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Bidding: Bid Management Enhanced Experience

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This announcement represents a single point in time. Future releases may impact the information below.
Updated: March 27, 2023

 

New Bid Management Experience

Procore has released Bid Management Enhanced Experience, a streamlined experience for managing bids in the Bidding tool. This experience includes features such as bid forms, bid leveling, and an integration with the Procore Construction Network.

 Note
For a comparison of the Legacy and Enhanced experiences, see What is the difference between the old and new bid management experience in the Bidding tool?

You can enable the new experience on a project-by-project basis, or for all projects in your account. See How do I update to the new Bidding experience?

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Overview

Many actions and processes within the Bidding tool remain the same between the Legacy and Enhanced experiences. For example, before you create a bid form, you should still confirm settings for the Bidding tool, upload bid documents to the project, and create a bid package. 

Below is a list of notable features included in the Bid Management Enhanced Experience:

 

Create and Manage Custom Bid Forms

Bid forms make it easier to break down scope and cost information and help to standardize the responses that are being received from bidders. In addition, the use of bid forms allows for bid leveling on submitted bids. See Create a Bid Form.

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Details

  • There can be multiple bid forms per bid package.
  • You can preview the bid form before sending it out.
  • Bidders will be able to add their own inclusions, exclusions, comments, and attachments to their bid submissions.
  • If you create a new company on the Bidders tab, the contact will be added to the Company level Directory tool.

Overview

When creating a new bid form, you can add line items and details to the 'Base Bid' and 'Alternates' sections on the Bid Form tab. All line items added to the Base Bid and Alternates sections will be sent to any bidders invited to the bid form.
Note: You can add additional sections to Base Bid and Alternates.

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After filling out the necessary information, you can add bidders on the Bidders tab. See Find and Invite Bidders to a Bid Form.

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Companies are pulled from the Company level Directory tool. If a company is not yet in the Directory tool, you can click Add Company on the Bidders tab to add them as a new contact. See Add a New Company to the Directory from the Bidding Tool and Add a New Contact to the Directory from the Bidding Tool.

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When you are ready to invite the bidders to bid, you can click Invite from the drop-down menu or the 'Invite Outstanding Bidders' banner.

bid-form-invite.png

 

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Level and Compare Submitted Bids

The Bid Leveling feature for bid forms in the Bidding tool allows you to compare bids side by side so that you can more easily decide who to award a contract to. See Level Bids for a Bid Form for more information.

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Details

  • You can level and compare bids after bids have submitted for a bid form.
  • You can configure columns (choose from 3 different row heights and show or hide columns), and export the bid leveling data to a CSV file.

Overview

To begin comparing bids, click the Bid Leveling tab for the relevant bid form.

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Bids are shown side by side, with the submitted values aggregated. Depending on the amount of data and the size of your browser window, you may need to scroll to the right to view additional data.

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Click Configure Columns to choose which columns you want to see and also adjust the size if needed.

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Add and Invite Bidders

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Add Companies from the Directory

Similar to the original bid management experience, you can add companies from your Company level Directory tool and invite them to bid. See Add Bidders from the Directory to a Bid Form. You can add bidders from multiple areas of the Bidding tool: 

  • While creating or editing a bid form, click Save and Add Bidders. See Create a Bid Form.
  • From the 'Bidders' tab, click Add Bidders.
  • From the 'Bidding' tab of the bid package, click the plus + icon on the right side.
    add-bidders-plus.png

If you want to add a new company to your Directory so that you can invite them to bid, you can click Add Company on the Add Bidders page. See Add a New Company to the Directory from the Bidding Tool and Add a New Contact to the Directory from the Bidding Tool.

Add Companies from the Procore Construction Network

 In Beta
This feature is currently in beta.

As part of the new bid management experience, bid solicitors can search through the Procore Construction Network to find additional companies to invite to bid on a project. See Add Bidders from the Procore Construction Network.
add-bidders-pcn.png

Instead of only being able to invite contacts that already exist in your company's Directory in Procore to bid, you can discover and choose from thousands of companies across the Procore Construction Network.

Overview

  • The following information is shown for each company, based on their information in the Construction Network: Primary Address, Doing Business As, Website, and Provided Services.

  • You can use the search bar to find specific companies, and use the Filters option to filter results by the following details: Project Location, Provided Services, Company Type, and Construction Sector.
  • Companies from the Procore Construction Network that you invite to bid will be added to the Company level Directory in Procore. You can choose to edit bid contacts in the Directory tool later if needed.

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Award a Bid and Convert it to a Subcontract or Purchase Order

Similar to the original bid management experience, you can award a bid and convert it to a contract in the project's Commitments tool. See Award a Bid and Convert it to a Subcontract or Purchase Order. After you select the type of contract you want to convert the bid to, you'll be directed to the Schedule of Values tab in the project's Commitments tool, where you can then email out the contract.

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Soft Award a Bid

If you don't want to create a contract yet, you can also "soft award" a bid by changing the Bid Status to 'Awarded'. See Soft Award a Bid.

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How do I opt in to the new bid management experience?

See How do I opt in to the new bid management experience?

 

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FAQ

Why use Bid Forms?

Bid forms make it easier to break down scope and cost information and help to standardize the responses that are being received from bidders. In addition, the use of bid forms allows for bid leveling on submitted bids. See Level Bids for a Bid Form.

What if I don’t plan to define scope?

Bid forms aren't just about scope. They can help you better assess coverage by allowing you to customize how you organize your bidders. If you create one bid form per trade and have bidders that bid on multiple bid forms, you can now track Bid Status, Notes, and Activity separately. This wasn’t possible in the old experience, since bidders were tracked by Company instead of Trade.

Example
A General Contractor invites Acme Construction to bid on two bid forms: one for Electrical and one for HVAC. If the company chooses to bid on Electrical, but not bid on HVAC, both statuses will still be recorded. Notes and Activity are also tracked per bid form instead of per company.

What permissions are required to view a bid form?

Users must have 'Read Only' or higher level permissions to the project's Bidding tool and be added to the 'Bidding CC Group'.

Where do I add bidders?

In the new experience, you can add bidders after you create a bid form. See Add Bidders to a Bid Form.

There are three (3) different areas where you can add bidders:

  • While creating or editing a bid form, click Save and Add Bidders. See Create a Bid Form.
  • From the 'Bidders' tab, click Add Bidders.
  • From the 'Bidding' tab of the bid package, click the plus + icon on the right side.

Can I modify the columns on a bid form?

Yes. You can click the vertical ellipsis icon-ellipsis-vertical.png icon on a column to adjust the sizing of the columns or pin them to a certain side. 

Can I Switch back to the old bidding experience?

No. Once you update a project to the new experience, it cannot be switched back.

Will more features be added?

Yes. Additional features, such as templates, are planned for development.

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