Tender manages all of your project's tenders and the incoming bids. This is done by creating tenders, setting up requirements, and inviting bidders. A questions-and-answers section and other tools in Tender are used for managing the tender process successfully.
In this article, we will go over how to create and set up tenders and their requirements.
Table of contents
- Video
- How to create a tender
- Set up tender requirements
- Set up tender material
- Tender log
- How to invite bidders
Video
How to create a tender
User rights
To be able to create a tender and set it up, you need to be in the 'Tender administrators' user group located in Settings
Users. After the initial setup, the 'Tender responsibles' are able to edit all information and execute the complete process.
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To create a tender, go to Tender and click on
New
'Create new tender'.
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For this new tender you first fill out general information about it like contact information, tender format, or the contract type:
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The tender status will be set to draft by default, making it possible to edit it later before publishing it. While only a few fields are mandatory to fill out when creating a draft, most of the fields are mandatory when changing the status to 'Ongoing'.
Tender format
You can enter a tender format yourself or you can choose the tender format between:
- Private tender
- Design competition
- Public tender with prequalification
- Public tender without prequalification
- Multi-stage tender
Contract type
You can enter a contract type yourself, or you can choose between:
- Main contract
- General contract
- Subcontractor contract
If you choose to check the box for 'Prequalification/Public tender' a link will be created that can be shared giving access to the tender without them having to be invited by a tender responsible.
Tips and tricks
To edit the tender start and deadline you need to set the tender status to 'Ongoing' first.
Deadlines and dates
When setting up tenders you need to decide on the tender start date, tender deadline, and publication date.
The tender start defines when bidders can start interacting with the tender, like downloading the tender material and placing bids.
The tender deadline defines how long bidders can place their bids and thus when the tender ends. Bidders can edit their bid until the deadline for the tender, but they will be locked in when the deadline is passed.
The publication date is only relevant (and possible to be enabled) when the tender is set to a prequalification/public tender. This date setting allows you to open up part of the tender for the prequalified or the public, by letting them read the tender material, but not place a bid. This way you can present the tender material to all possible bidders without starting the tender bidding process.
Questions and answers
Using the questions and answers feature you can easily manage questions from the bidders for your tender with several options on how to provide answers.
To enable questions and answers, check the 'Enable questions and answers' box in the tender creation window (if the tender has already been created, you can select it and click Edit):
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Tips and Tricks
Bidders will not be able to send questions until the tender has started.
Questions will be private per default but can be set to public if needed. To make your questions visible to everyone, check the box next to 'Public questions'. Public questions are visible to all bidders and observers in the tender.
Read more
To learn more about questions and answers in Tender, you can read this article: Questions and answers in a tender.
User roles
While tender administrators are able to create and manage all tenders across the project, there are roles that can be set tender specific. These roles can be found in Tender
Select the tender
Users.
- Tender responsibles: Manage all tender information, create requirements, invite bidders, and more
- Document responsibles: Manage tender documents, answer questions, create global answers
- Tender observers: Can view all content, cannot create or change anything
- Active bidders: Invited bidders for this tender that can be managed individually
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Duplicate a tender
To save time, you can duplicate an already created tender. This can also be used to get a second offer from a select couple of bidders, as you can choose which bidders should be copied to the new tender.
To duplicate a tender, go to Home
New
'Create a copy':
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In this instance, 'Building 003' has been duplicated to get a second-round offer from two bidders. As such, only the VAT number, total sum, and the pricelist from the tender requirements have been copied over.
Set up tender requirements
To ensure that bidders comply with your tender requirements, you can set specific requirements such as a European Single Procurement Document (ESPD). However, before setting up these requirements, you must first create a tender in either draft or ongoing status. To access the tender, navigate to the relevant folder in the sidebar.
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Create tender requirements
To create your tender requirements, go to your tender in the relevant folder on the sidebar, click on Tender requirements, and click
Create tender requirements:
You can then make new tender requirements or import them from your company profile.
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In your tender requirements, you have the option to include:
- Text
- Lists
- Numbers
- Documents
- ESPD documents
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Important
The 'Document' and 'ESPD Document' fields are the only fields where bidders can upload documents. Best practice is, therefore, to have at least one document field, so that the bidders can upload their bid material.
By default, they are optional, but you can set them as hard requirements for bidders before they can upload a bid.
Set up tender material
The Tender material folder is your folder structure for uploading files to the tender. To add folders, click on the
-icon right of the
Files:
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You can add new folders or import them from your company profile. Files can also be uploaded without a folder structure.
Upload files
To upload files, select the folder you want to upload files to and click Add files and then either add files directly from your computer or add files from Box:
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Tender log
Tender activity has a log, where tender-specific activity is tracked. The tender log can only be accessed by tender administrators, to ensure that unauthorized users cannot access bidders and other sensitive data.
To access the tender log, go to Home
Tender log:
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This will open the log where you can see all activity and filter for it to find specific information:
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How to invite bidders
Read more
If you want to learn more about inviting bidders, you can read this article: Invite bidders to tenders.