City of Aspen: From Spreadsheets to a Modernized Procurement System

Nestled in Colorado’s 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’s 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.

“It was very sloppy when we first started,” Vojdani explained. “We had a big Excel sheet where we’d generate our own contract numbers and track the status. Departments filed their own things. Nothing was centralized.”

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

Solution: Customization That Fits Aspen’s Needs

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.

“What made the difference,” said Vojdani, “was the ability to customize the platform to fit our needs instead of changing how Aspen does business.”

The city adopted SOVRA’s 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.

“Anything that made the process faster, departments were on board,” Vojdani recalled. “We pulled in our usual suspects to give feedback. There wasn’t much pushback.”

By January 2025, Aspen launched its new centralized procurement system as “the only way forward.”

Outcomes for Aspen

Centralized Access and Accountability

Contracts and requests that were once scattered are now accessible in one system.

“Before, 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,” said Vojdani.

Faster Reporting

Generating quick reports for Council or Management is no longer a manual task.

“It used to be very hard to give quick reports back to leadership,” Vojdani explained. “Now, all of those are being generated for us based on the way we’ve customized the platform.”

Time Savings Across the Process

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.

“They don’t have to email us or call us to get the contracts anymore. They can go in, click, and get the information,” said Vojdani.

Collaboration With Departments

Testing and rollout included close collaboration with department staff.

“We started test driving it with project managers we knew were open to change,” Vojdani said. “We’d send test phases to vendors and approvers, ask for feedback, and quickly make modifications. That made adoption easier.”

Positive Feedback

After launch, Aspen surveyed departments on the system. “They came back pretty positive,” Vojdani said. A refresher survey is planned to continue collecting feedback and refining processes.