How To Do Business With DC Water

The contracts are awarded after the competitive selection process per DC Water Procurement Policy.  To become an approved vendor at DC Water, the interested firms must participate and be selected through a competitive solicitation process. 

Contracts may be issued for multiple-year terms and the new solicitations are issued prior to the expiration or termination of a contract or prior to the purchase of new product or service.

If you are registered in the New Vendor Portal, you will receive news and notices related to the upcoming activities and solicitations.  However, if you are not registered in the New Vendor Portal after October 5, 2020, you will not be able view solicitations or submit a proposal or quote to a new solicitation issued.

We strongly encourage that all vendors who are interested in doing business with DC Water to register in the New Vendor Portal, regardless where your firm is only intending to participate as a subcontractor.  By registering, subcontractors will also be informed of upcoming solicitations and plan accordingly.

You must also accept the terms and conditions of DC Water’s standard contract terms and conditions which are available at Procurement Contracts.

Please follow the process outlined below to participate in DC Water’s business opportunities.

  1. Register in DC Water’s Vendor Portal   

    On October 5, 2020, DC Water moved to the Oracle Cloud ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and implemented the new Oracle Vendor Portal system.  Visit the Technology Update section for more information.   

    From October 5, 2020, all new solicitation will be issued in the New Vendor Portal.  Therefore, you must be registered in DC Water’s New Vendor Portal to view and participate in the solicitations published in the New Vendor Portal. 
    • For the first-time registration, click on the link below to start the registration:   
      New Vendor Registration   
       
    • Vendors who are already doing business with DC Water and have contact(s) with email addresses should have received a link to reset their password. Firms SHOULD NOT try to register again. Once the password is reset, firms can include additional contacts, as necessary. Questions may be directed to procurementinquiry@dcwater.com

      .   

    • Vendors who are already doing business with DC Water but did not receive the “Welcome” email will need to send an email to: procurementinquiry@dcwater.com to request an update to their firm’s profile.  In doing so, firms will need to provide a contact name(s) and an email address.  As in example #1, firms SHOULD NOT try to register again.   
       
    • Vendors already doing business with DC Water with a valid email address on file, but still did not receive the “Welcome” email should check the following: 1) Their Spam email folder and mark the email as safe and/or 2) Their IT Outlook software settings to see if it  may have blocked the email completely. If it appears the email was blocked completely, work with your IT administrator to mark the emails as safe.   
       
    • Prospective Vendors should register using the New Vendor Registration link.   
      New Vendor Portal Login   
       
    • If you did not receive an email, then your company may not be transferred to the New Vendor Portal.  Please click on the New Vendor Registration link above to start the registration process.   
       
  2. Search For New Solicitations   

    DC Water will continue to use the Old Vendor Portal to maintain the solicitations issued prior to October 5, 2020.  Follow the links below to view all current and future opportunities:

    Solicitation Issued DC Water Solicitations
    Forecast of planned solicitations: Procurement Forecast
    • All publicly published solicitation opportunities are listed in the DC Water Solicitations.  For the future planned solicitations and estimated timeline is provided in the Procurement Forecast.   
       
    • Regularly visit above links to view published and future solicitation opportunities.  If you are registered in the New Vendor Portal, you will receive notices when a solicitation is published for your registered products or services.   
       
  3. Submit Proposal or Quote

    For solicitation issued prior to October 5, 2020, follow the submission instructions provided with each solicitation.

    For solicitation issued from October 5, 2020, you must submit your proposal or quote in the New Vendor Portal.  Login to the New Vendor Portal and:

    New Vendor Portal Login

    • Find and open the interested solicitation.   
       
    • Complete and submit your proposal or quote online by following the instructions.

    Contact the DC Water Procurement specialist shown on each solicitation for any questions.

    Outreach Information

    Prior to issuing a solicitation, DC Water may hold an outreach event to share the information about the solicitation.  To quickly communicate the outreach information to all potential vendors, DC Water may use one or more of the following methods:

    • Send the event news in the New Vendor Portal (you must login to view the information).   
       
    • Advertise in the local newspapers and publications.   
       
    • Post the event information in the “DCW Outreach Information” solicitation that contain upcoming outreach event information.

    Please note that the “DCW Outreach Information” solicitation will be the very first solicitation that is issued by DC Water in the New Vendor Portal system.  You can view the list of upcoming events in the Synopsis section of the solicitation.  The rest of solicitation documents will be empty.

    You can find this solicitation by entering “DCW Outreach Information” or the solicitation number “10001” in the search box at the links below.  This solicitation should also appear at the top of the list without the search.

    DC Water Solicitations

    New Vendor Portal Login