DIGITAL BEEHIVE LTD

Contract Bee

ContractBee is an intuitive cloud-based SaaS platform that enables the digital administration of NEC3 and NEC4 contracts. Celebrated for its centralised and digitalised approach to contract management, ContractBee enables the project team to work collaboratively through a simple, pragmatic workflow that ensures compliance and governance increasing efficiency and productivity.

Features

• Unlimited contracts per subscription with cost effective flexible licensing options
• Flexible self-service subscription management/configuration & online purchasing via 'The Hive'
• Managing NEC contracts, frameworks, programmes & portfolios centrally & collaboratively
• Auditable real-time Programme/Contract dashboard reporting & analytics with compliance scoring
• Intuitive design/workflow with inline guidance, quick-action menu & contract creation
• Secure authentication with MFA
• API availability enabling integration opportunities and exports
• Internal document management system
• Dedicated account manager and Single Point of Contact Service Desk
• Daily digest for all actions and notifications

Benefits

• Accessible to SME's with a simple & flexible pricing structure​
• Simple to sign up to, purchase & efficient onboarding
• Supports remote working with centralised/single source of truth data
• Improving project efficiency & transparency with programme management reporting
• Clean workspace with fewer windows & less clicks to navigate
• Safe & secure data storage with a highly resilient infrastructure
• API availability reduces administration & improves efficiency with automation
• Centralised document storage enables collaboration, governance & improved data security
• Enjoyable & seamless customer experience
• Never miss an action/change/notification with the daily digest

£30 to £49.99 a user a month

• Education pricing available
• Free trial available

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Skills Framework for the Information Age rate card

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at hello@digitalbeehive.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

937281106212076

Contact

Sales Team
0113 213 6723
hello@digitalbeehive.co.uk

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: No
• Cloud deployment model: Public cloud
• Service constraints: Digital Beehive operates a Continuous Improvement/Continuous Development (CI/CD) pipeline, which is managed by Agile Methodologies. This means from time-to-time planned upgrades and maintenance will be communicated to all users with ample notices and alerts to any upcoming maintenance via the application dashboard. Where possible, non-critical deployments will be carried out outside of normal working hours and with carefully chosen deployment schedules to avoid potential disruption to the live service. Extensive testing is completed by Digital Beehive in a testing environment prior to any release to production to further mitigate any potential risk of disruption to the users.
• System requirements:
  • Internet Access (Network/Mobile/Wi-Fi)
  • Internet Browsers (Latest versions of Edge, Chrome, Safari, Firefox etc)

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: Digital Beehive provides both email and online ticketing support. Support is available for general enquires Monday to Friday between the hours of 8.30am and 5.00pm.; ; All support enquiries are acknowledged immediately. Response times, service recovery and incident resolution times are dependent on the severity of the enquiry and range from 2 hours to 24 hours (see Terms & Conditions document for further clarification on SLA).
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: Yes
• Online ticketing support accessibility: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support: No
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: Digital Beehive offers a standard support package free of charge as part of the subscription, this includes access to the support management system, help centre and self-service customer portal. A dedicated support agent will be allocated to each incident and will be responsible for managing the incident through to resolution and, if necessary, can be escalated internally. Support tickets can be raised via email, telephone or within the Contract Bee application.; ; Digital Beehive also offers in-person training and online training via conference calls by a qualified NEC expert who can provide training for Contract Bee or an NEC accreditation. This training is charged at a separate cost.
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: Digital Beehive is proud of the UX (User Experience) of its applications and has aimed for a user centric Intuitive design with Contract Bee. Contract Bee guides users through the contract workflows and provides inline guidance where possible to ease onboarding onto the software. Digital Beehive offers a selection of training packages that cater to all requirements, which range from using Digital Beehive’s software products to understanding and administering the NEC form of contract in more depth. ; ; Additionally, Digital Beehive offers on-site training and online training (subject to requirements). User guidance is always available throughout the experience delivered via the training portal known as ‘The Hive’. Additional help is available through the Help Centre at any point and our trained customer support team will be delighted to assist throughout.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats:
  • HTML
  • PDF
• End-of-contract data extraction: Data can be extracted from Contract Bee within a few clicks. This gives a full, readable export of all data into an Excel workbook with a clearly defined folder structure for each contract and induvial communication items on the Contract. All attachments are also extracted alongside the communication Items.; ; Alternatively, a subscription with an active API module can choose to extract the information via the API and undergo an independent mapping exercise into another system.
• End-of-contract process: One billing month prior to the Subscription end date, the dedicated account manager associated with the Subscription will be in touch to notify the suspension of the Subscription and email reminders will be sent giving notice.; ; At the end of the Subscription Period, authorised access to the SaaS platform will be terminated and no further access will be granted to CCM unless an extension to the Subscription period had been agreed.; ; Each Authorised User for the Subscription is licenced individually and per product. A Subscription user can be downgraded to a ‘reader’ to provide read-only access to the data at a reduced price if read-only access is all that is required for the purposes of archiving.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Supported browsers:
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
• Application to install: No
• Designed for use on mobile devices: Yes
• Differences between the mobile and desktop service: All Digital Beehive web applications are designed with responsive design in mind. Our web app, Contract Bee, can be used on mobile just as well as laptop and PC.
• Service interface: Yes
• User support accessibility: WCAG 2.1 AAA
• Description of service interface: Digital Beehives service interface is delivered via access to a modern internet browser that provides users with Authentication and access to an Application Launcher and its Services. Contract Bee surfaces contract information on a dashboard and supplies registers for each workflow component, which users can order and filter as necessary. Clicking on an item will provide further details of the object the user has selected.; ; Digital Beehive has been recognised for its intuitive approach to application design. Contract Bee is no exception, guiding users through its workflow which has been honed based on customer feedback for the past 22 years.
• Accessibility standards: WCAG 2.1 AAA
• Accessibility testing: Digital Beehive utilises automated tooling to audit the accessibility of all its applications and strives to continually improve accessibility. This tool provides Digital Beehive with reports that enable the continual development of Contract Bee to meet the WCAG 2.1 AAA standard. The internal testing facilitates the identification of accessibility issues to ensure an inclusive application experience. ; ; Digital Beehive is in the process of developing theming within its applications to deliver an improved high contrast experience for users.
• API: Yes
• What users can and can't do using the API: Contract Bee’s Public API is an optional service that a subscription owner can purchase and assign to the subscription. This enables full integration opportunities to the raw data within the subscription. ; ; Once an API key is allocated and assigned to the subscription, Digital Beehive provides full documentation on the Public API model which has interfaces to modules of Contract Bee. For example, Contract Data, Early Warnings, Instructions, Compensation Events, Quotations, Acceptances, Payments, Quality Management and Audits. Additionally, each module may have child components linked, which are available via the API, for example, attachments. ; ; Digital Beehive provides WEBAPI 2.0 RESTful web services authenticated using OAuth 2.0 authentication via secure HTTPS protocols hosted on the Microsoft Azure global cloud infrastructure. The API services allow any authenticated device to securely connect to the API Interface and interact with the data model. The platform provides responses through JSON text ensuring minimal bandwidth usage, clear readability of the data transferred and greater support for integration. API requests are rate limited to prevent spamming and denial of service attack attempts.
• API documentation: Yes
• API documentation formats: Open API (also known as Swagger)
• API sandbox or test environment: Yes
• Customisation available: Yes
• Description of customisation: Throughout the application Digital Beehive have strived towards self-service options where available. This enables users to configure the application to meet their needs for use within their contracts/projects. ; ; Contract Bee is configurable to meet the requirements of the standard NEC form of contract and dynamically adjusts the application based on these conditions. ; ; Contract Bee contains several optional user defined customisations, including notifications and email preferences. Additionally, users can change their theme, not only to modify the visual appearance but to also allow for an accessible inclusive design.

Scaling

• Independence of resources: Digital Beehive SaaS infrastructure uses Microsoft Azure, which is designed to scale up and scale out on demand. Resources are automatically monitored on the system and spread load demand between the infrastructure using load balancing technology. ; ; The scale out technology can create a new instance of the resource under load and add this to the array of servers available to service the request automatically. ; ; Infrastructure analytics are constantly monitoring all environments to report on request and response times to end users to make sure they get the desired experience using Digital Beehive applications.

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: Yes
• Metrics types: Contract Bee provides real-time usage metrics for the subscription. These metrics are available to the subscription administrators via a user-friendly dashboard. Within this dashboard, a summary is displayed outlining key detail in relation to the subscription including cost breakdown of services, number of user licenses on the subscription, status of the subscription, recent invoices and any helpdesk tickets raised.
• Reporting types:
  • API access
  • Real-time dashboards
  • Regular reports
  • Reports on request

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Other security clearance
• Government security clearance: Up to Developed Vetting (DV)

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations:
  • United Kingdom
  • European Economic Area (EEA)
• User control over data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Datacentre security standards: Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
• Penetration testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• Penetration testing approach: In-house
• Protecting data at rest: Physical access control, complying with CSA CCM v3.0
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type: Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
• Equipment disposal approach: Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v.30, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: Digital Beehive provides users with the flexibility within Contract Bee to export the data in a format that will fit their requirements. Contract Bee offers an intuitive user interface that allows the export of data at a single click of a button.; ; Additionally, Digital Beehive provides an optional API Interface if more extensive exports are required. Each module of Contract Bee and its data model are entirely accessible from this interface including any child components that are linked to the requested resources. This enables complete flexibility and control.
• Data export formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data export formats:
  • PDF
  • Excel
  • HTML
  • Attachments (native format)
• Data import formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data import formats:
  • PDF
  • Excel
  • HTML
  • Attachments (native format)

Data-in-transit protection

• Data protection between buyer and supplier networks: TLS (version 1.2 or above)
• Data protection within supplier network: TLS (version 1.2 or above)

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: Digital Beehives infrastructure is hosted within Microsoft Azure. Microsoft guarantees a 99.95% availability for each infrastructure service, however given the resiliency within the architected solution Digital Beehive aim is to reduce time to a minimum and internally guarantee 99.9% availability.; ; Digital Beehive has a highly resilient infrastructure that allows all data to be fully replicated throughout the data centres within the UK and Europe. Additionally, the web front end services can scale out depending on the load on the services.; ; From time-to-time planned updates, maintenance and upgrades may impact this live service and any unplanned outages.; ; Daily: 1m 26s; Weekly: 10m 4s; Monthly: 43m 49s; Quarterly: 2h 11m 29s; Yearly: 8h 45m 56s; ; In the case of an outage/service loss, refunds can be negotiated depending on the severity of outage and the impact that this has caused end user(s).
• Approach to resilience: The SaaS infrastructure for Digital Beehive is spread across multiple data centres across the United Kingdom. Each of these data centres has infrastructures to host Digital Beehive's applications independently. Changes are replicated between each other and protect against the unlikely event of data centre failure.; ; Each location has numerous scaled out web tiers to protect against a single web server failure that handles web requests and API requests. Databases are replicated to multiple clones of the same database within the same data centre and across data centres.; ; Digital Beehive's infrastructure has health monitors to provide constant health monitoring of the systems health and has failover mechanisms in place.; ; If required, Contract Bee can be hosted in Microsoft Azure outside of the UK, in another specified area for specific customers, but this is costed separately.
• Outage reporting: Digital Beehive offers a public service status dashboard that is independently hosted from its service applications and infrastructure. This constantly monitors any outages within the services that are provided and allows the users of the system to check for any reported outages that are currently known within the infrastructure.; ; The service status data is also available through a public API if the subscription account has access to Digital Beehive’s API services. Additionally, any announcements or known problems are also available via the API.; ; Email alerts can also be configured through the system to notify users of any outages that they may experience which can be configured through the service status portal.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: Customers are able to configure user access on a granular level to their own data. Outside of the customer organisation, Digital Beehive only allows access to customer data when required and by authorised members of the Support Team and Development Team.
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• Management access authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password

Audit information for users

• Access to user activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• How long system logs are stored for: At least 12 months

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: No
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: Yes
• Other security certifications: No

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Security governance certified: No
• Security governance approach: Digital Beehive takes security very seriously and understands its importance to its customers. To demonstrate its commitment to security governance, Digital Beehive holds a Cyber Essentials Plus certificate and is working towards ISO 27001 which it aims to achieve by the end of 2024.
• Information security policies and processes: Digital Beehive's security policies and processes follow the ISO 27001 Information Security Management System (ISMS) and Digital Beehive is currently in the process of certification.

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Configuration and change management approach: Digital Beehive operates a Continuous Improvement/Continuous Development (CI/CD) pipeline.; ; All Contract Bee work items are planned and delivered using Agile Methodologies, with planning techniques to ensure that any new feature, change, or update is correctly recorded.; ; All changes are managed through a strict review process prior to insertion into the main codebase. The code itself is version controlled and thoroughly checked and tested with multiple tools to ensure conformity with Digital Beehive strict standards prior to submitting to the build and release pipeline.; ; Further user testing is completed throughout the development pipeline within multiple environments prior to any production release.
• Vulnerability management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Vulnerability management approach: Through a multitude of security assessments that are reported within Digital Beehive's cloud infrastructure, these tools provide the latest security guidance that is implemented within the cloud infrastructure and applications to ensure Digital Beehive conforms to the latest security standards. ; ; Internal tooling will highlight potential threats and just-in-time alerts to the Digital Beehive IT team on any potential threats to the service. ; Critical threats are dealt with immediately and patches to the applicable area will be applied the same day. ; ; Information regarding the potential threats are reported by Microsoft’s Security Response Centre (MSRC).
• Protective monitoring type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Protective monitoring approach: Digital Beehive’s security has defined requirements for active monitoring. Service teams configure active monitoring tools in accordance with these requirements. Active monitoring tools include the Application Insights, Azure Monitor and Log Analytics. These tools are configured to provide just-in-time alerts to Digital Beehive in situations that require immediate action.
• Incident management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example, CSA CCM v3.0 or ISO/IEC 27035:2011 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Incident management approach: Digital Beehive provides support services which are available to all authorised users with a valid active product subscription and incidents are managed through our Information Security Incident Management policy. ; ; Authorised Users can raise a support ticket in numerous ways, which include via the service interface, telephone, and email. Tickets are processed according to Digital Beehive’s SLA agreement and are prioritised based on type and priority. ; ; Authorised Users can directly report and track the incidents that have been raised within Contract Bee. Alternatively, a copy of the report can be emailed and is available upon request.

Secure development

• Approach to secure software development best practice: Conforms to a recognised standard, but self-assessed

Public sector networks

• Connection to public sector networks: No

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Tackling economic inequality
  • Equal opportunity
  • Wellbeing

  Fighting climate change

  Our overall objective in relation to environmental performance is to:; “Continually improve our approach to making a positive environmental impact, ultimately achieving carbon neutral status across all business activities.”; ; In order to achieve this, we commit to: ; ; 1 Environmental Impacts: Prioritising mitigations to the most significant environmental impacts of our business activities ; 2 Environmental Performance Measures: Maintaining a series of metrics to monitor performance and target improvements ; 3 Environmental Actions: Undertaking focused actions to improve environmental performance. ; ; We have undertaken an environmental impact assessment associated with our business activities and have identified the following as our main environmental impact areas:; In order to improve our environmental performance in our environmental impact areas, we will strive to:; ▪ Adopt the highest environmental standards in all areas of operation, meeting and exceeding all relevant legislative requirements; ▪ Consider environmental impact in all organisational planning and decision making; ▪ Implement an organisation Environmental Management System; ▪ Continually assess the environmental impact of all our operations; ▪ Utilise a travel policy that focuses on minimising environmental impact; ▪ Our our dog-friendly offices exclusively use green, renewable energy; ▪ Our software is hosted in a cloud environment that prioritises renewable energy and aims to be carbon negative by 2030; ▪ Minimise waste through careful and efficient use of all materials and supplies and seek to recycle wherever feasible; ▪ Purchase sustainable products wherever feasible; ▪ Train employees in good environmental practice and encourage employee involvement in environmental action; ▪ Assess the environmental approach of our subcontractors and require them to adopt our environmental principles as a minimum standard when working with us.

  Tackling economic inequality

  Digital Beehive is a Living Wage Foundation accredited employer.; ; Our services are delivered through resilient, cloud hosting that ensures superior safety against cyber security risks

  Equal opportunity

  Here at Digital Beehive, we are committed to meeting the aims and commitments set out in our equality policy. This includes not discriminating under the Equality Act 2010 and building an accurate picture of the make-up of the workforce to encourage equality and diversity.; ; Every new starter is offered the opportunity to complete a equal opportunities monitoring form which is kept confidential and will be used for monitoring purposes only.

  Wellbeing

  Every member of our team has the flexibility to work from home or our dog-friendly office, which exclusively uses green, renewable energy.; Our team members are encouraged to participate in charity work, with paid leave provided for these activities. ; ; As a company, we have committed to attending a day per quarter to give back through initiatives like Wild Work Days with the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. We support numerous charities, including the Dogs Trust and Macmillan Cancer Support, through donations and awareness campaigns. ; ; We’re committed to taking all reasonable steps to make sure that Colleagues’ health isn’t put at risk because of too much pressure or excessive demands at work. We work to ensure that:; • Workload is reasonable.; • Colleagues don’t need to work excessive hours to get their job done.; • Colleagues given the training you need to do their job.; • Managers let their teams know what’s going on, especially when things might be changing.; • If colleagues tell us they’re experiencing symptoms of stress, we take this seriously and carry out a stress risk assessment, take actions to reduce the workplace stressors as far as possible and signpost them to other sources of support.; • Developmental opportunities available to all colleagues; • We manage holidays to ensure colleagues are taking their full entitlement and spreading their holidays evenly throughout the year to ensure they are getting frequent rest and relaxation.; • We offer additional support to colleagues if they are experiencing stress outside work, for example due to a bereavement.; • We treat any issues of bullying and harassment seriously, as we know this can be a cause of stress.

Pricing

• Price: £30 to £49.99 a user a month
• Discount for educational organisations: Yes
• Free trial available: Yes
• Description of free trial: A 30-day free, no obligation trial of Contract Bee is available through our web site. ; ; This gives you full access to the software and all NEC Contract Management features.; ; Contact us to arrange an extended trial, if required.
• Link to free trial: Www.digitalbeehive.co.uk

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Skills Framework for the Information Age rate card

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at hello@digitalbeehive.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.