The pipeline
The Pipeline is every pursuit the workspace is working, where it has got to, who owns it and what it is worth. Pursuits move through thirteen stages, from Discovered to Won, Lost or No bid — or the workspace's own names and order for them, which a Capture Administrator sets in Capture settings. Committing to bid needs a Manager's approval; closing a pursuit asks you to confirm it is you. Every move is recorded, so the history of how a pursuit got where it is never has to be reconstructed.
TL;DR — Start pursuits from My opportunities, Discovery (contract notices, topics, grants and your own private leads), Matches, Grants, SBIR/STTR or Forecasts. In Pursue → Pipeline, drag a card to its next stage (or use the keyboard), set its owner, value and win chance, and open it for the full record. Moving from Bid / no-bid review to Pursuing asks a Manager to approve.
Before you start
- Who can do what. Everyone can read the pipeline. Starting, moving and editing pursuits needs Business Development User, Proposal Manager, Manager or Capture Administrator. Approving a commitment to bid needs Manager or Capture Administrator.
- One pursuit per opportunity. Starting a pursuit for something already on the board opens the existing one.
- What a pursuit can be about. A contract notice, a forecast, a grant, an SBIR/STTR topic, or one of your team's private leads. A new pursuit is named after it and carries its deadline.
The stages
| Field | What it does | Accepted values / default |
|---|---|---|
| Discovered → Screening → Qualified → Bid / no-bid review | Finding out whether the work is for you. | A new pursuit starts at Discovered. |
| Pursuing → Team formation → Proposal development → Internal review | Committed: building the team and writing the response. | Entering Pursuing from Bid / no-bid review needs approval — see below. |
| Submitted → Award pending | The response is in; the agency is deciding. | Deadline alerts stop here — the response is in. |
| Won / Lost / No bid | Closed. | Closing asks you to confirm it is you. |
Which moves are allowed
- Forward or back one stage along the ten working stages.
- To No bid or Lost from any working stage — a pursuit can be abandoned at any point.
- To Won only from Submitted or Award pending.
- Back to Pursuing from Won, Lost or No bid — for a protest, a re-solicitation or a mistake, so you reopen the card rather than creating a second one.
A move that is not allowed is refused with the stages you can move to from where the pursuit is.
Approval to commit
Moving a pursuit from Bid / no-bid review to Pursuing is the decision that spends real proposal effort, so it is the one move that needs sign-off.
Someone makes the move
The pursuit stays in Bid / no-bid review, and the screen says A manager has been asked to approve committing to this bid. Making the move again does not raise a second request.
A Manager decides in the approvals inbox
The request lands in the workspace's approvals inbox, naming Axis Capture and linking to the pursuit. Only Managers and Capture Administrators can decide it, and deciding — approve or reject — asks them to confirm with a passkey, because either answer moves the pursuit.
The decision moves the card
Approved moves the pursuit to Pursuing. Rejected moves it to No bid — a refused commitment is a decision, not a stalled card. A request that expires or is cancelled leaves the pursuit where it is. The stage history marks the move Approved.
Recording a bid/no-bid decision on the worksheet does not move the pursuit; the move and its approval are made here. See Bid decisions.
Closing a pursuit
Moving a pursuit to Won, Lost or No bid takes it off the live pipeline, stops its deadline warnings, takes its dates off the calendar and drops out of the pipeline value. So it asks for a fresh confirmation — your passkey or authenticator — naming what you are doing. Backing out changes nothing. Ordinary moves between working stages never ask. See Exports and confirmations.
The four views
| Field | What it does | Accepted values / default |
|---|---|---|
| Board | One column per stage. Drag a card to move it. | Keyboard: focus a card, press Space to pick it up, the arrow keys to move it between stages, Space to drop it, Escape to put it back. Each step is announced. |
| List | A table of pursuit, stage, owner, value, win chance, deadline and last moved. | Edit on a row changes the pursuit's name, estimated value and win chance. |
| Calendar | Response deadlines on a month grid. | Page with Previous month, This month and Next month. Dates are on the workspace clock. |
| Timeline | Each pursuit on a time line up to its deadline, with today marked. | Needs pursuits with deadlines. |
Above every view: filter by stage (All stages), by owner — Whose pursuits: Everyone or Only mine — and Show closed / Hide closed.
The figures
| Field | What it does | Accepted values / default |
|---|---|---|
| Live pursuits / Pipeline value / Average value | Count and value of the open pipeline. | Pursuits with no value are left out of the totals, and the screen says how many. |
| Weighted value | Each pursuit's value times its win chance. | Where a pursuit uses its stage's default win chance rather than one your team set, the screen says how many — treat the figure as a shape, not a forecast. |
| Win rate | Won out of won and lost. | Nothing closed yet until something closes. |
| By agency / owner / deadline / probability | Breakdowns of the open pipeline. | Deadlines bucket into overdue, within 7 days, within 30 days, later and none. |
The Dashboard's Pipeline value panel reads these same figures rather than recalculating them.
A pursuit's page
Open a card for the full record.
| Field | What it does | Accepted values / default |
|---|---|---|
| This pursuit | Stage, owner, estimated value, win chance, response deadline, opened and closed dates. | Win chance reads either "set by your team" or "the default for this stage". |
| Edit details | Change the Owner, the Response deadline and the Working notes. | Owners are picked from workspace members only. The deadline is on the workspace clock — change it when the agency extends the date and the warnings follow it. Notes are private to the workspace. |
| How it got here | Every stage the pursuit has entered, and how long it sat in the one before. | Moves made by approval are marked Approved. |
| Bid worksheet | Start a bid worksheet, Open the bid worksheet, or the recorded decision. | See Bid decisions. |
| View the solicitation / forecast / grant / topic / lead | What the pursuit is about, where that record lives. | A solicitation or forecast opens on its own page, a grant or topic in full on its screen, a private lead in Discovery. |
| Tasks / Documents / Requirements | Follow-ups, the solicitation and your proposals and contracts, and the requirements checklist. | Upload the solicitation here as *Solicitation* to build the checklist on the pursuit. See Documents, requirements and tasks. |
Owners and notifications
A pursuit's owner hears about its deadlines and its stage changes.
- A new pursuit is owned by whoever started it.
- When someone else makes you the owner, you are told ("… made you the owner of …").
- When someone else moves a pursuit you own, you are told which stage it moved to. You are never notified about your own actions.
- A pursuit with no owner gets no deadline warnings — the Dashboard will suggest giving every pursuit an owner.
Export
On the Advanced plan, Proposal Managers, Managers and Capture Administrators can Export the pipeline as a CSV file: title, stage, estimated value, win chance, owner by name, response deadline, opened, closed and the opportunity id. Exporting asks you to confirm it is you. See Exports and confirmations.
Common gotchas
- "A pursuit at Discovered can't go straight to Proposal development." Moves go one stage at a time along the working stages. Move it forward stage by stage, or close it.
- "I moved it to Pursuing and nothing happened." It is waiting for a Manager's approval. The pursuit stays in Bid / no-bid review until then.
- "The Manager can't approve." Deciding a bid commitment needs a passkey. Add one in Account → Security.
- "I can't mark it Won from Proposal development." Won is only reachable from Submitted or Award pending. Move it to Submitted first.
- "The weighted value looks too precise." It isn't meant to be. Set a win chance on each pursuit to replace the stage defaults.
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