Bid decisions
A bid worksheet scores one opportunity against what matters to your company — eleven criteria, each weighted by your own scoring model — and records the call, bid or no bid, with the sentence someone will need twelve months from now when they ask why. It is decision support, not a prediction: nothing here moves a pursuit or decides anything on the company's behalf.
TL;DR — On a pursuit, choose Start a bid worksheet. Score each criterion 0–100, Save scores, and read the weighted score and what it Suggests. Optionally Ask for a suggestion from AI. Then record The call and Why. A recorded decision is final.
Before you start
- Who can do what. Everyone can read worksheets and decisions — the rationale is the institutional memory this feature exists to create. Scoring and recording a decision needs Business Development User, Proposal Manager, Manager or Capture Administrator. Changing the scoring weights is Capture Administrator only.
- A worksheet belongs to a pursuit. Open it from the pursuit's page. The Bid decisions screen also has Start a worksheet with an opportunity or solicitation number; opening a worksheet twice for the same one takes you back to the first.
The criteria
| Field | What it does | Accepted values / default |
|---|---|---|
| Strategic fit | Whether the work moves the company where it wants to go. | |
| Technical capability | Whether you can do the work. | |
| Past performance | Whether you have done this work before, for this kind of customer. | |
| Customer relationship | How well you know the buyer. | |
| Competition | How crowded the field is, and whether there is an incumbent. | |
| Contract size | Whether the value suits the company. | |
| Required certifications | Whether you hold what the work calls for. | |
| Geographic fit | Whether you operate where the work is. | |
| Teaming requirements | Whether you need partners, and have them. | |
| Deadline feasibility | Whether there is time to write a considered proposal. | |
| Probability of success | Your honest overall read. |
Each score is a whole number from 0 to 100. A criterion your workspace gives no weight shows Not used by this workspace — a score there changes nothing.
Score a worksheet
Open it from the pursuit
On the pursuit's page choose Start a bid worksheet (or Open the bid worksheet if one exists).
Score each criterion
Enter a score out of 100 for each, and Save scores. Each row shows its weight and what it Contributes to the total.
Read the result
The Weighted score and what it Suggests: Strong bid, Consider bid, Weak bid or No bid. If some criteria are not scored yet, the worksheet says how much of the weight you have judged so far and lists what is Still to score — the figure reflects only what you have judged.
Optionally, ask for a second opinion
Ask for a suggestion — see below.
Record the decision
Under The decision, choose The call — Bid or No bid — and write Why. A decision needs a reason. Choose Record decision.
A recorded decision is final
Once a call is recorded on a worksheet it cannot be changed or overwritten. That is what makes it worth reading later. Score carefully, then decide.
Recording the call does not move the pursuit. Make the move on the pipeline, where committing to bid is approved and recorded in its own right — see The pipeline. A worksheet notes This call matched the score, or that it went against the score — which is allowed, and worth knowing later. How often that happens is the Bid discipline section of Analytics.
Each worksheet keeps the weights it was scored against — Scored against the weights in force on a date — so changing the weights later never rewrites an old decision.
The AI suggestion
On the Advanced plan, with the workspace's AI switch on, Ask for a suggestion gives a written second opinion with the factors behind it — for example The set-aside is one your certifications qualify you for, or The response window is short for work of this size.
The suggestion is formed from the solicitation and your company profile alone. It never sees your scores, so where it disagrees with you, one of you has weighed something the other did not. Your scores and the decision never depend on it. On other plans, with AI off, or when a fair-use limit is reached, the panel says so. See AI features.
Scoring weights
The weights set how much each criterion counts for the whole company. The Bid decisions screen shows them read-only, so everyone scoring a worksheet can see what it is measured against; a Capture Administrator changes them in Capture settings → Bid/no-bid weights, which the screen links to.
- Weights are whole numbers from 0 to 100 and must add up to 100.
- Only a Capture Administrator can change them.
- Changing them changes every future recommendation, so Save changes asks you to confirm it is you, and the change is recorded in the audit trail.
- Existing worksheets keep the weights they were scored against.
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