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The tender portal

What a subcontractor sees when invited to price a package.

The tender portal

What it is

The tender portal is the page a subcontractor or supplier lands on from your tender invitation. It shows them the job, the trade package, the scope of works, the site and the closing date, and lets them upload their quote and supporting documents, write a few lines about their approach, put in a price and submit. They can come back and update it until the round closes. What they submit lands on the job's Tenders page beside everyone else's, and anything they attached is filed in the job's documents.

Before you start

  • The link is created when you issue a tender from the job's Tenders page or ask the assistant to send a tender invitation. Every recipient gets their own link in the invitation email, together with the scope and a reference like [Ref 7F3A9C2B] in the subject. Inviting someone with a plain email instead creates no portal and nothing for their reply to land on.
  • The link is the credential. Anyone holding it can see your scope and submit a price in that company's name, so tell the sub to keep it to the people pricing the job. The link never shows your budget.
  • A tender link keeps working for 60 days after the due date, or 120 days after it was sent if there is no due date, whichever is later. Passing the due date stops submissions straight away, though; extend the date on the Tenders page and the same link works again.
  • A new partner who has never worked with you also gets a company profile form embedded in the same page, so their details arrive with their price.

How to

  1. A heading Invitation to tender (or Updated tender · Revision 2 when you have re-issued it), the job name, and a summary: trade or section, site address, Quotes due and the reference.
  2. The Scope of works you wrote, in full.
  3. For a brand-new partner, 1 · Your company details, a form for their trading name, ABN, licence, contact and bank details. For any partner on your directory, a business profile card (headline, bio, team size, service area, past work and photos) they can fill in once and reuse across your tenders.
  4. Submit your tender: a drop zone for files, a box for their pitch, a price and their contact details.
  5. A round that has been finalised, passed its due date or been cancelled shows a notice instead of the form, including their submitted price if they put one in, and tells them to contact you to change anything.

Submit a price (the subcontractor)

  1. Drag their quote onto Your quote (PDF) & supporting documents, or click to browse. A PDF quote is required; images, Excel and Word files are also accepted, up to 20 MB each and twelve files in all. Each file uploads at once and can be removed before submitting.
  2. Write About your tender if they wish: approach, inclusions and exclusions, lead time.
  3. Enter Your price (AUD, excl. GST).
  4. Check Contact name and Contact email. For a partner you already know these are filled in from your directory, with Change to edit.
  5. Press Submit tender. Until the price and the PDF are in, the button is disabled and the page says what is missing.
  6. The page confirms Tender submitted: you have their price and documents, and the link stays live to revise it before the closing date. Coming back later shows Update your tender and Update tender.

Respond to a revised tender (the subcontractor)

  1. When you re-issue a package, the page shows Updated tender · Revision 2, the date and your revision note, and asks them to price that revision.
  2. If they priced an earlier revision, a note says so and asks them to update their tender if the changes affect it, or submit it again to confirm it stands.

What happens on its own

  • Opening the link marks the invitation opened on your Tenders page.
  • Every upload is filed in the job's documents, typed Quote for the PDF and Other for the rest, with the sub's company on it.
  • Submitting records the price, pitch and contact against the invitation and marks it quoted. A second submission updates the same record; it never reopens a package you have already awarded or declined.
  • A submission raises the same event as a priced reply by email, so a review of the submission by the assistant can run if you have turned that automation on. It is off by default.
  • Purchase orders sent to the same portal address show a notice only: the sub accepts or asks a question by replying to the email, and there is no price form.

Things that surprise people

  • Nothing in the portal names your budget or the other bidders. The sub sees the scope, the site, the due date and their own submission.
  • A price without a PDF cannot be submitted. If a sub only wants to give a number, they can reply to the invitation email with the reference in the subject and it lands on the Tenders page the same way.
  • Passing the due date closes the form, but the link itself keeps working for two months, so extending the date reopens it without a resend.
  • The company profile a sub fills in is theirs and is shared across every tender you send them. It is not part of this tender's record and can be edited after the round closes.
  • A sub's contact details on the page come from your directory. If they are wrong there, they are wrong on the portal; fix the contact in Contacts.