Bid board
The bid board is the daily operating view. Open it in the morning and you should be able to answer: what is due soon, who owns each bid, what needs attention, and what the next move is. If you can answer those without opening a spreadsheet, the board is doing its job.
What each bid shows
Section titled “What each bid shows”Every bid on the board carries:
- Project name, and optionally project number and address.
- Customer or GC.
- Due date. Bids due within 3 days show a due-soon warning; past-due bids show as overdue.
- Status, one of the statuses below.
- Owner, the team member responsible for the bid.
- Next action, a plain sentence about the next move: “Follow up with GC Friday morning.”
- Alert state, so addenda, missing documents, and deadline pressure are visible from the board. See Alerts.
You do not need all of this to save a bid. A project name is enough to get it on the board; fill in the rest as it arrives.
Bid statuses
Section titled “Bid statuses”| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| New | Just landed, not yet worked. |
| Reviewing | Someone is going through the documents. |
| Pricing | The estimator is building the number. |
| Waiting | Waiting on someone else: an addendum, an answer, a decision. |
| Submitted | Bid is in. Waiting on the result. |
| Won | You got it. |
| Lost | You did not. |
| No-bid | You decided not to chase it. Record why in the notes. |
| Archived | Off the active board. |
The bid lifecycle
Section titled “The bid lifecycle”New, Reviewing, Pricing, and Waiting are the working statuses. Bids in those statuses get due-date and missing-document alerts, because the due date and document set still drive work.
Once a bid moves to Submitted, Won, Lost, No-bid, or Archived, the alerts stop. The record stays: documents, notes, findings, and activity remain attached, so you can look back at why a bid went the way it went.
Notes and activity
Section titled “Notes and activity”Each bid record holds plain notes and a dated activity trail. Notes carry author, date, and text: “Waiting on revised addendum,” “No-bid because schedule conflicts.” Activity records meaningful changes, so the team can see why a bid moved status without asking around.
Working the board
Section titled “Working the board”- Owners and next actions keep bids from stalling. A bid with no owner is a bid nobody is watching.
- Update status as work happens, not at the end of the week. The board is only useful if it is current.
- When the documents are in, run AI review so the findings and alerts are waiting before pricing starts.