Hilma’s resurgence

Development of a new version of the procurement notice service Hankintailmoitukset.fi started in earnest in 2019, and the renewed Hilma was opened to users on 2 January 2020. The service, which was previously only used to submit notices, assists tenderers in improving their ability to find the opportunities provided by the public sector and facilitates procurement work.

The total value of all the procurement projects listed in Hilma is some €35 billion. The service had to be renewed particularly due to the requirements of the suppliers participating in tendering: the procurement notice service no longer served them in the way they expected it to. The public procurement notice procedure will be changed in the next few years. Hilma’s renewal was also based on these future requirements.

“The previous version of Hilma was outdated. It was difficult to use with a mobile device, for example,” says Timo Rantanen, Electronic Procurement Development Manager.

The new Hankintailmoitukset.fi service provides the tenderers with a search feature. There is also an opportunity to save your searches. You can subscribe to notifications of procurement projects and add favourite notices so that you will be notified of any changes to them.

The administrative burden of parties submitting procurement notices was also lightened, as Hilma better supports the contracting authorities and any parties who occasionally use the service. A new selection wizard assists in finding the correct form, which reduces the number of incorrect choices.

In the new version of Hilma, the procurement notices correspond to EU procurement notices, which means that the data can be better utilised in statistics and analyses. The new notice structure makes the work faster, as you can copy a previous notice as the template for a new one. This creates a continuum in the case of the publication of advance notices, procurement notices and contract award notices, for example.

Hilma will be further developed

Guidelines in the reform were increased transparency, a user-centred approach and continuous development. The development work was open: anybody could attend the development reviews and provide feedback.

“Before starting the reform, we interviewed hundreds of users and requested their development ideas. We will continue to arrange focus group events, carefully listen to user feedback and invest in the development of features that are important to the users,” says Tiina Luoma, the service manager in charge of the Hilma reform.

Hansel is responsible for the management of the new version of Hankintailmoitukset.fi, and participants in the reform include the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, the Ministry of Finance, the Public Procurement Advisory Unit and several other parties.