What is Buy It eMarketplace?

Buy It eMarketplace is Illinois Tech’s eProcurement system and the preferred method to
purchase all goods and services for and by the University, including faculty members and researchers.

You can email Procurement Services (Snow Rutkowske and Malcolm Brown) to get access to Buy It.
Buy It should be used as much as possible for all applicable purchases for your work at the University,
including for grants/research projects.

Various training and reference materials are available for Buy It eMarketplace, including: 

• Buy It User Manual
• Weekly Buy It Office Hours offered by Procurement Services (Wednesday afternoons and Friday mornings)
• Departmental Administrators and Coordinators, or another colleague who is already using Buy It eMarketplace
• Coming Soon: Buy It How Tos videos 

Key Project Milestones and Announcements

• ANNOUNCING ILLINOIS TECH'S EPROCUREMENT INITIATIVE

• EPROCUREMENT IMPLEMENTATION TIMELINE

• EMARKETPLACE PUNCH-OUT VENDORS - WAVE 1

• BUY IT EPROCUREMENT SUPPLIER REGISTRATION

• buy it live for all administrative units as of june 17th!

• Buy It emarketplace now live for all illinois tech!

Announcing illinois Tech's Eprocurement initiative

Illinois Institute of Technology has embarked on an eProcurement implementation initiative to streamline and standardize the procure-to-pay processes on campus.  For this important initiative, we have chosen to partner with Unimarket, a leading eProcurement solution provider for Higher Education especially schools with Ellucian Banner Finance as their ERP system. 

eProcurement is the streamlined management of the overall procure-to-pay process, including the user-friendly business-to-business purchase and sale of supplies and services through the Internet. The new system will handle our spend management, including creating and approving requisitions and purchase orders,  receiving goods and services, and processing invoices -- all electronically. By moving to a “paperless” environment, we will not only save on costs, but also obtain a higher level of transparency, more easily monitor compliance, and achieve more efficient with processing.

Some of the goals of this eProcurement initiative are to:

• Eliminate manual paper processes
• Expedite the purchasing process through the use of supplier catalogs
• Establish a campus-wide contract repository
• Implement an electronic invoicing platform
• Increase data collection and reporting ability
• Utilize campus-wide reporting to negotiate better prices

eprocurement implementation timeline

The eProcurement initiative began in October 2018, and we have been working with Unimarket to get it ready for deployment in Spring/Summer 2019, so we can provide campus department with a user-friendly tool, access the full functionality of the solution to create efficiency and realize greater savings for Illinois Tech.  Testing and implementation will continue over the course of the next few months as follows:

• Phase 1: Configuration and Testing (Current Phase, going through March 2019)
• Phase 2: Pilot Group Training and Go-Live (April 2019 for Finance Division and OTS)
• Phase 3: Campus Wide Training and Go-Live (Targeted for mid to late summer 2019 for all Illinois Tech departments)

eMarketplace punch-out vendors - Wave 1

We are currently working with various current high spend and high use vendors of Illinois Tech to establish convenient eMarketplace punch-out catalogs that would provide end users with a customer friendly online shopping experience, competitive pricing, and streamlined processes and services.  The following wave 1 vendors will have a punch-out catalog in the Buy It eMarketplace: 

Buy it eprocurement supplier registration

As of February 26, 2019, we have officially started our supplier outreach and registration process for our Buy It Unimarket eProcurement system.  Current active vendors of Illinois Tech will first receive an email notification regarding the eProcurement supplier registration process, which will be followed by another, separate email in the following days/weeks containing information on how to register and the registration link. 

In order to continue to participate with Illinois Tech, the vendor simply need to register in the Buy It system.

Registration is free and will provide you with the ability to:

• Receive orders from your customers electronically by email
• Create invoices electronically and view the status of all invoices
• Manage and share your company details electronically
• View and respond to Electronic Bid Requests

We look forward to continuing our business relationships with our vendor community in the new and exciting Buy It eMarketplace!

buy it eMarketplace live for all administrative units!

We are so excited to announce that all Administrative units are live in our new Buy It eMarketplace as of June 17! The Procurement Services office has hosted Buy It trainings for over 100 individuals in 50+ departments, and the feedback we have been getting about Buy It has been extremely positive.

Here’s what current Illinois Tech users are saying about Buy It:

• “I have found the Buy It system to be effortless. The suppliers are all in one place, the format is simple to follow and I receive my approval quickly via email.  The entire process from start to finish is great, it has simplified the ordering of supplies for our office and reduced the paper work.”

• “I love the punch out catalogs...You submit [your order], it's approved and BAMMM you have a requisition, it turns into a PO almost immediately… I also love the ability to upload all the needed documents in the actual order.”

• “Buy It is intuitive and streamlines the purchasing process. It has drastically reduced the amount of time and work required for making/approving purchases, and creates an easily accessible snapshot of your purchasing history.”

All Academic units are targeted to go live in Buy It starting on July 15, 2019. In the coming weeks we will connect with the primary budget managers and buyers in these units to ensure that everyone is prepared to use Buy It.

Thank you all for your support and collaboration as we deploy this new system at the University!

BUY IT EMARKETPLACE now LIVE FOR ALL illinois tech!