Software Features
The Optimal Auctions Software application supports all of the important features necessary for administrators to run an expert auction and for bidders to participate in an auction. There are literally hundreds of available options in our software, and we allow our clients to customize the software as much as they need to in order to meet their exact specifications. The benefit to our clients is two-fold: first, we allow them to use software that matches their auction design goals exactly, and second, the options are all available already, thereby reducing development and testing costs, resulting in software that's cheaper for our clients.
In other words, with so many options, our clients get better software than our competitors, and at a cheaper price!
A brief summary of the most important options follow, from an auction we recently successfully completed:
| Requirement | Solution |
|---|---|
| The software must provide for simultaneous ascending multiround auction of multiple spectrum blocks. The bidders must be able to withdraw and change bids between the spectrum blocks. The software must be able to execute activity rules, such as eligibility and waivers. | The Optimal Auctions software by default allows bidders to bid on multiple spectrum blocks, it allows them to withdraw and change bids between blocks. The software has eligibility rules pre-configured in the software. Additionally, there are various waiver mechanisms built into the software that can be chosen from to implement in the auction. |
| The auctioneer must be capable of setting minimum/starting prices for each spectrum block. | The Optimal Auctions software allows the auction manager to set the starting price for each block. |
| The auctioneer must be able to determine bid increments for each spectrum block both in euros and in percentage at each bidding round. | The Optimal Auctions software allows the auction manager to pre-set increments in euros and percentage. The software goes a step further by allowing the auction manager to override these default settings each round, for each product. This ensures total control over every product in the auction, at each stage of the auction. |
| There must be possibility to set spectrum caps. | The Optimal Auctions software has product caps built into the software by default, and allows the auction manager to set the spectrum cap for the entire auction, or even on a bidder by bidder basis, if so chosen. |
| The auctioneer must be able to set the start time and duration of each bidding round. | The Optimal Auctions software gives complete control to the auction manager to control starting times, stopping times, and durations of each round of the auction. Further, the auction manager has the ability to control breaks in the auction (for lunches), control pauses in the auction (if a user has bidding issues), or extensions to each round (if it's judged by the auction manager that an extension is needed). |
| The software must include a clock function and issue time stamps on all actions. | The Optimal Auctions software has a sophisticated synchronizing system, ensuring that every bidder in the auction sees the exact same time, the same time as the server. Every action in the auction (bidding for example), is given a time- stamp. This time-stamp is presented to the bidder upon each bid, so they can print out the verification page for their own records. The time stamp is also recorded on the server. Finally, as a redundant system, the time-stamp is backed up on the database, and also backed up to another server. |
| The bidders must be able to send messages to the auctioneer during the auction. | The Optimal Auctions software offers an internal e-mail system. Bidders are ONLY allowed to send messages to the auction managers. This preserves the integrity of the auction. The mail application was copied from Yahoo Mail, ensuring that users are familiar with the interface. |
| The auctioneer must be able to send messages to bidders during the auction, both individually and collectively. | The Optimal Auctions software offers an internal e-mail system. Auction Managers are allowed to send messages to the auction participants. They can do this by selecting one bidder, several bidders, or every bidder. Additionally, e-mails are sent automatically for common auction events, such as the auction starting, etc. |
| The progress of the auction must be displayed graphically. Historical data of each bidding round must be stored and made available for the auctioneer and the bidders throughout the auction. | The Optimal Auctions software offers multiple reports that can be used by the bidders and auction manager to judge the progress of the auction at any given time. The bidders see a subset of the reports, which allow them to see the progress of the products in the auction without compromising the integrity of the auction, and without giving any indication as to other participants or their strategies. The reports for the bidders give just the right amount of information. The reports of the auction manager allow them to see all progress of the auction, allowing them to see who is winning each product at any given point of the auction, as well as predict when the auction will end. Finally, there are several new reports in the software that offer a graphical way to see the auction progress, for example, showing a line graph that displays the product price and its history, allowing both bidders and auction managers to see visually the progress of the auction. |
| During the auction, the auctioneer should be able to print out and publish reports about the progress of the auction after each round. | The Optimal Auctions software allows each report to be printed out, by both auction managers and bidders. Further, it allows each report to be saved as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, for those auction managers or bidders who wish to perform further analysis on the data. |
| It must be possible for at least 30 bidders to be simultaneously connected to the auction in an authenticated and secured manner. | The Optimal Auctions software has been stress tested with 300 simultaneous users connected to the auction and passed this test easily. It is theorized that the software could handle 1000 concurrent users on each server. |
