To do business with entities, ESA has developed a procedure and an associated ESA Costing Software tool called ECOS for aggregating and calculating the price elements of a financial proposals through the entire contractual chain.

The use of ECOS is mandatory for procurement actions of EUR 10 million and above. This includes sub-contractors even if their own share does not reach this amount.

This e-learning module provides access to the ECOS self-training manual and the associated training support files.

The ECOS self-training manual has been developed to allow ECOS users to get familiar with software version ECOS 5.3. It is based on a series of hands-on exercises that will allow users to progressively get familiar with the most commonly used features of the application software.

After one day of training, users should be be able to:

• configure their own environment;
• enter all data related to financial offers and handled by ECOS;
• define and send ITT files to sub-contractors;
• select/integrate Tender files received from sub-contractors in order to prepare an Integrated Tender to be sent to the upper tier.

In addition to making this self-training manual available, ESA periodically organises on-site training courses at ESA/ESTEC in the Netherlands, free of charge.

Due to the coronavirus outbreak and meeting restrictions at ESA/ESTEC, on-site ECOS training sessions have been suspended until further notice.

The ESA Cost Engineering Section (TEC-SYC)