{"id":9955,"date":"2025-09-15T09:05:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T13:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sovra.com\/?p=9955"},"modified":"2025-09-15T09:05:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T13:05:09","slug":"city-of-aspen-from-spreadsheets-to-a-modernized-procurement-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sovra.com\/fr\/success-story\/city-of-aspen-from-spreadsheets-to-a-modernized-procurement-system\/","title":{"rendered":"City of Aspen: From Spreadsheets to a Modernized Procurement System"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Nestled in Colorado\u2019s Rocky Mountains, the City of Aspen is the most populous municipality and county seat of Pitkin County. As the county hub, Aspen manages essential procurement responsibilities that support both local government operations and the wider community.<\/p>

Situation:<\/span> A Fragmented, Manual System<\/strong><\/h2>

When Asal Vojdani, Procurement Officer for the City of Aspen, assumed her role, Aspen\u2019s procurement relied on spreadsheets, Word forms, DocuSign, and scattered departmental filing. Each department tracked its own approvals and documents, leaving Procurement with a patchwork of processes. Audits, reports, and council requests required hours of digging through drives and email trails.<\/p>

\u201cIt was very sloppy when we first started,\u201d Vojdani explained. \u201cWe had a big Excel sheet where we\u2019d generate our own contract numbers and track the status. Departments filed their own things. Nothing was centralized.\u201d<\/p>

This made audits and reporting cumbersome. Quick answers for council or senior management often meant digging through spreadsheets, email trails, or file folders.<\/p>

Solution:<\/span> Customization That Fits Aspen\u2019s Needs<\/strong><\/h2>

Aspen had already used Bidnet Direct by SOVRA for solicitations, but when the time came to modernize further, the city evaluated multiple eProcurement providers. When Aspen evaluated eProcurement providers, many required the City to adopt rigid workflows or their own vendor pools. That was a non-starter. Aspen needed a solution that could adapt to its unique processes, not the other way around.<\/p>

\u201cWhat made the difference,\u201d said Vojdani, \u201cwas the ability to customize the platform to fit our needs instead of changing how Aspen does business.\u201d<\/p>

The city adopted SOVRA\u2019s contract and requester modules, working closely with departments to design workflows that matched their processes. Before launch, Aspen worked with departments and vendors in test cycles, gathering feedback and making quick modifications with the SOVRA team.<\/p>

\u201cAnything that made the process faster, departments were on board,\u201d Vojdani recalled. \u201cWe pulled in our usual suspects to give feedback. There wasn\u2019t much pushback.\u201d<\/p>

By January 2025, Aspen launched its new centralized procurement system as \u201cthe only way forward.\u201d<\/p>

Outcomes for Aspen<\/strong><\/h2>

Centralized Access and Accountability<\/strong><\/h3>

Contracts and requests that were once scattered are now accessible in one system.<\/p>

\u201cBefore, people had to ask me for information. Now they know where to go. If a contract is expiring, we get a notification in advance instead of finding out too late,\u201d said Vojdani.<\/p>

Faster Reporting<\/strong><\/h3>

Generating quick reports for Council or Management is no longer a manual task.<\/p>

\u201cIt used to be very hard to give quick reports back to leadership,\u201d Vojdani explained. \u201cNow, all of those are being generated for us based on the way we\u2019ve customized the platform.\u201d<\/p>

Time Savings Across the Process<\/strong><\/h3>

Through automated workflows, Procurement can track who is holding up an approval and send reminders directly to them. Vendors, too, are more self-sufficient, logging in to collaborate on contracts instead of relying on back-and-forth emails, and eliminating hours of searching and filing documents.<\/p>

\u201cThey don\u2019t have to email us or call us to get the contracts anymore. They can go in, click, and get the information,\u201d said Vojdani.<\/p>

Collaboration With Departments<\/strong><\/h3>

Testing and rollout included close collaboration with department staff.<\/p>

\u201cWe started test driving it with project managers we knew were open to change,\u201d Vojdani said. \u201cWe\u2019d send test phases to vendors and approvers, ask for feedback, and quickly make modifications. That made adoption easier.\u201d<\/p>

Positive Feedback<\/strong><\/h3>

After launch, Aspen surveyed departments on the system. \u201cThey came back pretty positive,\u201d Vojdani said. A refresher survey is planned to continue collecting feedback and refining processes.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

\u201cIt used to be very hard to give quick reports back to leadership. Now, all of those are being generated for us based on the way we\u2019ve customized the platform.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Asal Vojdani<\/strong>, Procurement Officer, City of Aspen<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Lessons Learned:<\/span> Building a Strong Foundation<\/strong><\/h2>

For Vojdani, the biggest takeaway was the importance of starting small, focusing on essentials, and building a strong foundation.<\/p>

\u201cOne of the things we chose was to really focus on some of the modules, because it\u2019s very overwhelming. We did just contracting first. I\u2019m itching to add evaluation, but we want people to get a year of using this, routing this, before adding more.\u201d<\/p>

Her advice to peers: \u201cTake your time and really focus on your needs. Make sure the foundation is set up strong. Don\u2019t rush. Step by step is what made this successful for Aspen.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nestled in Colorado\u2019s Rocky Mountains, the City of Aspen is the most populous municipality and county seat of Pitkin County. As the county hub, Aspen manages essential procurement responsibilities that support both local government operations and the wider community. Situation: A Fragmented, Manual System When Asal Vojdani, Procurement Officer for the City of Aspen, assumed her role, Aspen\u2019s procurement relied on spreadsheets, Word forms, DocuSign, and scattered departmental filing. Each department tracked its own approvals and documents, leaving Procurement with a patchwork of processes. Audits, reports, and council requests required hours of digging through drives and email trails. \u201cIt was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9994,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"positioning":[58],"class_list":["post-9955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-success-story","positioning-public-sector"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sovra.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sovra.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sovra.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sovra.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sovra.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sovra.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sovra.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sovra.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sovra.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sovra.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9955"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sovra.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=9955"},{"taxonomy":"positioning","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sovra.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/positioning?post=9955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}