Supplier Submission Process
- Daily bids&tenders Supplier Notifications
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Invitational Only - bids&tenders direct email to Invited Suppliers
- Submit a question
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bids&tenders Government Agency Bid Opportunity Portal (Bid Details)
- Project instructions to Bidders
- Step 1: Pricing
- Step 2: Specification Form (custom drop-down example)
- Step 2: Specification Form (open text response)
- Step 3: Reference Form
- Step 3: Sub-Contractor Form
- Step 3: Sub-Contractor Form opt-out
- Step 4: Digital Bonds
- Step 5: Addenda, Terms & Conditions
- Step 5: Addenda, Terms & Conditions completed
- Step 7: Submit Bid (PDF of submission)
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Step 7: Submit Bid (Supplier Dashboard showing completed submission)
1. Daily bids&tenders Supplier Notifications
Suppliers that have created a free bids&tenders Supplier account will receive a daily email of all publicly advertised bid opportunities that match both:
- The commodity categories selected by the Supplier, and;
- The Agency(s) selected by the Supplier.
Note: Since a Supplier can have up to ten (10) company contacts on a bids&tenders Supplier account, each company contact will receive this daily notification, along with email notification of all bidding activity by a fellow company contact, e.g. Contact has registered as a Plan Taker, when an addendum has been issued, when a contact has submitted or withdrawn a bid, etc.
This is very useful feature. For example, if the staff person submitting a bid is on vacation, ill, etc. and is not aware of the new bid, an addendum, a change to an opportunity that they already submitted, etc. All company contacts are notified of any change to any bid that their company has registered for, thus ensuring addendums are not missed and increasing the number of responsive bids received.
For Suppliers that have not yet created a bids&tenders account, the Agency can send an email through the platform inviting the Supplier to both create a bids&tenders Supplier account and submit a bid.
2. Invitational Only - bids&tenders direct email to Invited Suppliers
Suppliers will receive an email notification of bids that they have been invited to bid on from an Agency. By clicking on the link in the email, the Supplier can then either login to their existing bids&tenders supplier account, or create a new bids&tenders supplier account.
3. bids&tenders Supplier Dashboard
In addition to the invite email sent by the platform, Suppliers with an account can also see the invitation on their bids&tenders Supplier Dashboard under Invited to Bid.
Every Supplier that creates a bids&tenders account will receive a free Supplier Dashboard to:
- Manage their account, change passwords, etc.;
- Display opportunities to which they have been invited to bid;
- Display Current Bids, which is any open opportunity where the Supplier has registered as a Plan Taker. The Supplier can also submit a Notice of No Bid from the Dashboard for the applicable bid.
- Display a complete history of all their bids submitted to all bids&tenders Agencies, along with the status of the bid, bid results, and the ability to view and print their bid submission.
4. bids&tenders Government Agency Bid Opportunity Portal
Every bids&tenders Government Agency receives their own branded bids&tenders Bid Opportunity Portal.
On your Government Agency bids&tenders Bid Opportunity Portal, Suppliers and/or the public can:
- View all current bid opportunities;
- Perform an Advanced Search, by status, date range, or keyword;
- Submit an online question on a project, which can be configured as either visible publicly or only available to registered Plan Takers.
6. bids&tenders Government Agency Bid Opportunity Portal (Bid Details)
By clicking on the Bid Details icon, Suppliers and/or the public can view the following information for publicly advertised bid opportunities:
- Bid Details: View specific project information such as: Bid Information, Scope, Purchasing Representative (configurable to be shown or hidden), Meeting Location, List of Plan Takers (configurable to be shown or hidden) etc.
- Bid Documents and Addenda: bids&tenders offers greater transparency and openness to our Government Agency clients' publicly advertised bids than any other private eProcurement provider in North America. The entire Bid Document package including drawings, addenda, etc. are available to the public in a free preview without the need to login or register as a Plan Taker. When an Agency posts a public bid on their bids&tenders branded portal, it is also automatically duplicated on our main Bid Opportunities page (bidsandtenders.com/suppliers/bid-opportunities), expanding the marketing of your public bids to a wider Supplier base.
Since bids&tenders provides all Suppliers and the public an opportunity to preview all of our Clients publicly Bid Document packages without logging in or registering, your Agency will have a more accurate picture of Suppliers bidding your project by the number of Plan Takers. Almost 75% of registered Plan Takers actually submit a bid on our platform.
Other private bidding services provide only a short description of the bid opportunity, which is often not sufficient for a Supplier to determine whether they would like to bid, and force every Supplier to login and register as a plan taker to see the entire document package. This results in an over-stated and inaccurate Plan Takers list. In this situation, most Suppliers, once they have finally been given the opportunity to view the Bid Document Package, decide not to bid.
By registering as a Plan Taker, the Supplier will be able to download the Bid Document Package (without the preview watermark), be automatically notified by the platform of any addenda, status changes, public questions submitted, etc. based on how the opportunity is configured by the Agency.
7. bids&tenders Terms of Service
Suppliers must acknowledge and click to agree to the bids&tenders Terms of Service.
Once the Supplier has selected to Agree, they are taken to their Supplier Dashboard, and the specific project will appear under their "My Active Bids” screen and they can click Start Submission.
Note that updates to Terms of Service may not necessarily be reflected in this image.
8. Project instructions to Bidders
The Supplier will first be presented with the Agency’s Instructions to Bidders.
Note: The Instructions to Bidders is customizable per project. Agency's can also can create multiple Instructions to Bidders templates that can be selected when creating a project, or create multiple Bid Template types.
9. Project Submission Steps (Steps to Submit a Bid)
This project example contains seven (7) steps that must be completed by the Supplier. The number of steps to be completed by the Supplier is dependent on the project setup requirements but the last three (3) steps displayed (Addenda Terms and Conditions, Preview Bid and Submit Bid) are always the last three (3) steps on any project. All forms can be built with templates created by the Agency. The Agency can also copy previous forms with or without content when creating new forms. In addition, the Agency can copy external document content and paste content to any online form to be created. An Agency can also create hidden form columns that are not visible to Bidders, but will be displayed in the bid analysis forms upon bid closing, e.g. an engineer’s estimate by line item, etc.
The success of bids&tenders can be attributed to the fact that the submission process mirrors the paper-bidding process, which Suppliers appreciate. Suppliers also cannot submit a bid if a mandatory item or file has not been completed and/or uploaded, thanks to bids&tenders compliance checker. Bids&tenders clients have averaged over 98.62% responsive compliant submissions over the last 3 years.
These steps do not have to be completed in order. Once a step is successfully completed, it is indicated with a green check mark. The boxes that have an exclamation point need attention, and Suppliers are unable to submit their bid until corrected. A Supplier can close out and resume their online submission later on.
A Supplier can have multiple company contacts working on the same bid simultaneously, provided they are a contact under the Supplier bids&tenders account and that they are working on a different step. An audit within the platform can show each contacts’ changes within that Supplier account.
A countdown clock to the Bid Closing Time and Date is always visible in the upper right hand column.
10. Step 1: Pricing
Each column with a red asterisk is a mandatory item that must be completed by the Bidder. Our online Bid Compliancy Checker, shown in later steps, will not allow the Bidder to submit until this mandatory information/pricing is entered.
This image displays only two (2) pricing forms, however an unlimited number of pricing form tables can be created by the Agency for the Supplier to complete. Each pricing table can be configured to be included or not included in the Project Financial Sub Total.
Columns can require different types of information, such as price or units, or configured to calculate line totals. For example, if a Supplier enters 10 units at $5 each, the next column can automatically multiply and fill in a line total of $50.
This example also shows the option to have prompt payment discount information completed by the Supplier, based on the number of days and discount to be provided, as either a percentage or dollar figure.
In addition, if your Agency wants to award a project in whole or in part, a Supplier can opt out of completing a Pricing Form. See 16. Step 3: Sub-Contractor Form for opt out example. This ensures that the Supplier either has entered pricing in all forms or has selected to opt out of pricing a form. An example of when this would be used is for Janitorial Service, where a pricing form would be created for each facility. Based on their location, the Supplier can either bid the individual facility pricing form or opt out.
11. Step 1: Pricing (Step Completion)
Once each Pricing table is completed successfully, a green check mark is displayed in the Table Summary beside each Pricing Form. Once all Pricing Form tables have been completed the red exclamation mark (indicating a step is incomplete) also changes to a green check mark.
12. Step 2: Specification Form (custom drop-down example)
This is an example of a custom drop-down that can be created by the Agency for the Supplier to select one item from.
Once each Specification Form table is completed successfully, a green check mark is displayed in the Table Summary beside each Specification Form. Once all Specification Form tables have been completed the red exclamation mark (indicating a step is incomplete) changes to a green check mark.
13. Step 2: Specification Form (standard bullet example)
This is an example of a standardized bullet form that can be created by the Agency, where the Supplier can select only one response. Other standard specification form options are available, e.g. Yes/No, True/False, etc.
Once each Specification Form table is completed successfully, a green check mark is displayed in the Table Summary beside each Specification Form. Once all Specification Form tables have been completed the red exclamation mark (indicating a step is incomplete) changes to a green check mark.
14. bids&tenders Government Agency Bid Opportunity Portal
This is an example of an open text response to an Agency question that can be created by the Agency for the Supplier to respond. Each response can be up to eight (8) pages of text.
Once each Specification Form table is completed successfully, a green check mark is displayed in the Table Summary beside each Specification Form. Once all Specification Form tables have been completed the red exclamation mark (indicating a step is incomplete) changes to a green check mark.
17. Step 3: Sub-Contractor Form opt-out
One of the problems with paper bidding is when an Agency receives a blank sub-contractor form from a Bidder as a response. This could be because the supplier either is not using sub-contractor(s) for the project, or has possibly not completed the form either intentionally or unintentionally.
bids&tenders solves this dilemma, as the Bidder must either enter the Sub-Contractor information or select the opt out to indicate they are not using subcontractors. They cannot submit without indicating one way or the other.
In addition, if the Agency pre-qualifies major sub-contractors for a project, e.g. Mechanical, Electrical, etc., the form can be created to have a custom drop-down of approved sub-contractors for each trade. The Supplier bidding on the project must select only one pre-qualified sub-contractor from the drop-down. This eliminates the paper-bidding problem of a General Contractor indicating a subcontractor that is not pre-qualified.
18. Step 4: Document Upload option
While bids&tenders does provide the option for an Agency to use the Document Upload function, we do encourage clients to use our online forms for obtaining bid information to ensure almost 100% responsive compliant submissions.
Unlike other software programs that rely solely on document uploads, which runs the risk of a Supplier uploading the incorrect document and having their bid rejected, by creating submission forms to be completed online bids&tenders dramatically reduces non-compliant bids and the risk of litigation. Your procurement team can create forms online, and Suppliers enter their pricing and all other information directly online. Our online Bid Compliancy Checker will not allow the Bidder to submit their bid if it missing information (e.g. pricing information, question response) until is corrected.
Two of the biggest problems with relying on only document upload responses by Suppliers for the use of document uploads:
- If the Agency requests Suppliers complete and upload a document, e.g. an Excel pricing/specification form that has been provided by the Agency, and the Agency issues an addendum to these documents, the whole document must be uploaded and any work a Supplier has previously done will be wasted. This does not occur with the use of bids&tenders online forms, as an addendum to a document, e.g. a new line, will only affect that specific piece of information, and the Supplier’s previous work on this form remains as entered.
- Document uploads cannot provide the almost 100% responsive bid submission rate that the use of online forms can provide due to our online Bid Compliancy Checker, which ensures all mandatory responses have been completed before the Supplier can submit.
19. Step 4: Digital Bonds
Only bids&tenders has been:
- Adopted as the back-end technology for several of Canada’s largest Construction Associations, and
- Publicly endorsed by several Construction Associations and General Contractor Associations.
If the Agency has requested a Digital Bond, only bids&tenders can detect the difference between a Digital Bond and a scanned version of the paper bond. The platform will provide a warning to a Bidder if they appear to have uploaded a scanned version.
This feature has greatly contributed to all our Agencies receiving almost 100% compliant bid submissions.
20. Step 5: Addenda, Terms & Conditions
The Terms & Conditions are customizable and can be templated by the Agency. They can include web links to Agency policies such as a Vendor Performance Policy, as shown.
For this step, the Bidder needs to:
- Acknowledge and accept the Terms & Conditions of the Bid;
- Complete the Submission Contact information;
- Confirm by checking Yes or No if they have a Conflict or Perceived Conflict of Interest. If the Bidder does have a conflict, a text box opens and the Bidder is able to provide information on the conflict;
- Acknowledge any or all Addenda and any Addenda attachments that may have been issued.
22. Step 6: Preview My Bid
Our Bid Compliancy Checker is the next step that ensures no bids can be submitted that are incomplete e.g. missing a mandatory price entry, response to a question, etc. This improves the quality of bid responses received by your Agency and ensures that bids cannot be submitted electronically unless the bid submission is complete. This ensures more quality bid responses and makes evaluation of bids much more efficient.
With bids&tenders, your Agency can say goodbye to the vast majority of disqualifications and staff time spent reviewing and determining course of action. Over the last three (3) years, our public sector clients have received on average 98.62% responsive and compliant submissions.
When a Vendor attempts to submit a bid that is incomplete, the system will run a validation check and let them know of any submission errors.
This figure displays a Bid without any errors, though there is a warning. Since the bid is being submitted prior to the deadline of written questions, the Bidder is provided a visual message that they may continue to submit.
When a Supplier attempts to submit a bid that is incomplete, the system will run a validation check and let them know of any submission errors, as shown in this image.
26. Step 7: Submit Bid (on-screen confirmation)
After successfully submitting, the Bidder is provided an onscreen confirmation message. bids&tenders will provide your Agency with our recommended Bid Template language for receiving bids, which include recommended action by the Supplier in the event the Supplier does not receive a confirmation of their submission.
