Welcome to the Procurement Orchestration Program (POP)
The Procurement Orchestration Program (POP) is a University of Colorado initiative designed to make procurement easier to navigate, more connected, and more transparent. POP is focused on creating a more intuitive experience where faculty and staff can find the right path for their needs, initiate requests, receive guidance, and better understand where their requests are throughout the process.
Introducing Zip: CU’s Procurement Orchestration Partner
As part of the Procurement Orchestration Program (POP), the University of Colorado has selected Zip as its procurement orchestration platform. Zip will serve as the orchestration layer supporting a more connected procurement experience, including guided intake, coordinated workflows, and greater visibility into requests.
This partnership is an important step in advancing POP’s vision of making procurement easier to navigate, more transparent, and more responsive to the needs of CU faculty and staff.
Vision
Create a seamless, transparent experience through intelligent orchestration that enables faculty and staff to obtain goods and services more efficiently while improving governance, visibility, cycle times, and compliance.
Goal
Our goal is to input all the knowledge, policies, and procedures into a procurement intake experience that helps customers navigate their procurement needs from one front door.
Outcomes
- Common Intake: A common starting point that provides a true guided experience for customer requests.
- Orchestrated Workflow: Workflow approvals and review can happen in parallel and be orchestrated through the tool.
- Shared Visibility: Real-time status, including ownership, next steps, and progression.
- Modern Contracting: Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM)-A more connected process for contract intake, review, approval, execution, and lifecycle management.
| Process | Today | Tomorrow |
|---|---|---|
| Non-Catalog Purchase Requisitions | CU Marketplace | ZIP |
| Expenditure Contracts | CU Marketplace | ZIP |
| Requisition Approvals | CU Marketplace | ZIP |
| Payment Vouchers | CU Marketplace | ZIP |
| Supplier Requests/Maintenance | CU Marketplace | ZIP |
| Purchase Order Management (Receiving) | CU Marketplace | CU Marketplace |
| Invoice Management | CU Marketplace | CU Marketplace |
| Change Order Request | ZIP |
Why now?
CU's purchasing environment spans multiple processes, teams, policies, and systems, including those outside of the PSC. While existing systems perform important transactional functions, they were not designed to provide a single, coordinated experience across procurement intake, contracting, and supplier management.
Scope
The project will initially focus on three areas:
- Procurement orchestration: A guided starting point that helps determine the appropriate purchasing pathway.
- Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM): Transform contracting from a series of disconnected handoffs into a connected, collaborative process that begins with intake and guides every contract through drafting, review, approval, execution, and renewal—improving speed, governance, and visibility across the enterprise.
- Supplier management: Create a tool that can manage our diverse supplier needs into a user-friendly experience including supplier onboarding, compliance checks, and on-going maintenance.
Timeline
The Procurement Orchestration Program (POP) is being delivered through a phased implementation approach that allows the project team to validate processes, configure the platform, train users, and prepare the university for a successful rollout.
We are currently beginning to schedule meetings with key campus stakeholders to build awareness of the project, share the overall vision and objectives, and begin engaging campus partners in the conversation.
These initial discussions will provide an opportunity to introduce POP, share where we are in the project journey, and ensure campus perspectives are considered as the work continues to develop.
| Phase (expected Schedule) | What Happens |
|---|---|
| Operating Model Alignment (July) | Confirm governance, prioritize initial use cases, define the future-state operating model, align system architecture, and establish implementation governance. |
| Planning (August-September) | Kick off the project, finalize the project plan, establish governance, identify stakeholders, prepare integrations, and begin change management planning. |
| Design (October-November) | Conduct design workshops with campus stakeholders to define workflows, intake forms, approvals, AI capabilities, integrations, and future operating processes. |
| Configuration (November-December) | Configure workflows, routing rules, intake forms, AI functionality, integrations, reporting, and security based on approved designs. |
| Testing (January-February) | Complete System Integration Testing (SIT) and User Acceptance Testing (UAT), validate integrations and migrated data, and resolve issues before launch. |
| Launch (March-Tentative) | Deliver end-user training, finalize communications, complete production migration, and transition the platform into production. |
| Hypercare & Stabilization (March-April) | Provide enhanced support immediately following go-live, monitor adoption, address issues, optimize workflows, and transition to ongoing operations. |
Frequently Asked Questions (coming soon)
Training & Resources (coming soon)
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Feedback or questions for this program is being collected via this form.