How to Submit a Bid
If you are a registered user on our platform you will receive an email that contains the following information whenever you are invited to a bid:
Clicking on the “Access Bid” link will take you to our sign-in page where you will need to enter the email address you used to register and your password. If you have forgotten your password, it’s not a problem, you can select the “Forgot Password?” button which will take you to a page that will send a password recovery email to your email address.
Once you log in to your account, you’ll first see your dashboard. In order to access your bids you can either choose the “View Bids” tab on the left-hand side of your screen, or you can select the “View Bid” option on the right-hand side of your screen for a specific bid that you want to view.
When you view your desired bid the first thing that you should focus on is your “Intent to bid?” option. It’s a simple “Yes/No” checkbox located at the top right of every bid. It allows transparency between the operator, BidOut, and yourself. Additionally, an early intent designation will prevent consistent follow-up on behalf of the BidOut team and will save you time.
You’ll notice that there are multiple tabs affiliated with each bid, including: Bid Detail, Bid Submissions, BidChat, and Q&A.
The Bid Detail Tab acts as a general overview of what the event you’re bidding on will entail. This includes initial bid details which you will see first, members of the operator’s team that will be overseeing the event, as well as an overlay of all of the line items, attachments, and questions, all of which will be your primary areas of focus when it comes to submitting pricing for a bid.
The Bid Submissions Tab is where you will perform the entry necessary for completing a bid. This includes line items, which will be a simple fill-in-the-blank for the requested material/services/objects.
It’s worth noting that the “i” icon at the top right of the Bid Submissions Tab will generate an Excel document which you can use to enter in the required pricing for the pertinent items. This way if there is an exceptionally long list of items, you can work within the Excel document and import (using the “Import” button next to the “i”) the values when you are ready. It’s important that if you chose to import your pricing, only touch the pricing column, if you alter any other column you will disrupt the import functionality and it will not accept the import.
Additionally, the Bid Submission Tab can include Buyer Questions. These can come in multiple forms such as yes/no designations, document uploads, and open responses, to name a few.
Below the Buyer Questions in the Bid Submission Tab, you’ll see an area for Supplier Attachments and Supplier Notes. Supplier Attachments can be made for anything the supplier wishes to accompany with their proposal. The Supplier Notes you can think of as the “body of your email”, this is where you can clear up any stipulations with any of your responses/line items, and you can comment whatever information you think would be prudent to the operator.
It’s worth noting that you will not be able to submit any bids unless you have all the required line items and questions completed. If you find yourself in a situation where a line item service/good is required, but, you are not able to provide that service/good, you can enter a “0” and notate in the Supplier Notes to explain the situation. (View the above picture for example)
The Bid Chat Tab acts as a direct line of communication between the operator and the supplier. This is where you’ll be notified of public announcements, which can include any additional information the operator wants to inform you of after the bid has been published. Attachments can be submitted through the bid chat even after the RFP has closed.
The Q&A Tab will be where you can ask any questions pertaining to the RFP. You will remain anonymous to all other suppliers if you submit a question (only the operator will be able to see who asked). Once a question is answered it will become public for all other suppliers (the supplier submitting the question will still remain anonymous).
Should you have any questions about using the BidOut Platform, feel free to contact rfxsupport@enverus.com or call us at 832-786-2400