scope of work.

10. Agrees in principle to ECSA retaining a percentage of fees for a specified period, to protect itself from the partner's failure to complete functionality. Details for negotiation.

11. Is willing to undertake warranty work in a timely manner and at its own expense should it deliver a defective deliverable that is not the fault of ECSA, or to share warranty work costs where there is shared responsibility for the fault.

12. Is willing (at ECSA's request) to place its full-time resources on site, embedded within ECSA business units. This is to enhance teamwork, learning and communication. Currently, staff are working in hybrid "work-from-home-or-office" mode.

13. Is willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement, POPIA operator agreement, and service level agreement with ECSA.

14. Offers a cogent plan to onboard resources, acclimatise them, and quickly grow their business process knowledge.

15. Upholds a set of core values that are in harmony with those of ECSA.

16. Will work constructively, fairly, and respectfully with ECSA to quickly resolve any misunderstandings or disagreements that may arise.

17. Meets ECSA's supply chain requirements and passes the 80% score thresholds in stages 2 and 3.

18. Achieves the highest score in stage 4: Financial and BBBEE evaluation.

2 COMPULSORY SUBMISSIONS Submissions from bidders must contain the following 4 volumes (one printed copy and one electronic copy on a memory stick):

1. The bidder's proposal document. Bidders must strictly use the Word-format template ECSA has provided on ecsa.co.za/SitePages/Tenders.aspx. Please do NOT change the order of the headings. This is to speed up ECSA's evaluation of bidder proposals by making them easier to compare side by side.

The RFP proposal document MUST NOT include any pricing information.

2. The separate pricing proposal. Provide a fixed price for the project, plus the day rates for the roles to be assigned to the project. ECSA will use these to calculate the cost of a scope changes. This proposal must be delivered in a sealed envelope, separate from the RFP response document.

3. Other SCM documents: SBD forms, BBBEE certificate, valid tax clearance.

https://ecsa.co.za/SitePages/Tenders.aspx



4. CVs of the team that will be assigned to the project. Include copies of qualifications and certifications that demonstrate their capacity to deliver. These do not need to be certified copies – ECSA may ask for certified copies during the evaluation process.

3 ABOUT THE ENGINEERING COUNCIL OF SOUTH AFRICA The Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) was founded in 1991 when it replaced the South African Council for Professional Engineers. ECSA is a statutory body now established in terms of the Engineering Profession Act, 46 of 2000 (EPA).

3.1 Regulator of the engineering profession (numbering ~52 000 persons) ECSA’s primary purpose is the regulation of the engineering profession in terms of the EPA Act. As such ECSA seeks to protect the South African public and the environment from sub-standard engineering work, and to foster a profession that is recognised for its competence and representivity.

In achieving its purpose, ECSA’s core functions are:

a) the accreditation of engineering education programmes (degrees) offered by universities and other higher education institutions

b) registration of persons as professional engineers, technicians, and technologists

c) ensuring that registered persons undergo continuing professional development (CPD) to keep up with developments within their profession

d) the regulation of how registered persons conduct their work – which can result in a charge of improper conduct following a complaint against a registered person

ECSA is the only body in South Africa that can register professional engineers. Any person using the title Pr Eng, PR Tech Eng, Pr Techni Eng or Pr Cert Eng therefore must first meet standards set by the ECSA and be registered with the Council.

ECSA:

• regulates 52 000 registered persons (e.g. engineers)

• recognises 1 Academy, with more coming soon

• recognises 47 Licensed Bodies

• recognises 31 category A and 23 category B Voluntary Associations

• has verified more than 150 CPD Service Providers

• has validated approximately 40 000 CPD Activities



3.2 ECSA does not receive money from the government ECSA is NOT funded from the public purse. Instead, we are funded from application fees and annual fees payable by engineers and other stakeholders who use our services. ECSA has accumulated a healthy surplus as a buffer against unforeseen challenges.

3.3 ECSA has received unqualified audits for more than 10 years The Engineering Council of South Africa is a regulatory body which prepares GRAP compliant financial statements. ECSA achieved unqualified audit opinions in the previous 10 financial years and beyond, attesting to the fair, transparent and appropriate handling of financial matters. The organisation has two sub-committees namely Finance and Staff and Audit Risk and Governance specifically established to play a governance role. Furthermore, ECSA appointed an Internal Audit firm which reports functionally to the Audit Risk and Governance Committee and administratively to the CEO.

ECSA recently obtained an ISO 9001:2015 certification recognising the organisation’s ability to consistently provide services that meet customer and regulatory requirements. The organisation is adequately solvent and able to meet its financial commitments as they become due.

3.4 ECSA's values ECSA seeks to uphold a set of values in all that it does. We want to work with a partner who shares these values. We are:

Professional – Conduct beyond reproach to the highest ethical standards underpinned by integrity, quality, timeliness, trust and respect.

Accountable – Doing what we commit to do in an environment of trust and respect and being answerable for our failures to meet our committed obligations.

Collaborative – Working as a team to achieve exceptional results.

Transparent – Honest and open communication and sharing of information between stakeholders.

Innovative – utilizing creative energies in collaboration with ECSA stakeholders to identify improved, enhanced and more cost-efficient engineering practice solutions.

3.5 ECSA organisation structure ECSA employs approximately 120 staff (not including the 50-member part-time governing council) but much of the assessment work is delegated to hundreds of industry professionals (e.g. engineers) who are paid an honorarium in compensation for their ad hoc services.

The administrative and operational components are organised as follows. This is abbreviated for ease of understanding:

Chief Executive Officer

• Executive: Corporate Support Services

o Finance



o ICT

o HR

• Executive: Regulatory Functions

o Accreditation and Certification (aka Education) Evaluates and accredits engineering degrees offered by universities. Staff: Assistant manager. 4 x education officers.

o Registrations Assesses the competence of an engineer to be registered with ECSA. Staff: Assistant manager. 10 x registration officers, 2 x administration officers.

o Registration Renewals (aka CPD) Assesses and approves continuing professional development by engineers to ensure they keep up to date. Staff: Assistant manager. 5 x CPD officers.

• Executive: Research, Policy and Standards

• Executive: Legal Services

• Quality and Performance Management (QMP)

• Stakeholder Relations and Marketing (under Strategic Services)

3.6 ICT organisation structure The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) unit is organised as follows:

• Manager: ICT (reporting to the Executive: Corporate Support Services)

o Analyst-Programmer (Dynamics CRM certified)

o Software Developer (vacant, to be filled shortly)

o IT Systems Engineer

o IT & Web Engineer

o IT Intern (desktop support)

Within Corporate Support Services:

• Manager: ICT Strategic Interventions (responsible, in partnership with ICT, the business, and the appointed partner, for delivery of the project in scope for this RFP)

An ICT Steering Committee (comprising representatives from the business) oversees and guides the priorities of the ICT unit.

3.7 Current systems architecture Note: ECSA is expecting to migrate to cloud hosted systems in future and wishes to avoid any new on-premise solutions.



On Premise (ECSA head office in Bruma, Johannesburg)

• Sage 300 People HR/Payroll system

• Sage Evolution ERP/Financial system

• Microsoft Exchange (but only to push Active Directory attributes to AD in the cloud)

• Print server

• File server

Software as a Service – Microsoft cloud hosted

• Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM. Mainly Sales, but Customer Service, Marketing and Field Service are also used.

• Microsoft 365 Business Standard – Business-class mail, Office 365, OneDrive, Teams, SharePoint, Power BI, Power Apps, etc.

Software as a Service – First Coast Technology cloud hosted

• PaperTrail document management system

Software as a Service – SHEQsys hosted

• SHEQsys quality management system (for complaints logging)

Software as a Service – Mimecast hosted

• Mimecast cyber threat protection for email

Software as a Service – Vox and Ocular Technologies hosted (on Teraco cloud)

• Vox telephony and Ocular O!Connect contact centre solution

Connectivity ECSA's Bruma head office is connected via fibre and microwave links. Home-based users have laptops with Telkom mobile broadband dongles.

3.8 ICT systems history: the past five years ECSA relies on its computer systems to respond to the needs of the organisation as it delivers on its mandate. For some years, these computer systems have not been functioning to the level required by the business. The cost in terms of lost reputation and uncollected income has been high.

In 2017 ECSA migrated from legacy system ORISYS to Dynamics 365 CRM/Sage Evolution In 2017, ECSA migrated from a legacy custom-developed computer system (ORISYS) to a customised Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM. The migration proved sub-optimal in that a) many records relating to registered persons (e.g. engineers/stakeholders) were damaged, duplicated or missed during the Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) process; and b) some business processes were not automated end-to-end, leaving steps to be handled manually, off the system. Much data clean-up has been done and



some systems remediation has taken place, but the Dynamics system is still performing below expectation. This has frustrated Council, staff, management, and stakeholders.

Under new leadership ECSA is building the foundation for a future fundamental transformation of the business model Under a new Council (akin to a non-executive board of directors) and executive leadership, ECSA has confirmed its commitment to digitalisation as a strategic imperative. The renovation project is foundational to digitalisation and there is strong commitment to making it happen.

In 2021 ECSA completed a project to "mobilise" the workforce. All staff can now work from home with laptop and broadband connectivity. ICT has migrated to Microsoft Office in the cloud, replaced the desk-phone system and PABX with a cloud-based telephony and collaboration platform. The contact centre has been brought in house supported by a cloud-based call-centre platform. ECSA's website is being renewed. ICT has delivered the first Power BI dashboards.

Business units are committed to working closely with the renovation partner Bidders are assured that business units have been closely involved in the documentation of their requirements in this RFP. Managers and staff are highly motivated to work alongside the renovation partner to deliver a strong solution. The operational and individual performance plans for Education, Registration, CPD, Legal and ICT include performance measures to reward an effective partnership during development and testing.

4 MANDATE FOR ECSA'S RENOVATION AND DIGITALISATION PROGRAMME

ECSA's strategic ICT projects are propelled by two strategic drivers of change:

a) ECSA is playing technological catch up, held back by processes and systems that are manual, outdated, inefficient and risky; and

b) ECSA is playing “customer orientation” catch up and is “determined to reorient our systems, people and processes towards customer orientation and customer-centric approach”.

Not content with merely catching up, ECSA views the digitalisation programme as making possible a fundamental transformation of the ECSA business model in terms of how it delivers value to its stakeholders.

The Covid-19 pandemic made digital transformation more urgent as external stakeholders and staff working from home relied more heavily on digital platforms. Indeed, ECSA is already a digital workforce following the recent ICT improvements mentioned above.

The Council’s digitalisation mandate is further established within the ECSA strategic plan 2021-25 and Annual Performance Plans. A three-year ICT Strategic Plan 2022-2025 identifies 6 Critical Success Factors (CSFs) and 46 initiatives that support the corporate strategic plan and digitalisation.

Almost all stakeholder-related functions are performed using Microsoft Dynamics 365 (CRM), Microsoft Power Apps Portals, Sage Evolution and PaperTrail together with many manual off-the-system manual processes. The lack of end-to-end automated processes results in too many stakeholder queries, slow turnaround times, and dissatisfied stakeholders.

The entire programme of work set out in the 3-year ICT strategic plan is split into three streams:



Stream 1. THE SUBJECT OF THIS RFP. Renovate and build on ECSA’s existing systems investment, including the customised Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, Microsoft Portal, ERP, document management and adding a data warehouse. This stream will greatly improve the customer experience, back-office process efficiency, and cross-organisation collaboration. The result: fewer customer queries, shortened turnaround times, and higher stakeholder satisfaction. STREAM 1 IS THE SUBJECT OF THIS RFP.

Stream 2. OUT OF SCOPE FOR THIS RFP. Further Digitalisation of the entire ECSA value chain to effect a fundamental transformation of the ECSA business model. This stream goes beyond renovating the existing systems and processes by exploiting new technologies and data sources; and by fostering an innovation-driven business culture. The focus is on an omni-channel customer experience, predicting stakeholder needs, reducing friction. ECSA will become more proactive, more agile, and more relevant to its stakeholders. This stream is planned for 2023 and is NOT in scope for this RPF. In 2023, a digitalisation partner will be appointed to help ECSA deliver this.

Stream 3. OUT OF SCOPE FOR THIS RFP. An organisational transformation to build digital skills, develop more mature processes and entrench better ICT service and governance. Essentially, everything that is NOT in streams 1 and 2.

Stream 3 is already underway (from Nov 2021) and is expected to run for the duration of the ICT strategic plan to 2025. ECSA expects to run most of this work in house.

5 SCOPE OF WORK FOR THIS RFP This section sets out the scope of work and provides some guidance on the approach.

5.1 Renovate and add, rather than bulldoze and rebuild As already explained – but repeated here for emphasis – ECSA does NOT want to replace its current systems. Although the 2017 migration from our legacy system was sub-optimal, the underlying CRM and ERP technology is sound.

What follows below is a scoping of a complete system – a system that spans end-to-end the business processes supporting the core mandate of the organisation; a system that fully supports the purpose of the business.

The system must be renovated in such a manner that operations are NOT performed in silos and that information flows through the processes of qualification accreditation, registration, CPD, and legal case management without the need for off-the-system workarounds.

The renovation partner must deliver an integrated system that meet the requirements set out in section 6, REQUIREMENTS

5.2 Recommend Robotic Process Automation where appropriate There may be cases where building a traditional integration between two systems is not feasible owing to cost, complexity, or time constraints. In such cases, robotic process automation (RPA) could be an appropriate solution. The renovation partner should make a recommendation on a case-



by-case basis. ECSA preferred RPA tool is Microsoft Power Automate and Power Automate for desktop.

Use of Azure Functions and Logic Apps may be considered. In their proposals, bidders should explain how they would approach such RPA work, stating any assumptions made.

5.3 Schematic of system capabilities and platforms The required system capabilities and platforms are headlined in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1. Required system capabilities with current and likely future platforms

5.4 Summary of deliverables The renovation partner will deliver the following:

1. Skills and knowledge of Dynamics 365 CRM, portal, chatbot and integration components transferred from the renovation partner to ECSA ICT staff such that ECSA's core systems can be maintained in house to limit dependence on external service providers.

2. Documents that demonstrate for each business process a shared understanding by the partner and ECSA product owners of the detailed requirements (and definition of done) for each business process, so that components are built and tested to an agreed specification.



3. A clear definition of the delegations of authority (obtained from Executive: Regulatory Functions) pertaining to the ownership of registered person records so that there is a single point of responsibility for approving, cancelling, and reinstating a registration.

4. A Dynamics 365 CRM system integrated with Sage Evolution such that routine ICT intervention to support annual billing is no longer required.

5. A renovated and extended Dynamics 365 CRM system that handles business processes operated by Education, Registration, CPD, QMP, and Legal business units.

6. A renovated ECSA portal that is user-friendly and secure, and is expanded to include Higher Education Institutions, Voluntary Associations, Licensed Bodies, Academies, and CPD Service Providers.

7. A case management system that handles Legal cases arising from complaints/allegations of improper conduct by registered persons.

8. A Dynamics 365 CRM system and portal integrated with Sage Evolution, PaperTrail, SagePay, Netcash, O!Connect and SHEQsys.

9. An "intelligent" chatbot accessible from the ECSA portal and ECSA website that provides registered persons with immediate answers to simple queries and can hand off to a human contact centre operator during office hours.

10. A centralised data warehouse or data mart, refreshed daily, that supports strategic and operational decision-making.

11. Power BI reports and dashboards that provide predefined visualisations but allow filtering, slicing and dicing across key dimensions including the time dimension.

12. Power BI services that provide power users with self-service reporting capabilities.

13. Paginated reports that satisfy current business needs – that can be extracted in either Excel or PDF format.

14. Users trained to operate the renovated system.

15. Source code and customisations written for ECSA that are needed to maintain ECSA's customised CRM and integrations with other ECSA systems.

6 REQUIREMENTS

6.1 Transfer skills to ECSA's in house ICT team We have placed this item first to emphasise its importance. ECSA is determined to build in-house capacity to maintain and support its core systems. Bidders should present a credible plan with SMART goals to transfer expertise and knowledge to the ECSA team.

Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant Time-based



Bidders should indicate the skills that an in-house ICT team will need to support ECSA's implementation of Dynamics 365 CRM, the Power Apps portal, the new data warehouse, as well as the integrations with other systems. Measurement is very important. How will ECSA measure the skills levels achieved?

To facilitate skills transfer, ECSA wishes to embed its analyst-programmer and software developer within the partner’s development team. Loading will be at 75%. In their response, but without quoting specific Rand amounts, bidders should indicate in principle how this will affect their bid pricing.

6.2 Overhaul and extend the ECSA portal Note that the ECSA portal will become the primary interface for submission of applications. However, a small percentage of applicants will want to submit via email or courier. In such cases, ECSA staff will need to capture the application directly into the CRM.

The ECSA portal is built using Microsoft Power App Portals (formerly known as Dynamics 365 Portals). Stakeholders (e.g. engineers) complain that the portal is difficult to use. Consequently, only 20% of applications for registration arrive via the portal. The remaining 80% of traffic arrives by courier or email. ECSA wants to reverse those figures.

ECSA also wants to expand the functionality offered by its stakeholder-facing portal to serve Higher Education Institutions, Voluntary Associations, Academies, Licensed Bodies and CPD Service Providers. Currently, only engineers are served – they can submit applications for registration and upload CPD activities.

The renovation partner will review the portal with CPD, Education and Registration business units, understand their problems and agree a redesign that greatly improves the user experience.

6.3 Plug the process gaps in the existing CRM system At the compulsory briefing session, ECSA will demo the current Dynamics 365 CRM system and portal.

Currently, much work is performed off the system because either, a) the process was never built, or b) the process was partially built but the business will not use it until the process runs end-to-end on the system. The partner will renovate and build onto the system to complete the missing functionality in each business process.

This is where the bulk of the application development work lies.

Bidders should indicate how they propose to meet this requirement. See the rest of this section as well as Appendix A for more detailed coverage of the business processes.

6.3.1 Process flowchart for headline processes

A simplified process flow is shown in Figure 2 below.



Figure 2. Simplified process flow for core business processes

A. Education: Accreditation of Engineering Programs

B. Academy: Manage the establishment and monitoring of ECSA Academies

C. Registration: Registration of individuals in various categories

D. Continuing Professional Development: Maintenance of Registered Persons' CPD

E. CPD Standard

F. Improper Conduct Cases: Management of Conduct Cases of Registered Persons

G. Billing: Billing of Applications and Registered Persons

H. Recognise Voluntary Association: Recognition of Voluntary Associations

6.3.2 Core business processes (summary)

There are 10 process domains, one of which is currently out of scope. These decompose into 53 processes, of which 16 require renovation, and 37 need to be built. These are listed in Table 1 below.



We have categorised processes as follows:

a) Renovate. These processes were built but are incomplete or not working as they should.

b) Build. These processes were never built.

c) No action. These processes are already working as intended. Just don't break them.

d) Out of scope. These items have not been clearly defined and will be handled later via project change control.

Refer to Appendix A, BUSINESS PROCESS DESCRIPTIONS for a more detailed description of the business processes and reports.

Table 1: Functional decomposition of ECSA core business processes

Ref. Process domain Business Process Name Process Map

Action

A.1 Accreditation of Engineering Programs

1.1 Evaluate a new programme (Endorsement) Yes Build

1.2 Accredit an existing programme Yes Build

1.3 Evaluate an education qualification Yes Renovate

A.2 Manage the establishment and monitoring of ECSA Academies (Certification and Accreditation)

2.1 Evaluate certification application from a prospective Academy

Yes Build

2.2 Approve certification of a prospective Academy

No Build

2.3 Evaluate accreditation application for an individual training programme

No Build

2.4 Approve accreditation for an individual training programme

No Build

2.5 Manage Candidate Training and Engineering Reports [Registration BU]

No Build

2.6 Process Academy Candidate application for Professional Registration

No Build

2.7 Train Assessors in Academy certification [by Registration BU]

No Build

2.8 Monitor Academy Candidates [by Registration BU]

No Build

A.3 Registration of individuals in various categories

3.1 Process application for candidate registration (in one of five categories)

Yes Renovate

3.2 Process application for professional registration (in one of four categories)

Yes Renovate

3.3 Process application for registration (in one of nine specified categories)

No Renovate




Action

3.4 Process application for registration (in one of four international registers)

No Renovate

3.5 Generate certificate for newly registered person (owned by Office of the CEO)

No Build

3.6 Process re-registration application in any registration category

No Renovate

3.7 Cancel registration No Renovate

3.8 Process application for C&U No Build

3.9 Generate C&U certificate for employer [Office of the CEO]

No Build

3.10 Monitor industry C&U No Build

A.4 Maintenance of Registered Persons' CPD

4.1 Record CPD credits Yes Renovate

4.2 Renew registration No Renovate

4.3 Process CPD exemption application No Renovate

4.4 Audit recorded CPD activities for registered persons (see rule 11 of the CPD rules on website)

No Build

4.5 Request Registration BU to cancel registration due to CPD non-compliance

No Build

4.6 Search website for validated activities No Renovate

4.7 Process reinstatement request [owned by Registration BU]

No Build

4.8 Process re-registration application [owned by Registration BU]

No Build

4.9 Flag legal investigation or hold on cancellation

N/A Build

A.5 CPD Standard 5.1 Process application to be recognised as a Licensed Body

No Build

5.2 Process application to be verified as a CPD Service Provider

No Build

5.3 Process application for validation of a CPD Activity

No Build

5.4. Audit and review a Licensed Body, CPD Service Provider or Voluntary Association

No Build

A.6 Recognition of 6.1 Approve Voluntary Association Yes Build




Action

Voluntary Associations

6.2 Audit Voluntary Association No Build

6.3 Cancel Recognition of VA No Build

6.4 Renew VA Recognition No Build

A.7 Management of Improper Conduct Case against a Registered Person

7.1 Process complaint of improper conduct Yes Build

7.2 Manage disciplinary hearing No Build

7.3 Process appeal No Build

7.4 Process criminal case No Build

7.5 Provide reports and dashboards No Build

A.8 Billing of Applications and Registered Persons

8.1 Perform billing No Renovate

8.2 Process application for exemption and/or extension

No Renovate

8.3 Process reinstatement No Renovate

8.4 Process application for retired status No Build

8.5 Facilitate online payments No Renovate

8.6 Generate invoices and statements No Renovate

A.9 Handle Customer Queries and Complaints

9.1 Handle customer queries and complaints: Yes

a) via email to [email protected] No Action

b) via the customer Contact Centre Build

c) via the ECSA portal Build

d) via a chatbot Build

e) via WhatsApp and SMS No Action

f) via social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube

Build

6.4 Build and deploy a chatbot on the ECSA portal and website ECSA wishes to reduce the workload on contact centre and Finance staff by deploying a chatbot that can handle routine queries 24/7. The added benefit will be a superior experience for the engineer, academy, CPD service provider, voluntary association, licensed body, or educational institution that wants an answer to a routine question.

With support from the renovation partner, subject matter experts will be able to identify the types of queries that a chatbot can reliably handle. With guidance, they will prepare trigger phrases,

mailto:[email protected]



describe topics, entities, synonyms, conditions, and dialogues needed for the partner to build the chatbot.

The chatbot must integrate with Dynamics 365 and Sage Evolution to get answers to person-specific queries such as account balance, next renewal date, renewal status, etc. Consideration must be given to ensuring that, when divulging person-specific information such as an account balance, the person interacting with the chatbot is in fact who they say they are.

The chatbot must provide for real-time hand off to a contact centre operator during office hours. The chatbot will also take a message for the contact centre and create or update a query in the O!Connect call centre system. A complaint logged via the chatbot must generate a record in SHEQsys. A stakeholder should be able to see the status of their query or complaint via the chatbot.

6.5 Design, build, populate and deploy a data warehouse ECSA maintains an operational database of approximately 52 000 registered persons. Being stored in Microsoft Dynamics 35 CRM (in the Dataverse), the database model is complex and difficult for business users to understand. Running analytics against a transactional database also risks a performance hit that will slow down response times for users.

A centralised data warehouse will provide business users with easy-to-understand, high performance reporting and analytics without compromising operational performance.

ECSA currently uses Power BI connected to Excel data sources extracted manually from the CRM system. This is a recent development and a short cut to delivering useful dashboards to the business. The requirement is for a complete data warehouse (DW) that is relevant, easy for the user to understand, efficient to access with Power BI, and does not materially impact the performance of our operational systems.

It is vital that executive management is consulted so that their strategic-level requirements are met, so that the warehouse becomes a strategic decision support tool, not just an operational tool.

Ref Category Business Requirement Process Map?

Owner

BR.5 Design, build and deploy data warehouse

5.1 Design, build, populate and deploy (and keep fresh) a data warehouse.

N/A ICT

5.2 Grant staff and leadership secure access to the data warehouse

N/A ICT

5.3 Train execs, managers, and selected staff (30 max). ICT to support HR as owner

N/A HR

6.5.1 Design, build, deploy (and refresh) a data warehouse

The ECSA data warehouse must:

a) Make information easily accessible to business users.



b) Supports strategic level and operational level analytics, reports, visualisations, and self-discovery of insights.

c) Present information consistently.

d) Be refreshed with latest data on a daily and/or weekly basis as determined in consultation with the business.

e) Be adaptive to change so that future requirements can be accommodated.

f) Be secure.

g) Serve as a foundation for improved decision making.

h) Be designed in consultation with the business so that they buy into and accept the delivered solution.

i) Be hosted in Microsoft Azure.

j) Be accessible using Microsoft's Power BI service.

Operational Source Systems:

1) Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM Sales (data stored in Microsoft Dataverse)

2) Sage Evolution ERP housing financial data including receivables and payables.

3) SHEQsys Quality Management System (recording stakeholder complaints).

4) Sage 300 People system containing information about employees.

5) Ocular O!Connect Contact Centre (regular extracts available in CSV format) for metrics about contact centre call handling.

6) Jira Service Management system (via regular CSV extract or via API calls if feasible) for data about IT service performance.

Other sources for consideration:

1) Maps of Africa and South Africa onto which data can be overlaid.

2) Publicly available data about South African demographics.

3) StatsSA data about population growth, economic growth, inflation, and other relevant statistics.

4) Provinces, metropolitan and district municipalities, postal codes.

6.5.2 Grant staff and leadership secure access to the data warehouse

ECSA wants to provide leadership and staff with access to information about the business on a need-to-know basis. Some of this data (e.g. some HR people data) may be sensitive or confidential. An access model is needed that ensures that users accessing the data warehouse though Power BI or other interfaces see what they are allowed to see.

6.5.3 Train execs, managers, and selected staff (30 max)

Train up to 30 execs, managers and selected staff in how to use the dimensions and facts in the data warehouse. Most already have Power BI training using Excel data sources.



Bidders should set out their proposed solution, including but not limited to:

• what technologies and platforms will be used

• what data warehouse model will be used

• how business requirements will be collected

• how data will be extracted from source systems

• how the extracted data will be cleaned and transformed

• how the data warehouse will be updated with fresh data

• how access rights will be determined and implemented

• how staff and leadership will be trained to make the most of the data in the warehouse

• any licenses that ECSA will need to purchase (their cost should be itemised in the separate pricing proposal)

• the name of the consultant(s) who will do the work, and a link to their CV(s).

6.6 Develop reports, visualisations and dashboards The table below lists the minimum system report requirement for the purpose of scoping the work. It is not exhaustive; more report requirements will be discussed during user requirements workshops and handled via project scope change control. The system must provide for pre-defined and run-time-defined reports, paginated reports, visualisations and dashboards.

The handful of existing dashboards will be updated to get data from the DW instead of Excel.

Bidders will need to gather detailed requirements from product owners and reach consensus on whether a report is better presented as a visualisation on a dashboard, or as a paginated report that can be emailed to an external stakeholder.

The handful of existing Power BI dashboards need to be updated to get data from the DW instead of from Excel.

Ref Functional Area Report Owner

BR.6 6.1 Accreditation of ECSA Engineering Programs

Accreditation

a) Monthly accreditation report

b) Type of Accreditation conducted

c) Period of accreditation for a specific university

d) List of active assessors

e) List of active assessors and categories of registration and specialty

Education




Programme Evaluation

a) List of institution evaluated

b) List of institution programmes

c) List of institution outcomes

d) All of the above on one list

Education Evaluation

a) Turnaround times of application

b) The number of evaluated applications for any period

c) The outcome of the applications per category

d) Number of interviews concluded

e) Number of interviews concluded per category of registration

6.2 Accreditation of ECSA recognised training and development academies

Progress on candidate training towards the achievement of program outcomes/graduate attributes per candidate, per gender, race, province, category, discipline (demographics)

Registration

6.3 Registration of individuals in various categories

To be specified by the Registration Manager, and costed later under change control

Registration

6.4 Maintenance of Members CPD

To be specified and costed later under change control

CPD

6.5 CPD Standard To be specified and costed later under change control

CPD

6.6 Management of Conduct Cases of Registered Persons

Reports listed in section A.7.5 Provide reports and dashboards

Legal

6.7 Billing of Applications and Registered Persons

To be specified and costed later under change control

Finance




6.8 Recognition of Voluntary Associations

Enable the Stakeholder Relations and Marketing Manager to login to the system to view the dashboard and reports as follows:

a) Reports should reflect the names of and the duration of the recognition and the declined applications

b) Dashboard should be able to track the status of the application process

c) Reports should enable a reflection of audit results

CPD

6.9 Handling of queries coming into the Contact Centre – voice calls, email, chatbot

Connect existing dashboard to the data warehouse and renovate it

QMP

6.10 Dashboard display of registered person demographics with drill down and filtering

Connect existing dashboard to the data warehouse and renovate it

Registration

6.11 Report of active C&Us

List of C&Us with organisation name, registration number, cycle dates, mentor names

Registration

6.12 Executive reports and dashboards

Cross-cutting reports and dashboards that provide organisation wide and executive function wide analytics

CEO and 4 Executives

6.7 Train internal users of the CRM system As modules are released into the production environment, the renovation partner must work alongside the BU managers to ensure that users of a module are competent to operate it.

6.8 Ensure data integrity and input validation A key deliverable, needed early in the project, is a clear definition of the delegations of authority pertaining to the ownership of registered person records so that there is a single point of responsibility for approving, cancelling, and reinstating a registered person.

The Engineering Professions Act (EPA) specifically tasks ECSA with protecting the integrity of the registered persons database. Consequently, this is a critical priority for the organisation and the Executive: Regulatory Functions is the official custodian of the registered persons database. As such, this executive will delegate responsibility for the various updates that are routinely made to registered person records: initial registration, renewal, cancellation, data fix, etc. This delegation of authority (DoA) needs to be agreed and documented – probably as a RACI chart – and then



operationalised into the CRM system and portal. The outcome is a well-controlled registered person database where one business unit cannot change the status of a registered person without complying with the rules enforced by another business unit. No more silos.

The renovation partner will work with Executive: Regulatory Functions and with business stakeholders to establish the delegations of authority. Once approved by Executive: Regulatory Functions, the partner will operationalise the DoA within the CRM system.

In addition to the above controls, the system must validate data at time of capture and include data lookups to prevent typing errors on fields that should not be free format text.

When a user enters a physical address, the system must ensure that the correct postcode is also entered by means of an intelligent look up facility.

The system should, if feasible, integrate with systems at, or approved by, the Department of Home Affairs to verify living status and name for a given South African ID number.

6.9 Verifiable certificates A minor change is needed to the existing approach to make it easier to check the validity of a certificate. Currently the certificate includes a long, printed URL linking to the certificate stored in PaperTrail. A shorter URL will make for easier typing, and a label reading “Verify this certificate at:” would help too. Bidders may proposal other solutions that will protect against fraudulent certificates. ECSA will directly engage the PaperTrail vendor to make any changes defined by the renovation partner.

6.10 Integrate with PaperTrail DMS The CRM already integrates with PaperTrail but this needs to be tighter. The CRM system and ECSA portal must have two-way integration with the PaperTrail Document Management System (DMS) to store and retrieve documents. Documents include but are not restricted to invoices, statements, applications (in the sense of an engineer applying to be registered with ECSA), supporting documentation, evaluation reports, South African identity document or foreign passport (scanned as image or PDF), etc.

An example of the needed integration is: Automatically upload from the CRM/portal all finalised documents relating to a registration renewal application once it has been formally approved, and then flush the registered person’s document library from their portal page.

6.11 Integrate with Sage (Pastel) Evolution ERP The system must be more tightly integrated with the Sage Evolution ERP that ECSA uses for financial accounting. Sage maintains a set of APIs which may assist. The CRM must trigger the creation of an applicant’s debtors account, as well as for invoicing – both ad hoc and annual (every April).

A custom developed middleware module (C# and Javascript) currently passes billing information to the ERP which then raises invoices. This needs to be improved so that Finance can conduct the annual billing without routine ICT intervention.



The chatbot must be able to pull an account balance for a registered person and trigger a request for statement.

6.12 Integrate with SHEQsys QMS ECSA currently uses the SHEQsys Quality Management System (QMS) to handle stakeholder complaints. The CRM system must easily display related complaints recorded in SHEQsys when viewing a person record in the CRM. A stakeholder must be able to log or view a complaint in SHEQsys from within their portal page or from the chatbot.

To access SHEQsys via its API, the SHEQsys vendor would need to develop a custom endpoint. Bidders may propose a simpler solution.

6.13 Integrate with Ocular O!Connect contact centre system ECSA currently uses Ocular's O!Connect cloud-based contact centre solution to handle stakeholder queries. The CRM system must easily display related queries recorded in O!Connect when viewing a person record in the CRM. A stakeholder must be able to log a query from the ECSA portal or chatbot, and have it automatically created in O!Connect. Similarly, they must be able to view the status of a query or complaint they have logged.

6.14 Maintain integration with SagePay/Netcash payment gateway ECSA uses SagePay and Netcash to accept online payments in respect of applications and annual fees. The billing system and portal must continue to integrate with our existing payment gateway, Netcash, for credit card and EFT processing in ZAR currency.

The gateway already works via a QR code on the invoice. The portal implementation of the gateway requires some renovation.

6.15 Integrate with SMS and WhatsApp For bulk and individual communication to applicants, registered persons and all ECSA stakeholders, the system must have integration with SMS and WhatsApp.

ECSA also wishes to deploy WhatsApp chat capabilities similar to those of a chatbot.

6.16 Integrate with social media platforms ECSA is present on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. The system must be able to pick up and record queries and comments raised within these platforms.

If feasible, the system should post a response back to those platforms under the original post. If not feasible, the partner should advise SRM business unit how to create a generic response on the platform.



6.17 Advanced search options on ECSA portal The public part of the ECSA portal must provide advanced search functionality to look up/filter: registered persons, voluntary associations, CPD activities, CPD service providers, and licensed bodies.

The website currently provides for a member of the public to search for a registered person, a validated CPD activity, a licensed body and voluntary association. Except for the registered persons search, behind the scenes, the website simply links to the public part of the ECSA portal. However, the search options are limited to a simple search on one field. An advanced search/filter is needed to provide a richer more functional search experience using a variety of search/filter fields. The registered persons search should be moved from the website to the portal. Changes to the links on the website will be handled outside this RFP.

See the current search at https://engineeringcouncilsa.microsoftcrmportals.com/cpd-activities/

6.18 Compliance with POPIA The system must support ECSA's compliance to the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).

Bidders should indicate in their response what experience they have in these areas.

On the portal where we collect a data subject's personal information, data subjects must consent to ECSA processing their personal information. A link to our privacy policy and POPIA forms must be displayed.

6.19 System performance System performance expectation for renovated modules: screen transitions and response times to be equal to or faster than average pre-renovated values. New modules' performance to be no worse than renovated modules on average.

6.20 System security If custom integrations are developed, good cybersecurity practices should be implemented to prevent malware injections, data leaks and breaches.

7 PLAN OF APPROACH

7.1 A fixed price for a fixed scope of work ECSA asks bidders to quote a fixed price for a fixed scope of work. The business requirements set out in this document provide this fixed scope.

PLEASE DO NOT INCLUDE ANY PRICING IMFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT. THE FINANCIAL PROPOSAL MUST BE IN A SEPARATE SEALED DOCUMENT.

https://www.ecsa.co.za/SitePages/Who%20is%20Registered.aspx

https://www.ecsa.co.za/SitePages/Who%20is%20Registered.aspx

https://engineeringcouncilsa.microsoftcrmportals.com/cpd-activities/

https://engineeringcouncilsa.microsoftcrmportals.com/cpd-activities/



7.2 Dealing with scope change Bidders should expect the scope to change as the project progresses, and such scope changes will be handled according to an agreed change control process.

To control its project budget ECSA may choose to trade an increase in scope in one process with a scope reduction in another process. A fair, efficient, low-friction mechanism for this trading needs to be put in place.

7.3 Onboarding the team and building business knowledge Bidders should propose a cogent plan to onboard their resources at ECSA, acclimatise them, and quickly grow their business process knowledge and professional relationships. The successful bidder will have access to the following resources to assist with this:

• the ECSA website

• PaperTrail DMS – policies, procedures and standards for each business process

• Process experts in the business units and ICT

7.4 Software development approach Bidders should consider how they propose to:

a) Approach the renovation using plan-driven (waterfall) and/or agile methods to deliver value incrementally.

b) Phase the project: epics, sprints or stages.

c) Validate and groom the requirements from business.

d) Document, store and make visible the product backlog, issues and roadblocks.

e) Provide tool support. Does ECSA need to license any tools to support the project? If so, name them here but include costs in the separate pricing proposal.

f) Help ECSA decide what features are not cost-effective and should be rejected.

g) Test the deliverables and obtain sign-off from the product owner.

h) Process a new requirement from a business unit. Would you accept it without challenge? What steps would you go through before developing the change?

i) Handle a requirement that cannot be implemented within the Dynamics 365 CRM but requires custom development.

j) Get approval from ECSA for work done so it can be billed.

k) Handle a difference of opinion between bidder and ECSA so that any conflict is managed and resolved.

Bear in mind that a variety of requests need to be handled, including Dynamics 365 CRM customisation, chatbot co-development with users, C# programming to build new (and modify existing) specialised components, using REST APIs, Power Automate, and other methods to integrate the Dynamics 365 CRM, Sage Evolution, PaperTrail, chatbot, O!Connect, SHEQsys and ECSA portal.

https://www.ecsa.co.za/



7.5 Project governance ECSA proposes the following ECSA representation on a project board or steering committee. Note that attendance will be determined according to need – the intention is to have the right representation on the committee at the right time.

• Project Director/Chairperson (ECSA): Brings an ECSA-wide perspective, weighs business unit priorities, makes the tough decisions, and approves delivered work for payment.

• Product Owner: Education BU. Will sign off delivered work on behalf of the BU.

• Product Owner: Registration BU. Will approve delivered work on behalf of the BU.

• Product Owner: CPD BU. Will sign off delivered work on behalf of the BU.

• Product Owner: Legal BU. Will sign off delivered work on behalf of the BU.

• Product Owner: Finance BU. Will sign off delivered work on behalf of the BU.

• Product Owner: QMP BU. Will sign off delivered work on behalf of the BU and ensure that a quality management process is in place.

• Product Owner: SRM BU. Will sign off delivered work on behalf of the BU and execute the project communications plan set out in the project charter.

• Human Resources representative: Will address the project's impact on job roles and job content.

• Manager, ICT: Will represent ICT unit's interests – security, skills transfer, policy adherence, production releases.

• Manager, ICT Strategic Interventions: Review project management and software deliverables from the partner. Deputise for the project director/chairperson.

• Ad hoc ECSA representatives on a need-to-attend basis.

ECSA asks bidders to propose a project governance framework that considers ECSA's need for an oversight committee. Bidders should indicate which roles they propose to add to the committee, as well as their proposals for effective project governance and risk management.

Bidders should also name the account manager who will be the escalation point for issues that cannot be resolved by the project manager.

7.6 Project timelines ECSA hopes to appoint the winning bidder by mid-June 2022. In their proposals, bidders should indicate by when they will be able to start and set out their expected timelines for each phase of the project. A monthly granularity is sufficient.

8 EVALUATION CRITERIA Bidder proposals will be evaluated in four stages.

Stage 1: Validating that the bid is complete and complies with Supply Chain and ICT minimum requirements.

Stage 2: Evaluation of the technical quality of the proposal. A score of 80% is required to go through to the next stage.



Stage 3: Demonstrations of capability, and reference checks. A score of 80% is required to go through to the next stage.

Stage 4: Financial and BBBEE evaluation.

Stage Criteria Score Weighting

1. Administrative and pre-evaluation criteria

1.1 Does the proposal meet Supply Chain criteria for a valid bid?

A bid is eliminated if it fails this step

Not applicable

1.2 Does bidder agree to commit named individuals in key roles for the duration of the project?2

A bid is eliminated if bidder does not agree

Not applicable

1.3 Is bidder a Microsoft Silver or Gold Partner with competency in Dynamics 365 CRM?

A bid is eliminated if it fails this step

Not applicable

2. Technical Evaluation 2.1 Quality of proposals for renovation and building onto existing core systems

50 points

2.2 Quality of proposed plan of approach 25 points

2.3 Quality of proposed data warehouse solution 15 points

2.4 SMART skills transfer plan to make ECSA ICT self-sufficient

10 points

Subtotal (stage 2) 80 points required to proceed to stage 3 100 points

3. Demonstrations, Presentations & Client References

3.1 Ability to deliver the proposed core systems solutions

65 points

3.2 Ability to deliver the proposed data warehouse solution

25 points

3.3 Alignment with ECSA's values and quality culture

10 points

Subtotal (stage 3) 80 points required to proceed to stage 4 100 points

4. Financial Fixed price and day rates quoted by bidder 80 points

5. BBBEE Level of Contributor: 1=20, 2=18, 3=14, 4=12, 5=8, 6=6, 7=4, 8=2, Non-compliant=0

20 points

2 The Partner shall apply reasonable endeavours to avoid churn in the core team. If the Partner replaces a member of the

team, ECSA reserves the right to vet and approve/decline the proposed replacement; and the Partner will bear the entire cost to ECSA of bringing the replacement up to speed. Unless shown otherwise, this cost is assumed to be two person-months of effort.



Stage Criteria Score Weighting

Subtotal (stages 4 and 5)

100 points

APPENDIX A BUSINESS PROCESS DESCRIPTIONS

A.1. Accreditation of Engineering Programmes Accreditation of Engineering is a formal recognition awarded to an Education or Training Programme through a quality assurance procedure that ensured it met the criteria laid down for the type of programme.

The following business process functions should be implemented:

Ref. Category Business Process Function Process Map?

Owner

A.1 Accreditation of Engineering Programs

1.1 Evaluate a new programme (Endorsement) Yes Education

1.2 Accredit an existing programme Yes Education

1.3 Evaluate an education qualification Yes Education

A.1.1. Evaluate a new programme (Endorsement)

The process of endorsement entails the high-level consideration of a programme and is not part of ECSA’s formal process of accreditation. The endorsement review only requires reference to the ECSA standard relevant to that qualification and indicates to the Council on Higher Education (CHE) that the basic elements of an engineering programme are present in terms of the fundamental building blocks of a robust engineering offering in line with E-PRO-END-001 (Process of Endorsement of Programmes).

A provider wishing to obtain initial endorsement from CHE for a new programme must apply for endorsement with ECSA before submitting the new programme to CHE and SAQA for registration.

On receipt of the application ECSA assembles a review panel to evaluate the programme online. This leads to an outcome report on the prescribed ECSA template. The final step involves the education officer compiling an outcome letter based on the report, using a template.

The system must automate the following endorsement processes:

a) Endorsement/Initial Evaluation: This is an electronic evaluation of a proposed programme that the provider seeks to offer after initial evaluation by CHE and registration with SAQA. The initial evaluation will be in accordance with the applicable ECSA qualification standard.

b) Desktop Evaluation: This is a comprehensive electronic evaluation of an existing unaccredited programme that produces graduates or is still to produce graduates.

The system must be able to:



a) Accept applications submitted via their ECSA portal page together with supporting documents and record these in the CRM system.

b) Generate an acknowledgement message to the applicant via their preferred communication channel.

c) Generate an alert to [email protected] that a new application has been received.

d) Provide for the Education Manager (or their delegate) to appoint the assessor team (from a pool of qualified assessors) and record their names on the system. One of the team members is appointed as the team leader.

e) Generate and send the appointment letters to the assessor team.

f) The team of assessors will perform their assessment and compile an evaluation report with comments and recommendations – and the team leader uploads it onto the portal.

g) On receipt of the report, if the education manager is satisfied that the report complies with the ECSA procedures and standards they will generate an outcome letter to be forwarded to the institution.

h) If the outcome is negative the outcome letter will include reasons and deficiencies to be rectified. The applicant may resubmit their revised application after correcting the deficiencies. The same assessor team will re-evaluate the revised submission.

i) If feedback is negative, institution will resubmit (usually within 2 weeks) and repeat (i.e. reassess) from point “f” until final outcome

Process Map: Evaluation of New Programs

A.1.2. Accredit an existing programme

An accreditation is a formal recognition awarded to an Education or Training Programme through a quality assurance procedure that ensures it meets the criteria laid down for the type of programme.

The accreditation policy accommodates face-to-face, blended (hybrid) and fully online programmes:

• that are already offered but are still to produce first-time graduates (provisional accreditation)

• that are already offered, producing graduates and were previously accredited – either provisionally or regularly (regular accreditation).

The system must automate the following accreditation sub-processes:

• Pre-Accreditation Activities

• Post Accreditation Activities

• EC Meeting Activities


https://www.ecsa.co.za/ICT%20Spec/Evalaution%20of%20New%20Programmes.pdf



On receipt of EC approval of the type of accreditation review, a self-study in accordance with the policy in document E-12-P that is appropriate to the type of evaluation must be submitted as specified in Table 1 of document E-12-P.


Perform Pre-Accreditation activities as follows:

a) Begin with provisional accreditation whereby the institution writes to ECSA to request accreditation of their programme.

b) In the case of a provisional accreditation application, accept, via the ECSA portal page, a notification from the education provider requesting provisional accreditation. ECSA will generate a formal notification letter to the vice chancellor of the institution. The actual accreditation date will be added to the accreditation schedule.

c) In the case of a regular accreditation application, generate a notification to the education provider 12 months before the expiry of the regular accreditation. The education provider will submit a formal request for regular accreditation via their portal page. The actual accreditation date will be added to the accreditation schedule.

d) Accept self-study document submission via their ECSA portal page no later than 6 weeks before the accreditation date. Record the submission in the CRM. The system will generate a reminder to education officer when this is due.

e) On receipt of the submission, generate an acknowledgement message to the institution via their preferred communication channel.

f) Generate an alert to [email protected] that a new application has been received.

g) Provide for the education officer to appoint the assessor team (from a pool of qualified assessors) and record their names on the system. The assessor panel must comprise of a) an accreditation panel leader, b) accreditation panel deputy leader, and c) discipline-specific team leaders. Each specific team must comprise of not less than 3 assessors including at least 2 assessors from industry and 1 from academia.

a) The Executive: Regulatory Functions will approve the team composition (following consultation with the Education Committee (EC) which is handled off the system).

h) Generate and send appointment letters to the panel leader, deputy leader, team leaders and team members.

i) The education officer sends the list of panel members to the dean of the institution to report any conflict of interest. If conflict reported, the education officer will amend the composition of the team and revert to the dean.

j) The dean will upload the self-study report to the portal as per E-12-P.

k) The education officer will submit the self-study documents to the assessor team via their portal pages.

l) The team will study the self-study documents and will give feedback at the plenary session.

a) The education officer will appoint a consistency review team.




b) Provide for the education officer to appoint the consistency review team (from a pool of qualified assessors) and record their names on the system. The assessor team must comprise of a) a team leader and team members. Each specific team must comprise 2 or 3 assessors. The system must accommodate replacement of a team member or leader.

c) Generate and send invitation letters to the team leaders and team members. This will include the due date for the assessment report. Invitees will need to respond by the given date. Invitees will click a link in the email to be taken to their portal page where they will accept or decline (with a reason) the invitation.

d) The system must send an alert to the education officer indicating they accept or decline in which case they need to find a replacement.

e) The education officer will send the reports to the consistency review team via their portal pages.

f) The consistency review team leader will upload their report to their portal page. The system will send an alert to the education officer.

g) The education officer will send the consistency review reports to the accreditation team for corrections and amendment.

h) The accreditation team will upload corrected reports to their portal page.

i) The education officer will send the corrected report to the Academy for factual correctness review.

Perform Accreditation activities as follows:

j) The team of assessors will conduct a pre-accreditation assessment prior to the assessment date, followed by the actual accreditation assessment on the accreditation date.

k) Assessor team will perform their assessment and compile a set of evaluation reports with comments and recommendations. The panel leader, deputy-leader and team leaders will update the portal with their recommendations with comments, concerns and deficiencies.

l) The education manager will generate a consolidated accreditation reports for the Education Committee and upload the report onto the CRM system so the committee can access it.

m) The education manager submits the report to the Education Committee for a decision.

n) Enable Education Manager to invite Deans and Accreditation Leaders to make presentations at the Education Committee (EC) meeting.

o) Receive accepted or declined notifications

p) If the outcome is negative the outcome letter will include comments, concerns and deficiencies to be rectified by a prescribed date. The applicant may resubmit their revised application after correcting the deficiencies. A different panel will re-evaluate the revised submission.

Perform Post-Accreditation Activities as follows:

a) The education officer will appoint a consistency review team.



b) Provide for the education officer to appoint the consistency review team (from a pool of qualified assessors) and record their names on the system. The assessor team must comprise of a) a team leader and team members. Each specific team must comprise 2 or 3 assessors. The system must accommodate replacement of a team member or leader.

c) Generate and send invitation letters to the team leaders and team members. This will include the due date for the assessment report. Invitees will need to respond by the given date. Invitees will click a link in the email to be taken to their portal page where they will accept or decline (with a reason) the invitation.

d) The system must send an alert to the education officer indicating they accept or decline in which case they need to find a replacement.

e) The education officer will send the reports to the consistency review team via their portal pages.

f) The consistency review team leader will upload their report to their portal page. The system will send an alert to the education officer.

g) The education officer will send the consistency review reports to the accreditation team for corrections and amendment.

h) The accreditation team will upload corrected reports to their portal page.

i) The education officer will send the corrected report to the institution for factual correctness review.

j) Draft reports can be edited outside of the system and the system must allow the Education Manager to reload the documents.

k) Issue accreditation outcome letter in line with the resolution of the Education Committee (EC).

l) Enable Education Manager to send a decision letter to Vice Chancellor (VC). Cc to Dean and Council of Higher Education (CHE).

m) Enable Education Manager to update the automated E-20-P list of accredited qualifications.

n) Enable education manager to update the accreditation schedule for the purpose of interim/final accreditations.

o) Enable Education Manager to update the pool of qualified assessors.

NB: Timelines are associated to above activities.

Process Maps: Pre-Accreditation Activities, Post-Accreditation and EC Meeting Activities

A.1.3. Evaluate an education qualification

Qualification Evaluation [of a programme] is formal recognition awarded to an education or training qualification (that is not already accredited by ECSA) through a quality assurance procedure to determine whether the qualification meets the prescribed criteria for the type of programme qualification in accordance with E-17-PRO and E-18-PRO. The process also determines if the

https://www.ecsa.co.za/ICT%20Spec/Accreditation%20of%20%20Existing%20Programs_Pre%20Accreditation%20Process.pdf

https://www.ecsa.co.za/ICT%20Spec/Accreditation%20of%20%20Existing%20Programs_Post%20Accreditation%20Process.pdf

https://www.ecsa.co.za/ICT%20Spec/Accreditation%20of%20%20Existing%20Programs_EC%20Meeting%20Actvities.pdf



qualification can be recognised by ECSA in terms of the International Engineering Alliance (IEA) international engineering education accords.

The purpose of the education evaluation process is to determine the substantial equivalence of a non-accredited engineering qualification with a South African or IEA accredited qualification for the purpose of registration with ECSA.




c) In case the submitted documentation is not sufficient for the education officer to process the application, the system will generate an email indicating that the application is non-compliant. This status will show in the applicant's portal page.

d) Generate an alert to [email protected] that a new application has been received.

e) Provide for the Education Manager (or their delegate) to appoint the assessor team (from a pool of qualified assessors) and record their names on the system. One of the team members is appointed as the team leader.

f) Generate and send the appointment letters to the assessor team for them to accept and return to ECSA. The system will allow a team member who declines to be replaced and a new letter sent out.

g) The team of assessors will perform their assessment and compile an evaluation report with comments and recommendations – and the team leader uploads it onto the system.

h) On receipt of the report, if the education manager is satisfied that the report complies with the ECSA procedures and standards they will generate an outcome letter to be forwarded to the applicant.

i) If the outcome is positive, the applicant needs to submit an application for registration (if they have not already done so).

j) If the outcome is negative, the outcome letter will include reasons and deficiencies in their education qualification requirements for registration, for the applicant to address.

k) The unsuccessful applicant may request a review to enable ECSA to provide additional information on the deficiencies to be addressed.

l) The unsuccessful applicant may submit an intention to appeal via their portal page giving their grounds for the appeal.

m) The education manager (or delegate) will review the grounds for appeal and make a determination of the validity of the grounds.

n) The appeal is to be conducted via a separate process with the Legal unit.


Perform Interview assessment activities as follows:




a) Education Officer will invite Evaluators and Applicant to an online interview.

b) Education Officer will be present during the interview and observe in order to and provide procedural and compliance support if required.

c) Once the interview is completed the Interviewing Team must recommend or not recommend the application via their portal page. The wording on the page must be similar to that on the current document template.


Perform Post Interview assessment activities as follows:

a) Once recommendation have been received the education officer will generate the final outcome letter to the applicant – approved/not approved/further information required.

b) Assign the application with the outcome letter to the Manager: Education to sign off.

c) Manager to capture the outcome on the system and send the outcome letter to the applicant.

d) Manager to route the completed assessment to Manager: Registration.

Process Maps: Initial Assessment Activities and Interview Assessment

A.2. Manage the establishment and monitoring of ECSA Academies ECSA’s academies mandate is derived from Engineering Professions Act (Act 46 of 2000) section 13 sub-section (i) mandating ECSA to give advice or render assistance to any educational institution with regard to educational facilities for the training and education of registered persons and prospective registered persons.

ECSA has initiated a process to establish and monitor workplace engineering training academies to enable candidates and prospective candidates to undergo a structured ECSA-approved candidacy training and development programme that leads to professional registration within 3 to 4 years.

The following business requirements should be implemented:

REF Category Business Requirement Process Flow?

Owner

A.2 Manage the establishment and monitoring of ECSA Academies (Certification and Accreditation)

2.1 Evaluate certification application from prospective Academy

Yes Education

2.2 Evaluate accreditation application for an individual training programme

No Education

2.3 Approve accreditation for an individual training programme

No Education

2.4 Manage Candidate Training and Engineering Reports

No Registration

https://www.ecsa.co.za/ICT%20Spec/Education%20Evaluation_Initial%20Assessment%20Activities.pdf

https://www.ecsa.co.za/ICT%20Spec/Education%20Evaluation_Interview%20Assessment.pdf



2.5 Process Academy Candidate application for Professional Registration

No Registration

2.6 Train Assessors in Academy certification

No Registration

2.7 Monitor Academy Candidates No Registration

A.2.1. Evaluate certification application from a prospective Academy

The process to establish a training academy starts with the signing of an MoU with ECSA. The next stage involves submission of an application to ECSA by organizations that wish to establish an academy. The organisation’s company registration number is used to identify the application/academy. Once application is submitted with a fee, ECSA performs an assessment of the organization’s ability to establish and run an academy on a sustainable basis by looking at their infrastructure, training programs, work horizon (projects), mentors, etc. The assessment is called Desktop Evaluation and is performed by an accreditation panel which recommends to the Training Academies Development Committee (TADC).

If the assessment is successful, the organization is granted accreditation as an ECSA Certified Academy.

ECSA is running a pilot project from 2021/22 to 2024/25. Thereafter, the programme will be rolled out at scale.




c) Generate an alert to [email protected] that a new application has been received.

d) Provide for the Education Manager (or their delegate) to appoint the assessor team (from a pool of qualified assessors) and record their names on the system. One of the team members is appointed as the team leader.

e) Generate and send the appointment letters to the assessor team.

f) The team of assessors will perform their assessment and compile an evaluation report with comments and recommendations. The accreditation panel leader with the assistance of the education manager must conduct an accreditation visit to the premises of the prospective academy for triangulation of the evidence within 6 months of starting the desktop evaluation.

g) On receipt of the report, if the education manager is satisfied that the report complies with the ECSA procedures and standards they will generate an outcome letter to be forwarded to the prospective academy.




h) If the outcome is negative the outcome letter will include reasons and deficiencies to be rectified. The applicant may resubmit their revised application after correcting the deficiencies. The same assessor team will re-evaluate the revised submission.

i) If feedback is negative, the applicant will resubmit and repeat from point “e” until final outcome.

j) Education manager to publish a list of certified training academies together with their accredited training programmes.

NOTE: All applications can be appealed if there is a negative outcome – to be worked out with Legal.

Process Maps: Establishment of Training Activities | Desktop Evaluation

A.2.2. Approve certification of a prospective Academy (Certification of Academies)

Certification of Academies signifies formal recognition by ECSA, through a quality assurance procedure, that a training programme meets the certification criteria. Training programmes are judged to satisfy a prescribed criteria and that they are able to continue to produce candidates who meet the competency outcome criteria for a defined period of up to four [4] years. Should a training programme not satisfy all criteria but evidence exists of commitment and capacity on the part of the organization to achieve full compliance within a stated time, the training programme may be certified for a period not exceeding two [2] years.


a) Allow Education Manager to send reminders on upcoming date of certification visits 5 months prior to academies, based on a certification schedule.

b) Enable contact person to upload required documents onto the system

c) Facilitate the appointment of the certification team

d) Allow Education Manager to capture certification visit report onto the system

e) Allow Education Manager to capture decision from the Central Registration Committee

f) Generate certificate if outcome is certificate.

g) Update and publish a list of certified academies

A.2.3. Evaluate and approve application for accreditation of an individual training programme

A formal recognition awarded to an academy training programme through a quality assurance procedure that ensures it meet the criteria laid down for the type of programme.

The academy policy provides three mechanisms to accommodate face-to-face, blended (hybrid) and fully online programmes that are already offered, producing candidate engineers in training and were previously certified as an academy.

There are three criteria to be met for the accreditation of an individual training programme.

https://ecsa.papertrail.co.za/token/1112:aWtOTitrNGZNQWJQMlE9PQ==/Establishment%20of%20Academies%20v0.1.pdf?196206966

https://www.ecsa.co.za/ICT%20Spec/Establishment%20of%20Academies%20v0.1.pdf



Criterion 1: Competency outcomes

Criterion 2: Work horizon

Criterion 3: Qualified Mentors

The system must automate the following accreditation stages:

• Initial Desktop Evaluation—Desktop evaluation of proposed training programme.

• Provisional Accreditation – Visits held two years after Initial Desktop Evaluation

• Accreditation – Visits according to the accreditation cycle. Provisional accreditation may be converted to accreditation of the engineering training programme by means of an evaluation visit after a minimum of four years of implementation of the programme.

On receipt of an application for accreditation of a programme, a desktop evaluation is performed by a team of assessors. This is done in line with policy A-01-POL. ECSA offers Initial Desktop Evaluation (endorsement) for new engineering training programmes subject to Provisional Accreditation after two years of implementation.


Perform Initial Desktop Evaluation activities as follows:

a) Allow the Academy skills development facilitator to log into the Academy's portal page.

b) Capture an application for a new individual training programme together with supporting documents as defined in policy A-01-POL.

c) Notify [email protected] that a new application has been received.

d) One education officer will respond to the academy by email acknowledging receipt of the application and will route the application to one of the team members for processing.

e) The education officer will vet the application to ensure that all the necessary documents have been received. This is not a technical assessment.

f) Provide for the education officer to appoint the assessor team (from a pool of qualified assessors) and record their names on the system. The assessor team must comprise of a) an accreditation team leader, and b) discipline-specific team leaders. Each specific team must comprise of not less than 3 assessors including at least 2 assessors from industry and 1 from academia. The system must accommodate replacement of a team member or leader.

g) Generate and send invitation letters to the team leaders and team members. Invitees will need to respond by a given date. Invitees will click a link in the email to be taken to their portal page where they will accept or decline (with a reason) the invitation.

h) The system must send an alert to the education officer indicating they accept or decline in which case they need to find a replacement.

i) Generate and send appointment letters to the team leaders and team members.

j) The invitee will sign the appointment letter and upload it onto the portal.

k) The education officer will submit the application documents to the assessor team via their portal pages, including a date by when feedback is required.




l) The team will assess the application and the team leader will consolidate the report and upload it into the portal.

m) The system will generate a "report submitted" alert to the education officer.

n) The education officer will share the report with the Academy and submit to the Academies Task Team (ATT).

o) The education manager will update the Academy on the report findings and record the status in the CRM system.

p) If the initial desktop evaluation is successful the Academy's programme is considered endorsed, subject to provisional accreditation after two years.

Perform Provisional Accreditation activities as follows:

a) Provide for the education officer to appoint the accreditation team (from a pool of qualified assessors) and record their names on the system. The assessor team must comprise of a) a lead assessor, team leader and team members. Each specific team must comprise of not less than 3 assessors including at least 2 assessors from industry and 1 from academia. The system must accommodate replacement of a team member or leader. There will never be more than 4 assessors.

b) The education manager will review or adjust the team composition and update the status to “Reviewed”.

c) The Executive: Regulatory Functions will approve the team composition (following consultation with the Training Academy Development Committee (TADC) which is handled off the system).

d) Generate and send invitation letters to the team leaders and team members. This will include the dates for the plenary session and actual accreditation day. Invitees will need to respond by a given date. Invitees will click a link in the email to be taken to their portal page where they will accept or decline (with a reason) the invitation.

e) The system must send an alert to the education officer indicating they accept or decline in which case they need to find a replacement.

f) The education officer will submit the self-study documents to the assessor team via their portal pages.

g) The team will study the self-study documents and will give feedback at the plenary session.

h) The team will undertake an on-site visit and advise the Central Registrations Committee on whether to grant provisional accreditation.

i) If the accreditation is approved, the education officer will update the programme status on the CRM system which will generate a notification email to the Academy.

Perform Accreditation Activities as follows:

a) The accreditation team will perform their assessment.



b) The accreditation team lead assessor will upload the consolidated report to their portal page.

c) The system will alert the education office that the report has been uploaded.

d) The education officer will appoint a consistency review team.

e) Provide for the education officer to appoint the consistency review team (from a pool of qualified assessors) and record their names on the system. The assessor team must comprise of a) a team leader and team members. Each specific team must comprise 2 or 3 assessors. The system must accommodate replacement of a team member or leader.

f) Generate and send invitation letters to the team leaders and team members. This will include the due date for the assessment report. Invitees will need to respond by the given date. Invitees will click a link in the email to be taken to their portal page where they will accept or decline (with a reason) the invitation.

g) The system must send an alert to the education officer indicating they accept or decline in which case they need to find a replacement.

h) The education officer will send the reports to the consistency review team via their portal pages.

i) The consistency review team leader will upload their report to their portal page. The system will send an alert to the education officer.

j) The education officer will send the consistency review reports to the accreditation team for corrections and amendment.

k) The accreditation team will upload corrected reports to their portal page.

l) The education officer will send the corrected report to the Academy for factual correctness review.

m) The Academy will return the report with any factual corrections.

n) The education officer will return the corrected report to the accreditation team for them to produce a final draft.

o) The education officer will send the final draft to the TADC for discussion and approval.

p) The education officer will draft an outcome letter and upload it to the system together with the final approved report and upload it to the Academy’s portal page. The system will alert the Academy of the final outcome.

NB: Timelines are associated to above activities. See:

• A-03-PRO Training Academy Certification and Accreditation Process 17 March 2022 BCR Edits

• A-01-POL Training Academy Certification and Accreditation Policy 17 March 2022 BCR Edits



A.2.4. Manage Candidate Training and Engineering Reports

Candidates from Training Academies are required to submit training reports on a yearly basis to work towards meeting the eleven registration outcomes prescribed by ECSA. This is referred to as incremental logging. The yearly training reports are approved the academy’s training assessors. The reports are monitored by the ECSA CPD Manager.

The candidate must indicate the level of responsibility for each outcome they are reporting on as well as supporting evidence. Each reporting year has a minimum target to be reached e.g. for year one they must have a minimum of 10%, for year 2 is 40% year 3 is not less than 90%. The CPD Manager should be getting the reports and monitor if the candidates are achieving the minimum percentage. If they are lagging, the CPD Manager can discuss with the academy

Formative assessments are done during the year and are managed by the training academies.

After three years, the candidates should submit the Engineering report.


a) Allow CPD/Academies Manager to upload a list of Candidates for each certified/endorsed Academy

b) Enable Candidates to submit training reports as part of the incremental logging onto the system

c) Enable CPD/Academies Manager to receive notification if the candidate has not reached the minimum target.

d) Enable CPD/Academies Manager to receive notification if the candidate has not submitted the yearly report

e) Enable CPD/academies manager to make comments about Candidates training reports

f) Enable Candidates to submit Engineering report after three years.

g) Send notification to Candidate to apply for ECSA Professional Registration after they have successfully met all the training requirements.

A.2.5. Process Academy Candidate application for Professional Registration

After successfully completing training from Academies, candidates can apply for professional registration at ECSA.


a) Allow Candidate to apply for ECSA Professional Registration, their details must be displayed for the candidate if they are still up to date or not so they can update their details

b) Attach all the Candidate qualifications and Training Reports to the Application

c) Allow Candidate to make payment

d) Follow the Registration Process for a Professional as defined in section A.3, Registration of Individuals in Various Categories. Excluding the Experience Appraisal, the process must start at professional Review stage.



A.2.6. Train Assessors in Academy Certification

The process of certification of academies required certification teams that comprise individuals who are listed as training academy assessors. ECSA’s Regulatory Functions Division is required to maintain a list of training academy assessors for all training programmes.


a) Allow the Education Manager to send out the training schedules and invitations

b) Allow the Education Manager to upload training material and attendance registers.

A.2.7. Monitor Academy Candidates

Every year an Academy's candidates are monitored to confirm that their training and development activities meet the required standard. The monitoring is conducted by a team of trained assessors.


a) Perform Experience Appraisal (EA) comprising the following:

(1) Provide for the registrations officer (RO) to appoint the assessor team (4 from a pool of qualified assessors) and record their names on the system.

(a) Notify the assessors (via their preferred communication channels) that there is work allocated to them in the portal.

(b) Assessor to accept or decline team appointment with X days (confirm yes/no).

(c) Within Y days, the registration officer will post on the portal the links to the application for assessment.

(2) The team of assessors will independently perform their assessment, and each will compile an assessment report with comments and recommendations – and they will individually upload their report onto their portal page.

(3) The system will notify the officer of receipt of an assessment report. On receipt of the report, the RO will vet the report.

(4) If the RO is satisfied that the report complies with ECSA procedures and standards, they will save the report to the DMS. The RO moves the application to the next stage.

(5) If RO is not satisfied with the assessment report they may return it to the assessor for amendment.

b) Perform EA Moderation comprising the following:

(1) Provide for the RO to appoint the moderation team (3 from a pool of qualified assessors) and record their names on the system.

(a) Notify the moderators (via their preferred communication channels) that there is work allocated to them in the portal.

(b) Moderator to accept or decline team appointment with X days (confirm yes/no).

(c) Within Y days, the registrations officer will post on the portal the links to the application for moderation.



(2) The team of moderators will independently perform their assessment, and each will compile an assessment report with comments and recommendations – and they will individually upload their report onto their portal page.

(3) The system will notify the RO of receipt of an assessment report. On receipt of the report, the RO will vet the report.

(4) If the RO is satisfied that the report complies with ECSA procedures and standards, they will save the report to the DMS. The RO moves the application to the next stage. The moderator may make one of three recommendations: Decline, Continue or Abeyance. Abeyance is recommended when the applicant fails to meet all 11 outcomes but in the view of the moderator is able to meet the outcomes within 12 months. This saves the applicant from being declined and having to pay another application fee when reapplying.

(5) If RO is not satisfied with the assessment report they may return it to the moderator for amendment.

c) Handle the Professional Review Interview

(1) Provide for the pool of qualified Reviewers to maintain an availability calendar on their portal page and make the calendar accessible (view only) by the RO.

(2) Based on their availability and other criteria, the RO will choose 3 Reviewers, record them as application reviewers on the system and set a date for the Reviewers to interview the Applicant. One Reviewer will be designated the lead Reviewer.

(a) Send an ICS-format event invitation to the Applicant to attend the interview on the set date.

(b) Send an ICS-format event invitation to Reviewers that they have been selected to interview the Applicant on the set date. Update their portal calendar with the interview date. Give the Reviewers a set number of days to accept or decline the interview.

(c) Replace reviewers who decline.

(d) The system (or RO on the system) will make the application available to the Reviewers in good time for the interview (N days before).

(3) The team of Reviewers will perform their reviews and compile one combined EA Interview report with comments and recommendations – and the lead Reviewer will upload it onto the system via their portal page.

(4) The system will alert the RO that the report is available. The RO will vet the report and return it to the lead Reviewer if not satisfied.

(5) If the RO is satisfied with the report they will save it to the DMS and move the application to the next stage.

d) Handle Professional Review Moderation

(1) Similar to the moderation process for professional applicants.

e) The registration manager (or delegate) will update the application as Accepted or Refused as determined by the process. A Registration or Refusal number is generated.



f) The registration manager will trigger the system to send a notification to the Applicant via their preferred communication channel.

g) The registration manager will trigger the system to generate a registration letter/refusal letter and send it to the applicant.

h) Where the application is accepted, the registration manager will trigger the system to request an ECSA registration certificate from the Office of the CEO.

A.3. Registration of Individuals in Various Categories The purpose of a registration system is to process candidacy, professional and specified categories applications of engineering practitioners in line with the Regulations of the Engineering Profession Act (46 of 2000).

The engineering Council of South Africa is per section 18 of the EPA mandated to register the following categories:

• Professional: There are Four professional categories, namely, Professional Engineers, Professional Engineering Technologists, Professional Certificated Engineers and Professional Engineering Technicians.

• Candidate: There are FIVE candidacy categories, namely, Candidate Engineer, Candidate Engineering Technologist, Candidate Engineering Technician, Candidate Certificated Engineer, and Candidate in Specified Categories.

• Specified categories prescribed by the Council: There are NINE specified categories, namely, Lifting Machinery Inspectors, Additional scope for Lifting Machinery Inspectors, Lift Inspectors, Civil Laboratory Technical Controllers, Fire Protection Systems Practitioners, Fire Protection Systems Rational Design, Enterprise Integration Practitioners and Medical Equipment Maintainer.

• International Registers: There are FIVE international registers, namely, International Register for Professional Engineers, International Register for Professional Engineering Technologists, International Register for Professional Engineering Technicians, National Registration via Mutual Exemption Agreement (MEA) and International to International Register across all categories.


Ref. Category Business Requirement Process

Flow?

Owner

A.3 Registration of individuals in various categories (ERF accountable)

3.1 Process application for candidate registration (in one of five categories)

Yes Registration

3.2 Process application for professional registration (in one of four categories)

Yes Registration

3.3 Process application for registration (in one of nine specified categories)

No Registration



3.4 Process application for registration (in one of four international registers)

Partial Registration

3.5 Generate certificate for newly registered person

No Office of CEO

3.6 Process re-registration application in any registration category

Yes Registration

3.7 Cancel registration No Registration

3.8 Process application for C&U Partial Registration

3.9 Generate C&U certificate for employer No Office of CEO

3.10 Monitor industry C&U No Registration

A.3.1. Process application for candidate registration (in one of five categories)

The applicant submits their application to ECSA which is vetted and assigned for finalization where the electronic ECSA certificate is generated.

The system must be able to do the following:

a) Facilitate the application process via the ECSA portal.

b) Ensure that application captures (in addition to fields already in the portal):

• Voluntary Association

• Sector the applicant works in

• Discipline and sub-discipline

• Automatically select the correct portal code based on the street address.

c) Applicants must be able to submit applications for registration, upload required documents of registration (whichever category it is) and process their application payment on the portal – via Visa or Mastercard credit card or attaching proof of payment for bank transfer.

d) Present POPIA consent and tick box for acceptance. Provide link to privacy policy and POPIA forms.

e) Notify Distribution of the new application uploaded on the system. Distribution will allocate a new application to a registration offer. The applicant will be notified via their preferred methods of communication that their application has been assigned to the named registration officer for vetting.

f) The system will provide a report showing a list of applications in process – received per category, officer in charge, date received and status.

g) Facilitate vetting of the application. The officer will check the validity of the application.

h) If after distribution to the registration officer, the application has not been attended to within X days (currently two business days), an automated alert is sent to the officer.



i) If the application passes vetting, then the system must generate a profile number and send it to the applicant via automated email notification.

j) Store supporting documents onto Document Management System (DMS).

k) The system must generate alerts to the applicant for updates on every stage of the process, using their preferred method of communication.

l) Escalation emails to the Registration BU manager and assistant manager if application has taken more than the prescribed timeline in any stage of the process.

m) System will alert the manager/assistant manager (a popup alert) for applications assigned for manager approval.

n) Enable registration manager to log onto the system, and:

• select tick box the relevant outcome.

• select tick box to send automated notification of the outcome to the registered person. The system must then automatically act on this instruction.

• select tick box to generate a registration letter. The system must then automatically act on this instruction.

• Select tock box to generate the registration certificate.

• select tick box to send a request to the Office of the CEO to release an electronic ECSA certificate. The system must then automatically act on this instruction.

o) The system will upload the letter and certificate to the applicant's profile on the CRM, their portal page and in the Document Management System.

p) System will alert the officer who assigned the application when one of their applications is finalised (approved or not-approved).

q) Update the list of registered persons to include the successful applicant on the register which is displayed on the website).

r) Facilitate the registration officer to view (not edit) the confirmation of registration letter and certificate in case of query by the applicant (who may not have received the link).

s) Management report to not count weekends when calculating the turnaround time for a finalised candidate application.

Process Map: Application for Registration in Five Candidacy Categories.

A.3.2. Process application for professional registration (in one of four categories)


a) Facilitate the application process via the ECSA portal.

b) Present POPIA consent and tick box for acceptance. Provide link to privacy policy and POPIA forms.

https://www.ecsa.co.za/ICT%20Spec/Application%20for%20Candidate%20Registration%20Process%20v0.0.pdf



c) Applicants must be able to submit applications for registration and upload required documents across all categories of registration, process their application payment on the portal and the system must generate a profile number which will be sent to the applicant post applicant via automated notification via their preferred communication channel.

d) The referees must be able to receive notification and log into the portal to submit their referee reports for an application.

e) Assessors, Reviewers and Moderators must be able log into the portal and access applications for assessment.

f) The portal will automate emails to assessors, reviewers and moderators with a link to access the application for assessment, review or moderation.

g) Automated emails to ROs on completed assessments and responses back from the Assessors, Reviewers and Moderators.

h) The system must provide fields to compose teams of Assessors, Reviewers and Moderators for each application to be assessed.

i) Validate fields and store supporting documents onto Document Management System (DMS).

j) Facilitate online payment using Visa or Mastercard credit card, or via EFT with proof of payment.

k) The system will provide the applicant with a status update at every stage of the process. This will be via the applicant's preferred communication channels.

l) Escalation emails if application has taken more than the prescribed timelines in any stage of the process.

m) Perform Experience Appraisal (EA) comprising the following:

(1) Provide for the Registrations Officer (RO) to appoint the assessor team (4 from a pool of qualified assessors) and record their names on the system.

(a) Notify the assessors (via their preferred communication channels) that there is work allocated to them in the portal.

(b) Assessor to accept or decline team appointment with X days (confirm yes/no).

(c) Within Y days, the registrations officer will post on the portal the links to the application for assessment.

(2) The team of assessors will independently perform their assessment, and each will compile an assessment report with comments and recommendations – and they will individually upload their report onto their portal page.


(4) If the RO is satisfied that the report complies with ECSA procedures and standards, they will save the report to the DMS. The RO moves the application to the next stage.



(5) If RO is not satisfied with the assessment report they may return it to the assessor for amendment.

n) Perform EA Moderation comprising the following:

(1) Provide for the RO to appoint the moderation team (3 from a pool of qualified assessors) and record their names on the system.

(a) Notify the moderators (via their preferred communication channels) that there is work allocated to them in the portal.

(b) Moderator to accept or decline team appointment with X days (confirm yes/no).

(c) Within Y days, the registrations officer will post on the portal the links to the application for moderation.

(2) The team of moderators will independently perform their assessment, and each will compile an assessment report with comments and recommendations – and they will individually upload their report onto their portal page.


(4) If the RO is satisfied that the report complies with ECSA procedures and standards, they will save the report to the DMS. The RO moves the application to the next stage. The moderator may make one of three recommendations: Decline, Continue or Abeyance. Abeyance is recommended when the applicant fails to meet all 11 outcomes but in the view of the moderator is able to meet the outcomes within 12 months. This saves the applicant from being declined and having to pay another application fee when reapplying.

(5) If RO is not satisfied with the assessment report they may return it to the moderator for amendment.

o) Where the moderators recommend Abeyancing the application:

(1) Provide for the RO to tick the outcomes found by Moderation to be lacking.

(2) Forward the application to the registration manager (or their delegate) for approval of the Abeyance finding.

(3) The manager will select Abeyance as the moderation finding.

(4) Send an automated notification to the applicant via their preferred communication methods.

(5) Generate an Abeyance letter and email this to the applicant.

(6) Place the application On-Hold and stop the timer (used to measure application turnaround times).

p) Handle the EA Interview comprising the following:

(1) Provide for the pool of qualified Reviewers to maintain an availability calendar on their portal page and make the calendar accessible (view only) by the RO.



(2) Based on their availability and other criteria, the RO will choose 3 Reviewers, record them as application reviewers on the system and set a date for the Reviewers to interview the Applicant. One Reviewer will be designated the lead Reviewer.

(3) Send an ICS-format event invitation to the Applicant to attend the interview on the set date.

(4) Send an ICS-format event invitation to Reviewers that they have been selected to interview the Applicant on the set date. Update their portal calendar with the interview date. Give the Reviewers a set number of days to accept or decline the interview.

(5) Replace reviewers who decline.

(6) The system (or RO on the system) will make the application available to the Reviewers in good time for the interview (N days before).

(7) The team of Reviewers will perform their reviews and compile one combined EA Interview report with comments and recommendations – and the lead Reviewer will upload it onto the system via their portal page.

(8) The system will alert the RO that the report is available. The RO will vet the report and return it to the lead Reviewer if not satisfied.

(9) If the RO is satisfied with the report they will save it to the DMS and move the application to the next stage.

q) Handle the Professional Review Interview

(1) Similar process to the EA Interview

r) Handle Professional Review Moderation

(1) Similar process to the EA Moderation

s) The registration manager (or delegate) will update the application as Accepted, Refused or Abeyanced as determined by the process. A Registration or Refusal number is generated.

t) The registration manager will trigger the system to send a notification to the Applicant via their preferred communication channel.

u) The registration manager will trigger the system to generate a registration letter/refusal letter and send it to the Applicant.

v) Where the application is accepted, the registration manager will trigger the system to request an ECSA registration certificate from the Office of the CEO.

w) The system will update the list of registered persons to the ECSA website.

Process Map: Application for Registration in Four Professional Categories.

A.3.3. Process application for registration (in one of nine specified categories)

The requirements and the process are similar to "Process applications for registration in four professional categories" described above.

https://www.ecsa.co.za/ICT%20Spec/Application%20for%20Professional%20Registration%20Process%20v0.0.pdf



A.3.4. Process application for registration (in one of four international registers)

Currently the Mutual Exemption Agreement (MEA) and Mutual Exemption Agreement (MRA) applications are processed through the national application business process. In future, the requirement is for a unique application number and registration number so that reports can distinguish between international and national applications.

The process is similar to "Process applications for registration in four professional categories" described above.

A.3.5. Generate certificate for newly registered person

When initiated by the registration manager, the system will generate a PDF format registration certificate containing the registration number. The president's and CEO's signatures will be printed on the certificate. However, the certificate must not be stored in PaperTrail (or be otherwise available to the newly registered person) until it has been released by the Office of the CEO. At that point the certificate is uploaded to PaperTrail and is sent to the registered person.

A.3.6. Process re-registration application in any registration category


a) Facilitate the application process.


c) Applicants must be able to submit applications for registration and upload required documents across all categories of registration, process their application payment on the portal and the system must generate a profile number which will be sent to the applicant post applicant via automated email notification. The referees must be able to receive notification and log into the portal to submit their referee reports for an application.

d) Validate fields and store supporting documents onto Document Management System

e) Facilitate Online Payments

f) The system must generate automated emails to applicant for updates on every stage of the process.

g) Escalation emails if application has taken more than the prescribed timelines in any stage of the process.

h) Assessors, Reviewers and Moderators must be able log into the portal and access applications for assessment.

i) Portal has to automate emails with link to assessors, reviewers and moderators to access application for assessment.

j) Automated emails to officers on completed assessments and responses back from the Assessors, Reviewers and Moderators.



k) The system must provide fields to compose teams of Assessors, Reviewers and Moderators for each application to be assessed.

l) The system must generate a registration/refusal number at the end of each application for registration process.

m) The system must send an automated email to applicant with registration/ refusal number

n) Upon registration the system must generate an electronic ECSA registration certificate.

o) The system must send a link of the electronic certificate must be sent to the applicant/ registered person.

p) The system must generate a registration letter and send to the applicant/ registered person.

q) The system must keep database of the Assessors, Reviewers, and Moderators.

r) The system must keep record of the database of register/ refused/ closed/ in process applications.

s) Enable registration manager to log onto the system, select the relevant outcomes, automated notification of the outcome.

t) Generate an electronic ECSA certificate.

u) Retrievable reports/ lists of registered persons/ cancelled/ refused/ etc.

A.3.7. Cancel Registration

A registered person may request cancellation. Such request should be granted except in cases where the registered person is under investigation for alleged improper conduct.

A registered person may be cancelled as a result of persistent non-payment of fees.

A registered person will be cancelled when deceased.

As the custodian of the registered persons database, the Executive: Regulatory Functions has the last word on cancellation. This responsibility may be delegated.

A.3.8. Process application for C&U

The system must:

a) Provide for an employer to register an account on the ECSA portal for the purpose of maintaining a C&U with ECSA.

b) Provide for an employer to submit an application and supporting documents via their portal page. There could be more than one C&U per company (e.g. Eskom has many divisions each with a C&U).

c) Understand the relationship between division and group company.

d) Send all applications to the work coordinator who will allocate the application to a registration officer.

e) Enable the officer to vet the application and mark it on the system as passed or failed.



f) If the application fails vetting, the system will stop the clock. If feasible, the system will provide a text box for the officer to write the specifics of the additional information required. The system will then send the (ECSA branded) email to the applicant and record it on the system.

g) If the application passes vetting:

h) Allocate a C&U number to the application and calculate the renewal date (5 years hence) and calculate the annual audit and monitoring dates.

i) Enable the officer to allocate the mentors to the C&U. These mentors must be registered professionals with ECSA. The ECSA registration number (or ID number) and category is used to find the mentor on our system.

j) The employer organisation will be able to see the list of mentors on their portal page.

k) The C&U page should indicate the category and discipline of registration for each mentor.

l) The officer assigns the application to the registration manager for approval.

m) Enable the manager to approve the application and generate the C&U certificate in a tamperproof PDF format along with the registration number. The manager will also add their digital signature to the application/contract PDF.

n) Generate a letter (approval, abeyance or rejection).

A.3.9. Release C&U certificate for the organisation

For controls purposes (separation of duties) a certificate must be released by the Office of the CEO before it is sent to the organisation and stored in the DMS.

The system must:

a) Following approval of the C&U, alert to the administrator in the office of the CEO to release the previously generated certificate. The certificate must not be stored in PaperTrail until the CEO's office has released it.

b) The Office of the CEO will release the certificate in the same manner that is already done for registered persons’ certificates. The system will lodge the signed certificate in PaperTrail.

c) Generate and send an email to the organisation with the attached approval letter. The email will contain a link to the certificate in PaperTrail. The link will also be available in the organisation’s portal page.

A.3.10. Monitor industry C&U

Every year an organisation's candidates under C&U are monitored to confirm that their training and development activities meet the required standard.

The system must:

a) Allow a C&U holder to authenticate (log on) to the ECSA portal.


c) Provide a portal page onto which a logged in C&U holder can upload their progress report, and indicate compliance with criteria.



d) Send a "progress report uploaded" alert to the registration manager

e) Enable C&U holder to edit or delete their submission up to the point where the Declaration box is ticked.

f) The registration manager will vet the progress report. The outcome could be Approved, Incomplete or Rejected.

g) If the report passes vetting, the registration manager will approve the status of the monitoring process.

h) If the report is incomplete, the registration manager will set to Pending (incomplete) and add comments that will display in the C&U holder’s portal page. The system will send an alert to the C&U holder via their preferred communication channel.

A.4. Maintenance of Registered Persons' CPD Section 22(1) of the Engineering Profession Act, 2000 (Act 46 of 2000) requires that a registered person must renew his or her Registration and has to "apply, in the prescribed manner, to the Council for the renewal of his or her Registration". The Renewal of Registration is linked with Continuing Professional Development (CPD). CPD can be defined as a systematic maintenance, improvement and broadening of knowledge and skills, and the development of personal qualities necessary for the execution of professional and technical duties throughout a person’s engineering career.


REF Category Business Requirement Process Map

Owner

A.4 Maintenance of Registered Persons' CPD

4.1 Record CPD credits Yes CPD

4.2 Renew registration (ERF accountable) Yes CPD

4.3 Process CPD exemption application Yes CPD

4.4 Audit recorded CPD activities for registered persons (see rule 11 of the CPD rules on website)

Yes CPD

4.5 Cancel Registration due to non-compliance with CPD (ERF accountable)

Yes CPD

4.6 Search portal for validated activities No CPD

4.7 Process reinstatement request (ERF accountable)

No CPD/FIN

4.8 Process reapplication request (ERF accountable)

No CPD

4.9 Flag legal investigation or hold on cancellation

N/A Legal



A.4.1. Record CPD Credits

This process allows persons registered in professional and specified categories (excluding candidate engineers) to record their CPD credits on their portal page under Category 1 or 2 or 3. Category 1 should be validated activities that exist on the system. Non-validated activities, i.e. International, NQF and online activities, should be validated (but only for the individual concerned, not as a validated activity on the website) through the process that involves CPD Officer/Manager and identified evaluators.

CPD credits are recorded for a specific year within a 5-year cycle. Registered persons should log onto the system to record CPD credits. The public will be able to use the website search facility to find validated activities (i.e. no need to log onto the system). The following business requirements should be implemented:

The system must:

a) Allow a registered persons to authenticate (log on) to the ECSA portal

b) Provide a portal page onto which a logged in register person can capture their CPD credits. Credits are made of up of activities grouped into three categories: Category 1 - Developmental Activities, Category 2 – Work based Activities, and Category 3 - Individual Activities.

c) With regard to Category 1, provide a list of existing validated activities from which the register person can select.

d) Save the captured information and calculate relevant points/credits. CPD credits are captured for a specified year. A cycle is made up of 5 years. Registered persons can capture their CPD credits at any time.

e) Enable registered persons to edit or delete their CPD credits up to the point where the Declaration is uploaded.

f) Distribute renewals to the CPD team to spread the workload.

Future requirement: There is a requirement to build a mobile App that provides for scanning of QR codes to capture and record attendance of CPD activities. The requirement will be described at a later stage and is NOT in scope for this RFP.

Process Map: Manage CPD Portfolio.

Business Rules:

• A registered person must have a total of 25 credits over a 5-year period i.e. a cycle.

• Five of the 25 credits must be from Category 1.

• A minimum of 3 credits per year must be obtained in 2 of the 3 categories.

• The types of activities, as well as required maximum and minimum credits for each Category is available from the CPD rule 86 from 2017 Appendix A (on the website).

https://www.ecsa.co.za/ICT%20Spec/Manage%20CPD%20Portfolio%20v0.1.pdf



A.4.2. Renew Registration

The CPD system notifies registered persons due for renewal of registration that the application for renewal must be made by a stated date. The registered person updates his/her personal, employer, and contact information online via the ECSA Portal. The registered person downloads and signs a declaration and uploads it to the system. The download and upload buttons must be easy to find. Once the uploading is complete, the system will update a workload distribution dashboard from which the profile is assigned to an officer. Distribution may be automatic or manual (depending on cost).

The officer vets the application and either a) approves it or b) requests outstanding information from the registered person, or c) refers it to the manager for an outcome decision. The manager a) approves the application, or b) refers it up to a CPD committee member for a decision. Referral is on a rotational basis.

A person who is registered in more than one professional or specified category (dual registration), the date applicable to the category in which such person first registered with the council will be recorded as the date on which such a person’s five-year cycle commences, and which constituted the expiry date.

System requirements:

a) The system must notify registered persons, by their preferred communication method, that they are due for renewal of registration by a certain date. This date is unique to each registered person.

b) The system must send reminders by their preferred communication method to the members due for renewal of registration at regular intervals as determine by the CPD rules (refer to CPD process flow).

c) The system checks to see if the required CPD credits have been accumulated or the registered person has obtained exemption. If these criteria are not met the member cannot continue with the renewal.

d) The system will allow credits to be captured in any order (currently, the system requires credits to be captured in year sequence, i.e. year 1 first, then year 2, then year 3, etc.).

e) If the registered person did not meet the requirements for renewal, they may apply for exemption.

f) The registered person must be presented with a set of confirmation screens to update and confirm their personal, employer and contact information. This interaction is mandatory – the registered person may NOT finalise their application without confirming their information.

g) The registered person should be able to print the declaration form so that he/she can have it stamped by a Commissioner of Oaths.

h) The registered person should be able to upload the stamped document to his portfolio for the respective CPD cycle.

i) The system notifies the CPD Business Unit that there is a renewal awaiting approval. This may be via a dashboard with automatic allocation to an officer.



j) As CPD manager/assistant manager, I want to see all renewals awaiting approval on my dashboard.

k) As a CPD manager/assistant manager I want to be able to see all renewals that have passed the expiry/renewal date so that I can expedite them.

l) As a CPD manager/assistant manager I want to be able to see all the details of the exceptions assigned to me so that I can take the appropriate action.

m) As the CPD manager/assistant manager I want to be able to enter the outcome of the exceptions into the system.

n) The Executive: Regulatory Functions has the final word on renewal of a registration. This authority may be delegated.

o) The system must notify the registered person as to the outcome via their preferred communication method.

p) On finalization of the renewal process the system should create a new blank 5-year cycle (page) for credits to be recorded on.

A.4.3. Process CPD exemption application

A registered person may apply for exemption from having to meet the CPD requirements for part or all of the periods in a cycle due to various reasons (see section 8 of the Rules on CPD and Renewal of Registration).

System should be able to identify when a registered person was marked retired (which can happen from age 55 and where worked hours is under 300 per year) and then automatically calculate/indicate the credits outstanding. If marked as “retired exempted” above the age of 70, then the registered person needs to provide only 3 credits per year if they work more than 300 hours per year. No CPD credits are required if they work 300 hours or less.

Evidence in regard to the exemption request should be uploaded through the ECSA portal.


a) The system must route the application for exemption to the appropriate CPD Business Unit’s dashboard.

b) As a CPD committee member, manager/assistant manager I want to view the application for exemption so that I can take appropriate action.

c) As a CPD manager/assistant manager I want to be able to route the application to the appropriate member of the committee for consideration.

d) The system must notify the committee member via their preferred communication channel that there is an application awaiting consideration.

e) As a committee member I want to be able to see on my ECSA portal work page all exemption applications assigned to me.

f) The system must ensure that the committee member completes a declaration of interest and confidentiality agreement.



g) As a committee member I want to see all the details pertaining to the application so that I can make a decision.

h) As a CPD manager/assistant manager I want to be able to see all applications and to which committee members they have been assigned.

i) The system must send reminder emails/SMSs to committee members at regular intervals that they have outstanding applications.

j) As a CPD manager/assistant manager I want to be able to see late applications that have been assigned to committee members so that I can follow up/reassign.

k) As a committee member I want to be able to register my decision against the application. Exempt /Not exempt and provide a reason.

l) As a committee member I want to be able to route the application back to the CPD Business Unit (e.g. in a case where I have insufficient information) so that the appropriate action can be taken.

m) As CPD Manager I want to approve or decline the exemption application.

n) As CPD manager/assistant manager I want to be able to notify the applicant of the outcome and reason for non-exemption if applicable. This is to be done via a system generated email/SMS.

o) The system must inform the CPD Business Unit of the decision on the officer’s dashboard.

p) As a registered person I want see on my ECSA portal page if I have been granted exemption from the qualifying criteria for a given year.

q) As a CPD officer or manager/assistant manager I want to be able to see if the registered person has been granted exemption for a given year.

A.4.4. Audit recorded CPD activities for registered persons

The system will randomly select a percentage of registered persons each quarter from the list of those who have renewed in that quarter. This happens in the quarter following the audited quarter.


a) The CPD manager/assistant manager will trigger the audit process by selecting the percentage of registered persons that will be audited.

b) The CPD manager/assistant manager will review the list of auditees and adjust/confirm the list.

c) The system will send a formal “notification of audit” letter (PDF) to each auditee via their preferred communication channel.

d) The system must provide for the auditee to submit their evidence via the ECSA portal.

e) The system must send a reminder to the auditee if they have failed to submit evidence within 4 weeks of receipt of the notification letter.

f) The CPD officer will review evidence submitted and make a decision – approved, or referred.

g) If approved: then the auditee is notified of the approval.



h) If referred: then the system will display the audit finding on the CPD manager/assistant manager’s dashboard for review.

i) The CPD manager/assistant manager may refer the audit to a committee member for advice, or approve it.

j) The committee member will provide their advice via their ECSA portal work page.

k) The CPD manager/assistant manager will update the system with the outcome, which may include additional time given to the auditee to provide evidence.

l) If the registered person fails the audit, the CPD manager/assistant manager will record the reasons for failure and indicate next steps – which could be a time extension to obtain CPD credits, cancellation of registration, or referral to Legal where disciplinary action may be called for.

m) The auditee must be notified within 30 calendar days of the outcome of the audit.

A.4.5. Cancel Registration due to non-compliance with CPD

A final reminder notification must be sent out by the CPD system notifying registered persons that they are required to update the CPD portfolio within the given time, and that they need to renew their registrations. Noncompliance for a particular 5-year cycle should be communicated to the registered persons after the cycle's expiry date.

Should the registered person fail to comply with the requirements of the rules at the end of the 5 year cycle the system should:

• record this fact in the applicable register; and

• inform the non-compliant registered person of this fact and afford such registered person an opportunity to rectify the situation in a prescribed period of time.

Should the registered person still not comply with requirements after the prescribed period indicated above, then Council should refer the matter to the CPD committee of the Council to consider whether or not renewal of such person's registration should be refused or not.

The refusal or deregistration should be actioned and the reason (and date of deregistration) for deregistration should be displayed on the ECSA’s website.

As the custodian of the registered persons database, the Executive: Regulatory Functions has the last word on cancellation of a registration. This responsibility may be delegated.

A.4.6. Search portal for validated activities

This is a public search facility where any person can search the CPD database to locate and view the details of verified Service Providers and validated CPD activities in Category 1 Developmental Activities.

The user must be able to search by the following criteria (or combination thereof):

- Validation body

- Service Provider

- Validation Number



- Activity Description

- Year in which activity was/will be presented

Wild card search must be available.

The public search facility should provide a direct link to the Service Provider’s website home page where the registered person will be able to locate the registration form, payment details etc.

A.4.7. Process reinstatement request

CPD or Finance may submit a request to Registration BU (the owner of the registration process) to re-instate a cancelled registration. This would occur following the settlement of outstanding fees with Finance, or meeting CPD requirements previously not met. Note that Registration should ensure that fees have been paid AND CPD requirements met when actioning a reinstatement.

A.4.8. Process reapplication request

See CPD rule 9(7).

A.4.9. Flag legal investigation

The existence of an improper conduct investigation (whether in progress or finalised with a negative outcome) must be indicated on the screen when renewal of registration is being worked on. This is to ensure that CPD unit is cognisant of a legal matter when assessing renewal of a registered person. The information provided must be sufficient to apply the rules for renewal. There may be a need for CPD staff to sign a confidentiality agreement to avoid disclosure of confidential legal proceedings.

A.5. CPD Standard The standard designates ECSA as the sole custodian of Continuing Professional Development (CPD), with other role players such as Voluntary Associations, Higher Education Institutions (private and public) and CPD Service Providers. The standard intends to provide authority to Voluntary Associations (VAs) and Higher Education Institutions to verify CPD Service Providers and validate CPD Activities on its behalf through a process called CPD licensing. The function performed by verified CPD Service Providers is to offer appropriate learning in respect of Category 1 CPD validated activities.

ECSA monitors and audits the CPD Licensed Body to ensure that the CPD Activities that are offered by the CPD Licensed Body are of an appropriate standard and quality for the target audience.

REF Category Business Requirement Process Flow?

Owner

A.5 CPD Standard

5.1 Process application to be recognised as a Licensed Body

No CPD

5.2 Process application to be verified as a CPD Service Provider

No CPD

5.3 Process application for validation of a CPD Activity

No CPD



5.4. Audit and review a Licensed Body, CPD Service Provider or Voluntary Association

No CPD

A.5.1. Process application to be recognised as a Licensed Body

The process involves an application submitted to ECSA by a ECSA recognised Voluntary Association (VA) or an ECSA-accredited Higher Education Institution (HEI). ECSA makes an assessment of the application. A successful applicant is referred to as a Licensed Body and is granted a license identified by a unique number. Reapplication is every three years.

The business requirements are as follows:


a) Enable VAs and HEIs to submit applications and supporting documentation via an online portal.

b) Validate the application against the Recognised VA database and Accredited HEI database.

c) Store supporting documents within an integrated Document Management System, but only after the application is approved.

d) Generate acknowledgement notification to the applicant and provide unique Reference Number.

e) Allow applicants to track progress of their applications on their portal page.

f) Enable CPD manager/assistant manager to login to the system to verify completeness of documents and send notification if there are missing documents.

g) Enable selected CPD Committee members to log onto the portal to assess the application.

h) On approval, generate and store a unique Licensed Body number, the start and end date of the recognition period, and a certificate that can be verified on the ECSA website.

i) Licensed Body to update via their portal page any changes to information recorded in the original application.

j) Enable CPD Manager/assistant manager to log in to the system to verify changes and confirm acceptance.

k) Based on the recognition end date, send out a "renewal due" notification, via their preferred communication channel, to inform VA’s and HEI’s of their upcoming renewal.

l) If a Licensed Body records information on a CPD verified provider or validated CPD activity, and the Licensed Body's recognition has expired, then the system should flag the verified provider or validated activity to the CPD officer as LB expired. The officer may use their discretion to approve or decline the uploaded item, with reasons recorded in the system.



A.5.2. Process application to be verified as a CPD Service Provider

A prospective CPD Service Provider must apply to a Licensed Body for verification [this may change in future by allowing a Service provider to apply directly to ECSA in exceptional circumstances]. If successful, the LB will upload the new CPD Service Provider to ECSA's system via their portal page.

If the prospective CPD Service Provider is themselves a Licensed Body, they may apply to another LB or to ECSA for verification.

The ECSA website will be refreshed at least daily with any changes to CPD Service Providers.

The system must:

a) Enable a Licensed Body to submit an application and supporting documentation to be considered as CPD Service Provider via an online portal to ECSA.

b) Provide the same functions as described under function “Application to be recognised as a Licensed Body” above starting from point number (b) to number (l)

c) Enable a Licensed Body to upload a list of CPD providers that they have verified onto the system via their ECSA portal page.

A.5.3. Process application for validation of a CPD Activity

Only verified Service Providers may apply to validate a CPD activity. The application is made to a Licensed Body. ECSA does not normally validate CPD activities [unless the CPD Service Provider was verified by ECSA].

If successfully validated, the LB will upload the new CPD activity to ECSA's system via their portal page.

The ECSA website will be refreshed at least daily with any changes to CPD activities.

The system must:

a) Enable CPD Providers to submit activities and supporting documentation that they require validation for.

b) Validate fields captured according to validation rules as well prevent duplication of applications for the same activity.

c) Integrate with a Document Management System to store documents uploaded as supporting documents to the application.

d) Generate an invoice on the Finance System and allow the CPD Providers to view the invoice [this is not currently policy but may be required in future]

e) Facilitate online payment of the invoice by the CPD Provider.

f) Allow applicants track progress of their applications.

g) Enable CPD Manager/assistant manager to log in to the system to verify completeness of documents and send notification if there are missing documents.

h) Enable selected CPD Committee members to log onto the system to asses/validate the activities.



i) Send approved/declined outcome to the CPD Provider via their preferred communication channel with Validation Number.

j) Enable Licensed Body to log into the system to upload their activities via their portal page.

k) If a CPD Service Provider's verification has expired, then the system should flag the validated activity to the CPD officer as Service Provider expired. The officer may use their discretion to approve or decline the activity, with reasons recorded in the system.

A.5.4. Audit and review a Licensed Body, CPD Service Provider or Voluntary Association

Every three years (for Licensed Body and CPD Service Provider) or five years (for a Voluntary Association) – or as and when necessary – ECSA audits and reviews every Licensed Body, Service Provider and Voluntary Association to ensure compliance with the rules and standards.

The process for Licensed Body, Service Provider and Voluntary Association are similar.

The system must:

a) Show a list of Licensed Bodies, CPD Service Providers and Voluntary Associations and allow the CPD Officer to select one for auditing and review.

b) Allow CPD manager/assistant manager to log onto the system to initiate an audit and review process for a selected Licensed Body , Service Provider or Voluntary Association and enter the date of the audit and the reason for the audit – Inspection, Regular, Complaint investigation, Other – with a text box to add further information.

c) Three months before the audit due date, send out a letter (PDF) informing the Licensed Body, Service Provider or Voluntary Association that an audit is due and the reason for the audit.

d) Enable the Licensed Body, CPD Service Provider or Voluntary Association to upload requested documentation onto the portal where the system will store it on the CRM system.

e) Distribute the supporting material to selected members of the CPD audit team.

f) Enable the CPD manager/assistant manager to capture the outcome of the audit – passed, failed or corrective actions and deficiencies.

g) The CPD manager/assistant manager will upload the audit and review report to the system via an upload button. The CPD manager/ assistant manager will notify the Licensed Body, CPD Service Provider or Voluntary Association of the outcome via their preferred communication channel and upload the letter to the DMS.

h) Allow CPD manager/assistant manager to change the licensing status of the Licensed Body, CPD Service Provider or Voluntary Association if it is revoked and the system to send notification all relevant stakeholders.

i) Disable/Invalidate the license certificate if status is revoked.

Process Map: Audit and Monitor Voluntary Association (out of date – change SR&M to CPD)

https://www.ecsa.co.za/ICT%20Spec/Audit%20Voluntary%20Association%20Recognition.pdf



A.6. Recognition of Voluntary Associations ECSA is mandated to recognise Voluntary Associations (VA) that meet the requirements as set out in the VA rules (see board notice 60 of 2017).

A prospective VA will complete a simple web form to request ECSA contacts them to begin the process of recognition. The volumes are low, so CPD will do the initial qualification of the VA off the system. Once the CPD Officer is satisfied with the applicant's bona fides, they will create a portal account for the applicant to continue with the application.

The process involves an application submitted via the portal to ECSA by an association that is seeking to be become a VA of ECSA. ECSA makes an assessment of the application against the VA rules. The rules make provision for two categories of recognition; Category A and B.

VAs applying for Category A or B must meet the criteria reflected in section 3 or 4 of the rules (as appropriate). The portal application page will provide for the applicant to upload required documents one by one on the relevant section (i.e. not a bulk upload of one composite document).

Successful applicants are referred to as VAs and are recognised should they meet all the requirements for a period of five years after which the VA needs to reapply.

REF Category Business Requirement Process Map?

Owner

A.6 Recognition of Voluntary Associations (VAs)

6.1 Approve Voluntary Association Yes CPD

6.2 Audit Voluntary Association No CPD

6.3 Cancel Recognition of VA No CPD

6.4 Renew VA Recognition No CPD

A.6.1. Approve Voluntary Association

The system must:

a) Allow a bona fide prospective VA to log on to the portal and submit an application for recognition.

b) Enable a bona fide prospective VA to submit an application for exemption from one or more requirement for recognition.

c) Validate fields captured according to recognition requirements as well prevent duplication of applications for the association.

d) Integrate with a Document Management System to store documents uploaded as supporting documents to the application.

e) Generate unique application Reference Number.

f) Allow applicants track progress of their applications and update applications at certain limited stages of the application.



g) Enable the CPD officer/manager/assistant manager to login to the system to verify completeness of documents and send a notification if there are missing documents.

h) The CPD manager/assistant manager may choose to audit the applicant and conduct an inspection before making an approval decision.

i) The CPD manager/assistant manager may refer an application to the CPD Committee for approval.

j) Upon approval, generate a unique VA number and recognition period and produce a VA Recognition certificate (PDF) – signed by the Executive: Regulatory Functions and the CEO.

k) Upon approval, compile and send a letter confirming approval of the application. The letter or email will contain a link to download the PDF certificate.

l) Enable unsuccessful applicants to submit an appeal.

m) Enable CPD manager/assistant manager to process an appeal.

Process Map: Recognition of Voluntary Association.

A.6.2. Audit Voluntary Association

The VA audit process is covered together with the audit process for the Licensed Body and CPD Service Provider.

A.6.3. Cancel Recognition of Voluntary Association

A cancellation may occur because of a cancellation request from the Voluntary Association, or when the recognition period lapses and is not successfully renewed.

The system must process a Voluntary Association cancellation request as follows:

a) The CPD officer will receive a cancellation email from the VA.

b) The CPD officer will retrieve the record for the VA and cancel the recognition (via a cancellation button) giving a reason.

c) Update the VA status to cancelled in the CRM.

d) Update the VA record on the website to cancelled status.

e) Send a cancellation confirmation to the VA.

f) If the VA is also a Licensed Body then the system will trigger a cancellation process for the Licensed Body.

g) Note that cancellation of a VA has an impact on the billing and CPD points for registered person.

The system must process other cancellations (failed audit or lapsed recognition period) as follows:

a) Update the VA status to cancelled in the CRM.

b) Update the VA record on the website to cancelled status.

https://www.ecsa.co.za/ICT%20Spec/Voluntary%20Association%20Recognition.pdf



c) Send a cancellation confirmation to the VA.

d) If the VA is also a Licensed Body, then the system will trigger a cancellation process for the Licensed Body.

e) Note that cancellation of a VA has an impact on the billing and CPD points for registered person. Accommodate this in the Billing processes.

A.6.4. Renew Voluntary Association Recognition

The Voluntary Association Recognition renewal process is the same as the "Approve Voluntary Associations" process.

The system must:

a) Alert a VA (via their preferred communication channel) three months before their recognition is lapsing and is due for renewal.

b) Allow previously recognised Voluntary Associations to capture their new applications and supporting documentation.

c) Allow the applicant to copy certain sections of their previous application to reduce capturing effort.

d) Apply the same process as used for a new application.

e) The previous application will remain in the system as a historic record.

A.7. Management of Improper Conduct Case against a Registered Person The following business requirements should be implemented:

REF Category Business Requirement Process

Map?

Owner

A.7 Management of Improper

Conduct Case against a

Registered Person

7.1 Process complaint of improper conduct

No Legal

7.2 Manage disciplinary hearing No Legal

7.3 Process appeal No Legal

7.4 Process criminal case No Legal

7.5 Provide reports and dashboards No Legal

A.7.1. Process complaint of improper conduct

The system must be able to perform the following:

Note: There are two types of people that can lodge a complaint.



a) Allow complainant/respondent and Legal BU to view/track the status of the complaints using case number.

b) The system must send regular automatic reminders and status updates to the different role players of the process.

c) Generate weekly status reports and statistics re compliance with turnaround times.

d) Indicate who performed which action on it and the date for such action.

e) The system must provide for different access rights.

f) Receive and record queries arising from this process under each case/reference number and their status captured/updated by Legal Administrator (LA).

Complaints against registered persons and complaints re unlawful use of ECSA’s registration designations/misrepresentation cases.

The system must enable the following sequential processes to take place.

a) Provide field for the completion of a complaint affidavit and attachment of supporting documents.

b) The system generates a reference number and send an email notification of the new complaint to Legal Services Unit (LSU).

c) The system verifies the registration status of the engineer/respondent.

d) If not registered the system generates an automated email to the complainant stating that ECSA does not have jurisdiction over non-registered persons and the complaint will be closed. In the case of misrepresentation this step will be followed by step 6 below.

e) If the respondent is registered an email is sent to LA to refer the complaint to the Legal Practitioner (LP) for further vetting and categorization (ethical/technical).

f) If the vetting is successful (prima facie case) the LA tells the system to generate a case number.

g) If vetting is unsuccessful the LA communicates the shortcomings to the complainant and updates the system.

h) Legal Manager (LM) appoints an investigator.

i) The LA captures the name of the investigator and date of investigator appointment on the system. From this point onwards, the system starts calculating the turnaround times.

j) The system sends an email to the complainant with the case number and investigator name and informs them that the case is under investigation.

k) The LA sends a letter (signed by LM) to the respondent re the case number, the investigation and their rights. The LA updates the system that a letter has been sent.

l) The system generates an email to the investigator advising on the due date of the investigation report.

m) A week before the due date the system sends a reminder email to the investigator to submit an investigation report.



n) If there is a request for a postponement of the date for submitting the investigator report, the LA captures the new due date and reasons for such postponement. A week before the new due date a reminder is sent to the investigator to submit the investigation report. The system must have a limit on the number of postponements that are processed by LA and require LM authorization after the second postponement.

o) Once the investigation is complete, LP vets the investigation report.

p) The LA tells the system that the investigation has been completed and uploads the investigation report on the system.

q) The system generates an email to complainant and respondent that the investigation report has been received and will be tabled before the next IC meeting.

r) After the IC has ruled on a case, the LA captures the decision on the system.

s) LM signs a letter re the outcome of the Investigating Committee (IC) and LA sends the letter and updates the system.

t) Refer misrepresentation case to the South African Police Service (SAPS) after the IC ruling.

Third Party Investigations

a) A complaint is registered by the LA

b) The LA tells the system to generate a case number.

c) The LM appoints an investigator.

d) The LA captures the name of the investigator and date of investigator appointment on the system. From this point onwards, the system starts calculating the turnaround times.

e) The system generates an email to the investigator advising on the due date of the investigation report.

f) A week before the due date the system sends a reminder email to the investigator to submit an investigation report. If there is a request for a postponement of the date for submitting the investigator report, the LA captures the new due date and reasons for such postponement. A week before the system must have a limit on the number of postponements that are processed by LA and require LM authorization after the second postponement.

g) If it is at any point during the investigation, it is confirmed that a registered person is involved. The LA sends a letter (signed by LM) to the registered person stating the case number, the basis of the investigation and their rights. The LA updates the system that a letter has been sent.

h) Once the investigation is completed, LP vets the investigation report.

i) The LA tells the system that the investigation has been completed and uploads the investigation report on the system.

j) The system generates an email to the respondent that the investigation report has been received and will be tabled before the next IC meeting.

k) After the IC has ruled on the case, the LA captures the decision on the system.



l) LM signs a letter re the outcome of the IC and the LA send the letter to all parties and updates the system.

A.7.2. Manage disciplinary hearing

Section 31 and 32 of the EPA

a) Once the IC has ruled that charges must be issued.

b) LA updates the system accordingly.

c) The charges are drafted and sent to the respondent together with the notice of set down and disciplinary bundle.

d) The disciplinary hearing is heard.

e) LA receives the outcome of the disciplinary hearing, uploads it on the system, and updates the system.

f) The system sends the outcome to the relevant parties.

A.7.3. Process appeal


Section 24 Appeals – appeals against registration/ education evaluation decisions

a) The appellant completes the notice of appeal and uploads it on the system.

b) The appellant upload supporting documents and the proof of payment

c) If all the fields on the notice of appeal are completed and proof of payment is uploaded, the

d) system forwards the application to the Legal administrator for further vetting.

e) If the vetting is successful, the legal administrator notifies the system that all supporting

f) documents are in order and registers the appeal.

g) The system generates an acknowledgement of receipt.

h) The legal administrator forwards appeal to Registration/Education to provide further reports

i) and submit panel members.

j) The system must send reminders to Registration/Education to provide reports and panel

k) members.

l) LM appoints a presiding officer for the appeal.

m) LA receives the reports and panel members, allocates a date for the appeal, and updates the system accordingly.

n) LA circulates the notice of set down together with the appeal bundle and updates the system

o) accordingly.



p) The appeal is heard and the outcome and report is uploaded on the system.

q) Once the appeal hearing is finalized, the system notifies the appellant of the outcome.

Section 33 – Council Appeals

Council Appeals are conducted in accordance with the Council appeal procedure.

a) The appellant completes the notice of appeal and uploads it on the system.

b) The appellant upload supporting documents and the proof of payment. If all the fields on the notice of appeal are completed and the proof of payment is uploaded, the system forwards the appeal application to LA for further vetting.

c) If the vetting is successful, LA notifies the system that all supporting documents are in order and registers the appeal.

d) The system generates an acknowledgement of receipt to the appellant.

e) LA circulates the notice of set down together with the appeal bundle and updates the system accordingly.

f) Council Appeals are conducted in accordance with the Council appeal procedure.

g) Once the appeal hearing is finalized, LA uploads the outcome of the appeal on the system and the system communicates it to the appellant.

Section 35 – CBE Appeals

a) The notice of intention to appeal is received from the CBE. ML appoints a legal representative for ECSA and prepares a legal brief.

b) LA uploads the notice of appeal and registers the appeal together with the date of receipt and the date when the notice of intention to oppose is due.

c) The Notice of intention to oppose is received from the ECSA legal representative and is uploaded on the system.

d) LA receives the notice of intention to oppose from the attorneys representing ECSA and uploads it on the system.

e) LA receives notification from CBE re the due date for the heads of arguments and captures the date on the system.

f) ECSA’s representative is notified of the due date for the heads of arguments.

g) LA uploads the heads of arguments and the date of the appeal hearing.

h) LA receives the outcome of the appeal hearing and uploads it on the system.

A.7.4. Process criminal case


a) Enable the Legal Administrator to capture a criminal case for a fraudulent certificate



b) Generate a case number

c) Enable a Legal Administrator to update the case with a SAPS case number

d) Email case number to a person who reported it

e) Update the status of the case

A.7.5. Provide reports and dashboards

The system must be able to produce the following reports:

a) How long it took to investigate

b) Areas where most cases appear

c) Reflect the outcome of the case:

• Insufficient evidence - dismissed

• Advisory letter - dismissed the case

• No registered Person identified

• Investigation Consultation

• Preferred Charges

A.8. Billing of Applications and Registered Persons ECSA does not receive grants or subsidies from Government or any other sources. It is totally reliant on the application and annual fees received from applicants and registered persons.

Annual Fees: Annual fees are raised yearly for the period from April to March and are payable by all registered persons for as long as they appear on ECSA’s database.

Persons registered in the Candidate category for a period of more than six (6) years pay the same annual fees as persons registered in the professional category.

Application Fees: Application fees for candidate and professional categories are structured differently as follows:

• Candidates whose qualification were obtained less than one calendar year ago.

• Candidates whose qualification were obtained more than one calendar year ago.

• Professionals who are not registered in any of the candidate categories.

• Professionals with uninterrupted registration as a candidate.

Evaluation Fees: fees for Education Qualification Evaluation (whether domestic or foreign institution) are the same as the candidates whose qualification was obtained more than one calendar year ago.




REF Category Business Requirement Process Map?

Owner

A.8 Billing of Applications and Registered Persons

8.1 Perform billing No Finance

8.2 Process application for deferment of annual fees

No Finance

8.3 Process reinstatement (impacts CPD and Finance)

No Registration

8.4 Process application for retired status (aged 55-69)

No Registration

8.5 Facilitate online payments No Finance

8.6 Generate invoices and statements No Finance

A.8.1. Perform billing

ECSA is expected to raise annual fees on the 1st of April each year to all registered persons for as long as they appear on ECSA’s database as active.

During the capturing process of applications, the application fees must be raised automatically by the system.

The calculation of the annual fees and application fees raised must be accurate and reliable. The system must be able to perform the following:

k) Enable a Finance user (not ICT as is currently the case) to capture the fees table used in the calculation of both the application and annual fees. The fees capture/fees maintenance is done once a year.

l) Finance manager to approve the captured fees table before it can be used.

m) The system must be able to calculate the annual fee for a registered person according to the preferred category the registered person belongs to.

n) Calculate applicable discounts for applicant/registered person according to fee schedule. Take note of rules for retirement (55-69) and retired-exempted persons aged 70 or over.

o) Send an alert to all registered persons asking them to check and update their billing information on the portal.

p) Allow applicant/ registered person to indicate if their employer will make payment for their fees. Registered persons to indicate this on their profile.

q) Enable Finance to run the annual billing on the test environment that calculates fees and generates (test) invoices for all active billable-registered persons.

r) Enable Finance to initiate a production billing run that calculates and invoices for all active billable-registered persons.

s) The system must generate invoices and email them to registered person – and send an SMS containing an amount and a link to the Netcash payment portal. The invoices must be



available on the system and on the registered person’s CRM profile with the option to print.

t) Allow an applicant and a registered person to view and print invoices from their portal page.

A.8.2. Process application for deferment or annual fees

After the fees have been raised, registered persons can apply for deferment from paying their annual fees depending on their financial situation.


a) From within their portal page, allow registered person to apply for a deferment on the payment of fees and specify the reason.

b) Allow Finance to approve/decline the application for deferment with reason and an end-date for the deferment. Finance must be able to update the deferment end date (for example, if the person’s financial situation improves).

c) The system will still invoice the deferred person but will not collect the invoiced amount until the person’s financial situation improves. Payment reminders will not be sent during the deferment period.

d) If the registered person has been deferred for two contiguous years, they cannot be deferred for a third year. If payment not made in year 3, the fees will be written off and the person will start paying again from year 3.

e) Interact with external parties (such as Department of Labour) who can verify employment status.

f) Validate ID number against the Home Affairs system to confirm name and living status (not deceased).

g) Exemptions and extensions should have an “end date” so that they become liable for the fees again after a time.

A.8.3. Process reinstatement

Council approved the following policy:

Any decision by the Finance and Staff (F&S) committee relating to –

• the determination of a date before which the prescribed annual fee must be paid; and to

• cancel the registration of a person in terms of Section 20(1)(a)(iii) of the Act for failure to pay such prescribed annual fee.

In order for registered persons to reinstate a cancelled registration, the amount in arrears including an additional admin fee (currently R500) is payable within one year of cancellation. Should the one-year period lapse after cancelation, the person will need to re-apply for registration.


a) Apply for re-instatement on the ECSA portal.



b) The portal will present to the applicant a list of requirements for re-instatement, including fees owed and CPD points needed (if the 5-year cycle has passed).

c) Process a payment via SagePay or Netcash payment gateway or upload proof of payment.

d) Alert finance debtors clerks of the need to verify the proof of payment.

e) Alert CPD officer that a reinstatement is in process and that they need to validate the CPD activities.

f) Check before reinstatement that CPD requirements have been met and the fees have been paid.

g) If CPD requirements met and fees paid, then automatically change the status of cancelled to active when a payment for a previously cancelled person has been allocated.

h) If CPD requirements not met or fees not paid, then issue a notification to the applicant. Flag the applicant as "Reinstatement is awaiting CPD approval/payment of fees".

A.8.4. Process application for retired status (aged 55-69)

The Council is prepared to consider applications from registered persons who are aged 55 years or older and who are no longer in substantive employment in the engineering profession for transfer into the registration category of retired persons.

Recognition of a Registered Person as "retired" is not automatic. A person seeking recognition as a retired person, who is between 55 and 69 years of age, must make written application to Council for this, setting out fully the circumstances and motivation for it. Where possible, the letter of application should be accompanied by copies of appropriate supporting documentation confirming the applicant’s retired status.

The system must:

a) Provide for a registered person aged between 55 and 69 to apply for retired status via their portal page. Persons outside this age bracket should not see this option.

b) Route a submitted application to the work coordinator who will assign it to a registration officer for vetting.

c) Enable the registration officer to view the application and supporting documents, vet them and determine whether the application meets the requirements for retired status. The registration officer may choose to refer the application to the Registration Committee for an opinion.

d) If the application passes vetting, route the application to the registration manager for approval.

e) On approval, automatically update the status of the registered person to "Retired". Generate a PDF letter to the registered person confirming their retired status and indicating the reduced annual fee. Send this letter via email to the registered person. Send an SMS/WhatsApp if selected as a communication method.

f) If the application is rejected, generate a letter setting out the reasons for rejection. Send the letter by email to the registered person. Send an SMS/WhatsApp if selected as a communication method.



A.8.5. Facilitate online payments

ECSA will issue invoices to registered persons from accounting software with an embedded link (SagePay banner) and a scan-to-pay option that will automatically load a payment page. Every invoice will have a payment option and details in the footer including a scan to pay button. This will make payments more convenient for registered persons and applicants to enable efficient payment methods for ECSA as well as improve cash flow and reduce admin effort. Payment options that should be available include instant EFT, Bank EFT and credit card.

This will enable ECSA to easily reconcile invoices against payment received using statements from the online payment facility.


a) Enable applicant or registered person to log into their portal page and make an online payment or upload proof of payment made outside of the system. The system must notify the registered person of the success or failure of the online payment transaction.

b) Allow Finance to be able to allocate (on Sage Evolution) payments made off the system – by applicants, by registered persons and by companies (who pay in bulk for all their staff) after receiving the remittance or proof of payment.

c) Allow the registered person or applicant to download a statement from their portal page – or trigger the emailing of a statement.

A.8.6. Generate invoices and statements

On the 1st of April when the annual fees are raised, invoices must be generated by the Sage Evolution system.

When an application is captured onto the system – via the ECSA portal or directly onto the CRM – an invoice for the application fee must be generated by the Sage Evolution system.

On a monthly basis, the accountant will trigger the system to produce statements for registered persons who have a) an outstanding balance, or b) have made a payment since the last statement run.


a) Allow Finance to trigger an automated process to recognise early bird payments and apply an adjustment to the registered person's account.

b) adjust registered persons’ accounts before statement can be generated e.g. Early Bird discount or small balance write-off.

c) Allow registered persons to be able to view statements and invoices.

d) Allow Finance to trigger sending of statements to registered persons on a monthly basis.

e) The system must issue regular reminders of an outstanding balance when triggered by the Accountant.



A.9. Handle customer queries and complaints ECSA already operates an effective customer contact centre. The centre comprises 4 operators led by a contact centre manager and uses the Oculus O!Connect cloud-based contact centre solution. Customer queries are captured into the O!Connect system. The system is NOT used to capture complaints; instead, complaints are captured into SHEQsys by the QMP business unit.

Thus, neither complaints nor queries are recorded in the CRM system database and CRM users do NOT have O!Connect licenses.

Going forward, the system must enable customers to submit queries and complaints directly though a variety of channels.

Queries and complaints to [email protected], [email protected] and other group mailboxes are rerouted to [email protected] and accessed by the Contact Centre and QMP business unit.

Ref Category Business Requirement Process Map?

Owner

A.9 Handle Customer Queries and Complaints

9.1 Handle Customer Queries and Complaints:

Yes QMP

a) via email to [email protected] QMP

b) via the customer Contact Centre QMP

c) via the ECSA portal

d) via a chatbot QMP

e) via WhatsApp and SMS QMP

f) via social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube

SRM

A.9.1. Handle customer queries and complaints

External stakeholders (engineers usually) currently submit queries or complaints via an email, website, telephone call or walk-ins to the contact centre. However, stakeholders also post queries or complaints to social media. Stakeholder Relations and Marketing currently sends these to the contact centre.

Incoming queries are recorded in O!Connect. Incoming complaints are recorded in SHEQsys. When a CRM user views a customer record, they should be able to see a list of related queries and complaints from their CRM screen.

a) via email. This already works. No action needed.

b) via the customer Contact Centre. This already works. No action needed.

c) via the ECSA portal. The portal must have a structured form for submitting a query or making a complaint. This will allow a stakeholder to capture and categorise their query or complaint, saving time later in the process. The portal should pass a query through to the cloud-based O!Connect system, and pass a complaint through to the cloud-based SHEQsys system.







d) via a chatbot. The chatbot does not yet exist. The renovation partner will design, build and deploy the automated chatbot probably using Microsoft Power Apps Virtual Agent. Business will provide domain expertise to help design the interactions. The chatbot must be able to answer simple questions, guide the user to more information on the website, trigger the logging of a query in O!Connect, trigger the logging of a complaint in SHEQsys, and offer to hand off a chat to a live human operator is one is available (e.g. during office hours).

The chatbot must integrate with Sage Evolution, CRM, O!Connect and SHEQsys to get answers to simple questions such as “what is my account balance?”, and “when is my cycle renewal date?”, “what is the status of my query/complaint?”.

e) via WhatsApp and/or SMS. WhatsApp and SMS can be useful channel for simple interactions. This channel should operate in a similar manner to the chatbot described above.

f) via social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. Stakeholders sometime choose to air their queries (but more often, their complaints) on social media. SRM business unit is responsible for picking these up and routing them to the Contact Centre or QMP (to be captured into SHEQsys). If feasible, a response from business should be posted automatically to the social media platform under the original post. This response should be free of personal information (as the platforms are public) but should make it clear that ECSA has received the message and is dealing with it. The substantive response will be recorded in the O!Connect or SHEQsys as appropriate.

Process Map: Customer Queries and Complaints Logged on the Portal

*** END OF RFP DOCUMENT ***