It’s no secret that some of McGill’s administrative processes take longer (and cause more frustration) than they should. But over the last few months, enterprising teams in Procurement and IT Services have been tackling some of these issues head on.
Here’s a look at four projects that will soon make life simpler for McGill’s faculty and staff.
Faster, simpler contract intake
When: Launched December 2025
Procurement Services helps Faculties and Units negotiate contracts with suppliers, assess legal implications, manage risk and much more. But until recently, it could take three days to process a request for assistance. Now, thanks to an automated system launched in December 2025, intake reviews happen instantly.
“Previously, each contract intake request was reviewed manually by three levels of staff,” said Suzanne Boyd, Associate Director of Procurement Systems and Programs. The longstanding process had evolved over time; different specialists evaluated contract needs, verified whether requests were complete and ensured policy and regulatory compliance.
“The process understandably caused a lot of frustration,” Boyd said. “If we can shave three days off the contract process – for some 400 contracts per year across McGill – that’s going to save a lot of people a lot of time, money and irritation.”
DocuSign e-signatures
When: March 2026
As of this spring, McGill will use DocuSign eSignatures for procurement contracts, replacing Adobe PDF signatures. DocuSign offers a more streamlined, secure and reliable signing experience for everyone involved.
Adobe PDF signatures had helped modernize McGill procurement contracts by reducing the need for pen-and-paper signoffs. However, they still had limitations.
“Unfortunately, we’ve sometimes seen contracts stall because signatories were travelling, juggling meetings across campus, or struggling with incompatible software or access issues,” said François Pouliot, Co-Interim Associate Vice-President (Financial Services). “Relying on individual PDF tools like Adobe Pro still introduced delays and inconsistencies.”
Unlike PDF-based solutions, DocuSign provides a centralized, end-to-end workflow with built-in authentication, audit trails and encryption that meets McGill’s security and compliance standards. Contracts can be signed instantly from any device.
“In 2026, there’s no reason for a signature to be delayed because someone is working remotely or using the wrong tool,” Pouliot said.
AI help desk agent
When: May 2026
Procurement Services has partnered with IT Services to launch a pilot AI chatbot, designed to deliver instant answers to common questions about policies, procedures and regulatory requirements.
Testing is underway, and the project, which will also serve as a pilot for the development of broader chatbot capabilities at McGill, is expected to launch in May,
“The pilot will allow us to test governance, accuracy and user experience in a controlled setting. Those insights will feed directly into the enterprise chatbot ecosystem we’re designing,” said Darlene Inamahoro, Portfolio Manager, AI and Automation in IT Services. “Ultimately, we’re working to help our community save time, and make it easier for them to find the information they need.”
Supplier registration portal
When: December 2026
Staff and faculty who work with the McGill Marketplace (MMP) have long struggled to add suppliers to the system. The current process takes approximately 30 days, requires staff to collect suppliers’ sensitive banking information and frequently involves prolonged back-and-forth before purchases are finalized.
This year, Procurement Services will launch a portal where suppliers register themselves – dramatically reducing processing time while improving the accuracy of supplier information.
“They’ll manage their own banking details,” said Boyd, “and they’ll be regularly prompted to keep their info up to date, so there’s no more need for long email exchanges to update our files and meet our policy requirements.”
“This has been another major pain point for our community for a long time,” Pouliot added, “and we’re going to fix it.”
Transformative change, one project at a time
“This is what transformation looks like,” said Prof. Dave Stephens, Academic Lead of Horizon McGill, “continuous improvement informed by solid data, like the data we gathered last year through UniForum and other tools.”
UniForum is a service that helps universities across Canada and elsewhere better understand their administrative activities. It works by surveying faculty/staff satisfaction with administrative services (such as procurement support for working with vendors), measuring the costs of those services and benchmarking that data against other universities. In December 2025, Horizon published a video explaining this data, and held a live community Q&A session to discuss it further.
“Procurement’s excellent work will have a huge impact, saving our community time, funds and frustration,” Stephens said. “Horizon’s mandate is to make McGill a better place to work and study, and this is how we’ll do it – one project at a time.”
To learn more about these and other Procurement initiatives, contact the lead buyer assigned to your Faculty or Unit.