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This opportunity is for anyone that provides booking or class management software in the sport or physical activity sector
09/04/2021
Tender reference: OAP25
Call for tenders by the Open Data Institute (ODI) Contact: [email protected]
The Open Booking API is a technical standard that defines a common API interface for managing transactions between a booking system and front-end brokers. The fact that the standard is open, rather than proprietary, means that any booking system implementing the API can work with any broker implementing the API, and vice versa. This means the standard has the potential to widen the booking marketplace in a way that benefits everyone in the ecosystem – from the organisations providing the booked activities through to booking systems and brokers and, finally, the end-user.
The Open Booking API is relatively mature, and has passed a previous round of technical road-testing. However, there are some questions that still need to be answered to help the ecosystem as a whole mature.
- How feasible and effective is the use of a centrally-provided test suite in ensuring adherence to specifications?
- What is the value of implementing the API to booking systems, both in terms of immediate revenue and more broadly?
- What is the relationship between the cost of implementation and the value of the bookings this makes possible, in the short- and long-term?
- In what areas of implementation is further support most crucial?
In order to answer these questions, Sport England and the ODI will be funding 3–6 organisations to implement the Open Booking API on their booking systems and report on the costs, benefits, and technical barriers encountered during this implementation. Further details regarding this reporting can be found in the ‘Deliverables’ section below.
Summary and timeline
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Terms of payment
Payment of the agreed contract price will be made at two milestones:
- 50% at the halfway point
- 50% upon successful completion of the work, including satisfactory responses to all feedback from the ODI
Deliverables
The deliverables will be:
- An implementation of the Open Booking API that passes the provided test suite, and a Conformance Certificate indicating that it has done so
- An openly licensed (CC BY 4.0) open data feed of bookable opportunities that can be accessed without an API key and that is linked to from a dataset site
- A short report, outlining:
- The number of bookable opportunities published using OpenActive standards
- The total cost of implementation, itemised by role and day rate
We expect project teams to:
- Attend an initial introductory meeting and technical walkthrough of OpenActive standards
- Report fortnightly on progress
- Participate in a retrospective meeting after completion, investigating any technical obstacles encountered
- Provide a client ID to Open Booking Brokers
- Deliver all work no later than 9:00 GMT, 21/06/2021
The ODI will provide:
- A booking-system reference implementation of the Open Booking API
- A test suite against which implementers can test their code
- A technical introduction to OpenActive standards, followed by ongoing high-level technical support
Activities
The successful organisations will work in close collaboration with the ODI team to ensure the deliverables meet the needs of the project.
Form of tender response
We encourage you to use this tender response template.
In addition to supplying the information requested in the template, applicants should also include:
- A detailed work plan, outlining key milestones on a week-by-week or sprint-by-sprint basis and providing a full rationale for the projected cost
- CVs for all team members responsible for completing deliverables
If you have any questions about the tender, please contact [email protected] quoting the tender reference. The ODI reserves the right to make both anonymised questions and answers public or shared with other organisations having stated their interest.
Decision criteria
All proposals will be assessed as described in our public procurement policy. In addition, the following criteria will be applied:
- The application should be supported by a named senior level champion in the organisation
- We will be attempting to fund a wide range of organisations, of differing types, sizes, and business models
- As much evidence as possible indicating the ability to complete the work in the short timescales required should be supplied