Bid Coach: How to Better Manage Your Online Project Plan Room

Challenge:

Whether you use an FTP site or another cloud service to house your construction documents, it’s essential to know what project documents have been accessed or downloaded by your subcontractors or vendors. Attaching any of these documents to an email does not ensure that the recipient has actually downloaded the respective files or even viewed them. When you qualify a subcontractor proposal you want to make sure that they have read, reviewed, or downloaded all of the relevant construction documents for their scope of work on your project. So, how can you get the most relevant construction documents to your subcontractors that are trackable and easy to manage? Not only for you as a general contractor, but also so that you don’t waste your subcontractors’ valuable time?

Analysis:

Assess what deliverability tools (software or process) you are using right now and what limitations you are experiencing. If you are using just your email to send out invitations to bid, then you have very limited tracking available in regards to project document downloads from your subcontractors. Another downside of sending project file attachments in an email is that many times the file is too large to send and there’s no guarantee that the email will get to the end user or the recipient. Perhaps a file sharing option you use is free, but you are still using your email as well, thus limited tracking available again. (Note: Read receipts are not the same as someone downloading and reviewing the file!)

Solution:

Find a consolidated, secure invitation to bid management solution that brings your communication (email/faxes), plan room, and deliverability reports into one platform. An optimal invitation to bid software integrates with cloud storage programs like Dropbox and Box to make sure that all project documents are up-to-date and easily accessible to your subcontractors. Make sure you’re using a software that monitors and reports on those project file downloads. (Note: If it is free, you are probably giving away something.) Try a free trial to a paid file sharing platform, so you can use the secure options available With an online invitation to bid management solution, you will be better able to track your email deliverability, what project files your subcontractors have accessed and better qualify your proposals. Another plus of using an online bidding software is that your subcontractors can obtain a username/password and specify their project preferences, so they only receive the most relevant invitations to bid and you receive the most qualified proposals.