Run Q&A and announcements during bidding
Suppliers ask clarification questions on the request's Q&A tab. Publish one answer to every bidder, post announcements, dismiss questions with a reason, and keep the private chat for matters that concern one supplier only.
What you'll learn
- Answer supplier questions once, for every bidder, from the Q&A tab
- Post an announcement, link an answer to an amendment, and dismiss a question with a reason
- Know what the asker, the other bidders, and your team each see
- Use the private chat for one-supplier matters, and an amendment when the scope itself changes
No brief is ever perfect. However carefully you write a request, a supplier reading it closely will spot something you left implicit: does the delivery date allow for customs, is the warranty inclusive, may they decline a section of the Bill of Quantities. The fair way to handle that is the tender Q&A: every bidder asks in one place, every bidder reads the same answer, and nobody prices on information the others did not get.
The request's Q&A tab is that place. A supplier asks a question anonymously; you see who asked, the other bidders never do. You answer once and Publish to all bidders, and the published question and answer appear for everyone. You can also post an announcement that is not tied to any question. A private chat thread with each supplier still exists for matters that genuinely concern one company only.
Why this matters
Answering one supplier privately about something that affects the price is the fastest way to end up with bids built on different information without realising it, and it is the kind of unfairness a losing bidder remembers. The Q&A board makes the fair path the easy path: one answer, published to all, on the record. The private chat stays for what is private. Knowing which channel a question belongs in is most of the job.
Two channels, and which to use
| The question is about | Use | Who sees the answer |
|---|---|---|
| The request itself: scope, terms, quantities, drawings, dates, how to price a section | Q&A tab: Answer, then Publish to all bidders | Every invited or participating bidder, on their own Q&A tab. The asker's identity stays hidden from the others. |
| Something you want every bidder to know that nobody asked | Q&A tab: Post an announcement | Every bidder. |
| A change to the scope, quantities, documents, or deadline | Amend the request (and link the amendment from the Q&A answer) | Every bidder, through the amendment trail, with a notification and a flag on bids already submitted. |
| That one supplier's own situation: their invitation, their draft, a commercial matter between your two companies | Chat: the private thread with that supplier | That supplier only. Check the Internal / External toggle before you send. |
The Q&A tab
The tab has three parts. At the top, a Questions close (date) chip when you set a clarification deadline, or The question window has closed once it passes, next to Post an announcement. Then the pending list, headed N questions awaiting an answer; the tab itself carries a badge with that count. Then Published Q&A: every question you have answered and every announcement, numbered Q1, Q2 and so on, in the order they were published. Dismissed questions fold into a strip at the bottom (N dismissed questions) so they stay on your record.
Each pending question shows Asked by (name), visible only to you. That line is literal: the asker's identity never reaches another bidder, in the pending list or in the published answer.
Answering a question
Open Answer and write for everyone
Answer on a pending question opens Answer question. The Original question is shown as the supplier wrote it, and Question as it will appear to bidders lets you tidy the wording before it is published, for example to remove a detail that would identify the asker or to generalise a question that applies to everyone. Write the Answer as a statement to the whole field, not a reply to one company.
Link an amendment when the answer changed the request
If answering the question meant changing the request (a quantity, a drawing, a date), make the amendment first and then choose it under Link an amendment (optional). The published answer carries a See Amendment #N chip, so every bidder reads the answer and the change together. The Q&A explains; the amendment is what suppliers are formally notified of and what flags already-submitted bids for revision. See Edit, amend, or cancel a request.
Publish, once
Publish to all bidders sends the question and answer to every invited bidder. The dialog is explicit: it cannot be unpublished. If you published something wrong, publish a correction as a new answer or an announcement rather than hoping nobody read the first one.
Or dismiss, with a reason the asker will see
Not every question deserves a published answer: a duplicate of one you already published, a question that is really a bid on the supplier's own terms, or one that asks for information you will not disclose. Dismiss (or Dismiss instead from inside the answer dialog) opens Dismiss question. A Reason is required, and the dialog tells you exactly who sees it: the bidder who asked, and no one else. The question leaves the pending list and stays in the dismissed strip.
Announcements
Post an announcement broadcasts a message to every invited bidder without a question behind it: a site visit date, a reminder about the submission format, a note that a drawing set has been re-issued. It appears in the Published Q&A list marked Announcement, in sequence with the answered questions, and it cannot be unpublished either.
The question window
You can set an optional Clarification / Q&A deadline on the Details step of the wizard, separate from the submission deadline. It must fall on or before the submission deadline. Leave it blank to accept questions right up to the submission deadline itself.
Once the clarification deadline passes, bidders can no longer ask (their Q&A tab reads The question period has closed for this request), and you see The question window has closed. You can still answer questions already asked and still post announcements. On a trade package, Set deadline for all draft packages in the project cockpit respects this: a package whose clarification deadline is later than the new submission deadline keeps its deadline rather than becoming inconsistent.
Answer promptly. A question left hanging as the deadline approaches usually means a supplier prices in their uncertainty or walks away. If you cannot answer fully yet, publish what you can and say when the rest will follow. On a construction package, watch for questions that reveal a missing drawing or specification section: the fix is to attach it to the package, which arrives as an amendment, and link that amendment from your answer.
The private chat still exists
Every supplier's Chat thread on your request is a separate, one-to-one conversation between your team and that supplier's team. Use it for what is genuinely private: their invitation, a commercial matter between your two companies, a question about their own draft. Every message you post there carries a visibility toggle, Internal (your team only) or External (shared with the supplier); a message left on Internal never reaches the supplier at all. If a supplier asks a request-level question in chat, answer it in Q&A instead, so every bidder gets it.
On the opportunity, the supplier has a Q&A tab of their own. They type into Ask a clarification question… and Send; the tab tells them "Your identity is never shown to other bidders. Only the buyer sees who asked." Their own question shows Awaiting answer with "Only you and the buyer can see this until it is answered." When you publish, the answer appears in their Published Q&A with a New chip, alongside every other published answer and announcement. A dismissed question shows Dismissed with your reason, to them only. Once the window closes they see The question period has closed for this request.
What good looks like
- Every request-level answer goes through Q&A, published once to all. Nothing that affects price lives only in a chat thread.
- The published question is tidied so it cannot identify the asker, and the answer is written for the whole field.
- When the answer changed the request, the amendment is made first and linked from the answer.
- Dismissals carry a reason a professional would accept reading.
- The clarification deadline is set with enough room that answers land before suppliers finish pricing, and the last announcement goes out before the window closes.
Next steps
- Amend a request when the scope itself changesWhen a question reveals a gap, update the brief so everyone sees the same version, and link it from your answer.
- Attach the missing drawing or sectionOn a trade package, a document question is answered by attaching the document, which arrives as an amendment.
- Review bids and AI ScoringOnce bidding closes, let the AI evaluate every bid against your criteria and recommend a winner, with written reasoning.
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