OCDS
OCDS - the Open Contracting Data Standard - is the open schema that every Australian jurisdiction publishes contract notices and awards under. It’s the standard behind AusTender and the state procurement portals, and it structures the pre-award half of Civil Memory: planning notices, open tenders, and awards, before a job becomes yours to deliver.
What does OCDS cover in Demiton?
Section titled “What does OCDS cover in Demiton?”OCDS-shaped data is the public record of a contracting process: who’s buying, what’s being tendered, who bid, who won, and at what value. In Civil Memory terms, this is everything on the Market side of the award seam - the part of a job’s life that happens in public, before you win it.
What is the difference between OCDS and OC4IDS?
Section titled “What is the difference between OCDS and OC4IDS?”They are two halves of the same job, joined at the award. OCDS records the public procurement process before you win; OC4IDS is the shape for the infrastructure project you deliver afterwards.
| OCDS | OC4IDS | |
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Open Contracting Data Standard | Open Contracting for Infrastructure Data Standard |
| What it covers | The contracting process: who is buying, what is tendered, who bid, who won, at what value | The infrastructure project: scope, cost, schedule and outcome through delivery |
| Stage of the job | Pre-award: planning, tender and award | Post-award: from the award seam to close-out |
| Who publishes it | Government procurement portals - AusTender and the state portals | In Demiton’s model, the contractor, as a consented emission to the government client (forthcoming) |
| Half of Civil Memory | The public half, read by Market | The delivery half, fed by Projects and your operational systems |
| Example record | An AusTender award notice for a road package | A delivery report for a bridge project: physical progress, subcontractors, completion |
Projection, not storage
Section titled “Projection, not storage”Demiton never stores OCDS as its native format. Facts live in their own typed structure internally, and the platform projects them into OCDS shape on ingest - reading a government portal’s release and translating it into the record Civil Memory holds - and again wherever a caller needs OCDS-conformant output. Conformance is something the platform produces at its edges, not something baked permanently into how data is stored.
This is deliberate: it means the internal fact model can evolve, absorb new source systems, and support queries the standard was never designed for, without ever losing the ability to speak OCDS where it matters.
Next steps
Section titled “Next steps”- OC4IDS - the delivery-reporting standard that picks up after the award
- Conformance - how conformance is declared and enforced
- How Civil Memory works - the award seam where OCDS hands off to OC4IDS
Frequently asked questions
- What is OCDS and how does Demiton use it?
- OCDS (Open Contracting Data Standard) is the open standard that every Australian jurisdiction publishes contract notices and awards under. Demiton uses it to structure the pre-award half of Civil Memory - planning, tender, and award data sourced from AusTender and state procurement portals - and projects records into that shape on ingest rather than storing OCDS as its native format.
- Does Demiton store data in OCDS format?
- No. Demiton never stores OCDS or OC4IDS directly. Facts are held in their own native, typed structure and projected into OCDS shape on ingest and on read. This keeps the internal model free to evolve without being constrained by the standard's schema, while still producing conformant output at the edges.
Talk to the team
Tell us what you run - your ERP, field, payroll and document systems - and we will show you the registers Demiton would keep current from them, on your data, in a 30-minute call.