Every proposal, from the solicitation to the award
A proposal is a record of its own here. It holds the volumes and who writes each, the team, the schedule counted back from the due date, the reviews and what they found, the approvals, the submission and its receipt, and what happened after it went. Start one on a notice and the notice's due date and page limits come with it.
the same joined record carries the search, the price and the invoice
Every proposal on the account, on one screen
Proposals is under Proposal in the menu. Each proposal has a number, its customer, its solicitation number, whether you are the prime or a subcontractor, its contract type and value, and the day and time it is due in the zone the solicitation names. The register lists them all, with how many of each one's volumes are final and how far its compliance matrix is.
At the top it says how many are due this week, how many are in review, how many are submitted and waiting, and how many were won this year, with the win rate over the proposals that were won or lost. Each figure is a filter. The list sorts on every column, and it downloads as an Excel workbook.
- Filter by status, proposal manager, due within a number of days, decision and role
- Or only the ones you manage or are on the team of
- Start a proposal from a pursuit on your pipeline, from a notice, or blank
- A pursuit or a notice has one live proposal at a time: asking for a second opens the one there is
Start a proposal on a notice, and the notice comes with it
A notice's page has Start a proposal beside the button that puts the notice on your pipeline. It opens a new proposal with the notice's title, buying office, solicitation number and due date already in it. The page limits the notice and its documents state are read onto the volumes they name, and where the notice says plainly when questions are due, that day comes too. If the notice is on your pipeline, the proposal is put on that pursuit.
On a pursuit's page the same thing is a row under What it links to: Start, or Open once there is a proposal. Anything typed on the form is used instead of what was read, and a due date typed there is read in the zone you choose.
- Once a proposal exists, the button on the notice says Open the proposal
- On a notice, how it is submitted starts as SAM.gov, and whoever leads it can change that
- A viewer seat reads every proposal and starts none
openness 61 of 99: a door exists here
Eleven tabs on every proposal
| Tab | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Overview | The key dates, in the solicitation's zone and in yours. Where it goes and how. The rules that reject a proposal, as the notice states them. The volumes, the compliance matrix in figures, what is late, and what it links to: the pursuit, its capture plan, the price volume, the notice and the proposal draft. |
| Volumes | Each volume with its page limit, its owner, its internal due date, where it stands and its documents. |
| Team | Who is on it and in what role, and who may do what. |
| Schedule | The milestones counted back from the due date, each with a day and an owner. |
| Submission | The checklist before it goes, the submission and its receipt, the questions and notices that come after it, the decision, and the dates that follow a decision. |
| Compliance matrix | Every requirement of the solicitation and its amendments, with an owner, a status, a volume, evidence and a due date. See the compliance matrix. |
| Reviews | The colour-team reviews, their scoring sheets and their findings. |
| Approvals | What has to be approved before it may go, and who approves each. |
| Key personnel | The positions the solicitation names, the person proposed on each, and every minimum checked. See Key personnel. |
| Past performance | The records most relevant to it, the ones put forward on it, and the questionnaires sent for it. See Past performance. |
| History | Every change, who made it and when, newest first, and the notes the team adds. |
Each volume with its page limit and the person writing it
A proposal starts with the volumes for the role you play. A prime starts with eight: technical, management, past performance, staffing and key personnel, price or cost, representations and certifications, small business participation, and attachments. A subcontractor starts with six, without management and small business participation, which the prime writes. Add, rename, reorder or remove them, up to thirty.
On a proposal started from a notice, each volume carries the page limit the notice states for it, with the notice's own sentence beside it. A limit you type takes its place. Read the page limits from the notice reads them again, for example after an amendment.
- An owner and an internal due date for each volume, five days before the proposal is due when it starts
- Not started, outlining, drafting, in review, final, and submitted once the proposal is
- Documents from your library, or a file uploaded to the volume and kept in the library
- A volume past its day and not final is marked late
UEI, CAGE, then normalized name
Who writes it, who leads it, who reads it
The team is everybody on the account who works on the proposal, each in a role: proposal manager, capture manager, volume lead, writer, pricing, contracts, reviewer, approver or production. Anybody can hold more than one role.
Its proposal manager and capture manager lead it. They change its details, its status, its team and its schedule, and record the submission and the decision, as the account owner and managers can. Everybody on the team works on its volumes, its questions and its notes. Everybody on the account reads it, and a viewer seat reads it and changes nothing.
- Up to two hundred places on one team
- A seat that leaves the account leaves its proposals as they are, with nobody on what it carried
printed on every notice, never searchable until now
The schedule, counted back from the due date
| Milestone | Days before the due date | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Kickoff | 28 | The team, the outline and who writes what. |
| Blue team | 25 | Is the win strategy right, before anything is written. |
| Pink team | 18 | A first draft read against the solicitation. |
| Red team | 11 | A near-final draft read as the evaluator would score it. |
| Gold team | 5 | Final approval to submit. |
| Production | 3 | Pages, files, signatures and the last check. |
| Submit | 1 | Sent a day early, so a portal that fails is not the end of it. |
That is a thirty-day plan. With less time, each milestone is brought in by the same share, and none falls before today.
Your schedule, and the pursuit's reviews
Change any day or owner, mark a milestone done, add milestones of your own, or count the schedule back from the due date again, which keeps what is done. A new due date moves the milestones nobody set by hand. A schedule holds thirty milestones at most.
Blue, pink, red and gold team are colour-team milestones. On a proposal that is on a pursuit, Put on the pursuit makes one the pursuit's colour-team review, so it is on the pursuit's page, its capture plan and the calendar as every other review is.
Recorded with the time it went and the receipt
Before it goes, the Submission tab lists what to check: each volume final and within its page limit, each other rule the notice states, sent to the right place the right way, and the receipt kept. Whether a volume is final is worked out from the proposal. The rest are ticked by whoever checks them, and each tick carries their name.
Record the submission takes the day and the time it went, in the solicitation's zone, and the receipt: a document from your library, or a note of the confirmation you were given. A time after the due time is recorded as it was and said plainly, with FAR 52.215-1(c)(3)(ii) beside it. Every volume is then marked submitted, and a pursuit that was Tracking or Pursuing moves to Submitted on your pipeline.
- The due time in the zone the solicitation names: Eastern, Central, Mountain, Arizona, Pacific, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam or UTC
- And in your own time, with the time left
- Recording it is refused while an approval the account requires is missing
the end date was published the day the contract was signed, and the window opens a year before it
Clarifications, discussions, a final revision and the decision
A submitted proposal moves on as the buyer writes. Record what comes: a clarification, an evaluation notice, a question to the contracting officer, an amendment, or a request for final proposal revision, each with the day it came, the day the answer is due, an owner, your answer and a document. A clarification moves the proposal to Clarifications, an evaluation notice to Discussions, and a request for a final proposal revision to Final proposal revision. Never back.
Record the decision says whether it was won or lost and the day the notice came. Won moves the pursuit to Won and lost moves it to Lost, through the pipeline's own stage change, so everything that follows a win or a loss on the pipeline follows this one too. A decision can be corrected. Before a decision, a proposal can be withdrawn by you or marked cancelled by the buyer, with a reason for the history, and taken up again.
- An answer past its day and still open is marked late
- A proposal that has been submitted is kept: only one that has not gone can be removed
The dates after a decision
| The date | How it is worked out | The rule shown beside it |
|---|---|---|
| Ask for a debriefing by | Within 3 days after the day the notice of the decision came, won or lost. Where that day is a Saturday, Sunday or Federal holiday, the next working day is shown beside it, and the screen says to ask by the earlier day. | FAR 15.506(a)(1), and 15.301-1(a)(1) in the overhauled Part 15. Excluded before award: FAR 15.505(a)(1), and 15.206-2(a)(1) in the overhauled Part 15. How a day is counted: FAR 2.101 and FAR 33.101. |
| File a protest at GAO by | On a loss: 10 days after the debriefing is held, when one was asked for and held, or 10 days after the notice when none was asked for. A last day on a Saturday, Sunday or Federal holiday moves to the next day that is not. | 4 CFR 21.2(a)(2), with days counted as 4 CFR 21.0(d) counts them. A protest of the solicitation's own terms was due before the time set for receipt of proposals: 4 CFR 21.2(a)(1). |
A guide, not advice
Each of these dates is shown with the rule it comes from and the words: A guide, not advice. Confirm with counsel. A basis of protest known earlier counts from that earlier day, and the screen says so. Each date is on the calendar until it is done, and the day the debriefing was asked for and held, with what was said, is kept on the proposal.
Colour-team reviews, scored as the evaluator will score them
The Reviews tab plans each review the proposal goes through: blue team, black hat, pink team, red team, green team, gold team or white glove, each with its day, its reviewers from the account, and the volumes it reads. Its scoring sheet is the Section M factors, taken from the compliance matrix where it has read them or typed, each rated on your account's scale with a note, and the review rated overall. The scale starts as Outstanding, Good, Acceptable, Marginal and Unacceptable, and the account owner can set a scale of the account's own, of two to seven ratings, best first.
Each finding is a strength, a weakness, a significant weakness, a deficiency or a comment, with the volume, the requirement it is about (a row of the compliance matrix, or in words), an owner and a due date. Its owner, the team, or whoever leads the proposal answers it: accepted and fixed, or not accepted with a reason. A reviewer of that review, or whoever leads the proposal, closes it. A review is not closed while one of its deficiencies is still open.
- Findings filtered by review, by kind, by where they stand, or to your own
- The trend: findings by kind, colour by colour, to see whether each review finds fewer than the one before
- On a pursuit, a review is the pursuit's colour-team review, kept in step with it
- Reviews and findings due are on the calendar
a missing requirement costs the bid; an awkward one costs nothing
What a finding is
| Kind | What it means | Where it is from |
|---|---|---|
| Deficiency | A material failure of a proposal to meet a Government requirement, or a combination of significant weaknesses that increases the risk of unsuccessful contract performance to an unacceptable level. | FAR 15.001. The overhauled Part 15 keeps it at 15.001 in other words. |
| Significant weakness | A flaw in the proposal that appreciably increases the risk of unsuccessful contract performance. | FAR 15.001, the same in the overhauled Part 15 |
| Weakness | A flaw in the proposal that increases the risk of unsuccessful contract performance. | FAR 15.001, the same in the overhauled Part 15 |
| Strength | The FAR does not define a strength. It names strengths among what an evaluation documents, with deficiencies, significant weaknesses and risks. Record what the evaluator would credit. | FAR 15.305(a); 15.202(b)(2)(ii) in the overhauled Part 15 |
| Comment | Not an evaluation finding: a note for the writers, such as a format point or a word to change. | Not a FAR term |
Approved before it goes, by the people your account names
Every proposal needs three approvals: the bid decision, the price approval, and the final approval to submit, which is the gold team decision. Your account can add up to eight of its own. On a proposal that is on a pursuit, the bid decision is the pursuit's Bid gate review, read from the pursuit and never asked for twice.
Who approves each is set once for the account by its owner, by the proposal's value. Up to four amounts make up to five value bands, and each approval in each band names the account owner, a manager, or a named person. As it starts, the bands end at $1,000,000 and $10,000,000, a manager approves each approval, and the final approval to submit a proposal over $10,000,000 is the account owner's. A proposal with no value is read as the largest band.
While an approver is away, the person they name decides for them, for up to a year, and the decision says it was made for them. People name their own stand-in, and the account owner can name one for anybody. The final approval to submit waits while a deficiency is open on the Reviews tab.
- Each decision is kept with the name, the time and the note, and a decision not to approve needs a reason
- An approval is due on the gold team milestone, or two days before the proposal is due, unless whoever leads it sets another day
- Approvals due are on the calendar
checked before a teaming partner is ever suggested
Not marked submitted before it is approved
Record the submission is refused while any approval the account requires is missing, and the refusal names what is missing. Only the account owner can record the submission anyway, and only with a reason. The reason is kept in the proposal's history and in the account's.
Its dates, where you look every day
Today has a block called Proposals due: every proposal being written that is due in the next fourteen days, with how many of its volumes are final and the time left, and the answers due to the buyer. It can be moved or put away like the other blocks on Today.
Tasks and calendar carries every dated thing of every proposal: the day it is due and the day questions are due, each volume's due date, each milestone and review, each finding and approval due, the requirements due on its compliance matrix, each answer due to the buyer, and after a decision, the day to ask for a debriefing and the protest guide. A milestone put on the pursuit is there once, as the pursuit's review.
The history, and the file
Every change to a proposal is a line of its history: what changed, from what to what, who changed it and when, newest first. A line is never changed afterwards, and a proposal that is removed leaves its history on the account. Anybody on the team adds a note to it.
A proposal downloads as an Excel workbook: the proposal, its volumes, its team, its schedule, what came after submission, its reviews and their scoring, its findings and their trend, its approvals, and its history. The register downloads the same way.
Where it stops
Proposals comes with every paid plan, and a role can close it for a person. It keeps the work of a proposal: the words are yours to write, and a first draft from your own passages is a proposal draft. It sends nothing to the government. Recording the submission is your record of what you sent, and the receipt is yours to keep. The dates after a decision are a guide with their rule beside them, not legal advice. An API key reads the federal record and never a proposal.
Where it is in the app
Proposals, under Proposal in the menu. Proposal is the part of LastAwarded that builds the response, one of the eight parts.
Related
- Compliance matrix NewEvery requirement of the solicitation, on every proposal.
- Key personnel NewThe people a bid turns on, against every minimum.
- Past performance NewEvery contract you can cite, read for how relevant it is.
- Proposal draftsA first draft of the words, from your own passages.
- Bid worksheetThe price volume, priced line by line.
- Bid / no-bid NewThe decision the Approvals tab reads from the pursuit.
- Pipeline and calendarWhere a proposal's dates sit with everything else.
See who was last awarded in your NAICS
Every code, every buying office, every vendor and every recompete, organized from the federal record and read nightly. Open it with a plan.