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Issuing the Invitations

Adding a company to the Bidder Management section does not send out an invitation to bid on the project. To issue the invitations to bid, click on the button which will display the Project Invite Preview shown below:

The ITB Options area allows you to select among the ITB Templates that were created and saved in the past.  There is a list of Templates displayed when you click on the drop down menu titled Select ITB Template.

 

Replies To

This feature allows you to designate where you want the replies to the invitations to go.

This drop down menu will contain a list of the internal users of your company; when you select one of them the replies will go to their email address.  If you leave the default of “This project” in there the replies will go to the project inbox which is discussed in the Communications section.

 

ITB Preferences

  When this button is marked, all the invited companies that have e-mail addresses in their profile will receive an e-mail invitation. Those companies that don’t have e-mail addresses will be sent a faxed version of the invitation.

 

 When this button is checked, each company will receive both an e-mail and a fax.

 

Edit ITB Message and Attachments

After you have selected which template you want to use when sending these invites if you still want to make some adjustments to the information on the ITB you can click the “Edit ITB Message and Attachments” button.  This will bring up the following screen that allows you to add information to or modify the existing ITB layout:

 

The Edit section contains standard windows commands that you are probably familiar with.  Cut allows you to move things, copy and paste should be self explanatory, undo will undo the last few actions you have done in the editor, and the Find command lets you search the page for a specific word or group of words.
 
Edit

 

The commands in the Format section should also be very familiar to you from use in programs such as Microsoft word or Power Point.

 

You can type anywhere in the screen to begin creating your custom message.  Prior to typing that message you can have your bolding or font selection made or you can highlight your sentence and change the bolding or font using the commands to the left.  For an example see below:
 
Format

 

Type some text, highlight it, click Bold to bold it, click the Font command to change the size of the text and click Align Center to Center it.  Results shown below:

Insert

The Insert section allows you insert things such as Images, Numbered Lists, Unnumbered lists and Horizontal Lines.

 

The Image function allows you enter in company logos that are bigger than the 100 x 40 pixel restrictions that you previously had on iSqFt.

 

Examples of how to insert things are shown below
 

 

The hyperlink command will be grayed out till you Highlight text that you want to make into a Hyper Link.  Perhaps you want to give the subs the option to go to your company’s website as in the example shown below:

When this box pops up enter in the desired web address and hit the OK button.
 
 

Inserting Images

Position the cursor in the editor where you would like the image to appear, then click on the Image button.  This will bring up the following box:

Use the Browse command to find the desired image on your hard drive or a network drive.
 

 

When inserting images be aware of how large the image is.  If when you insert it into the editor it is HUGE and stretches off the screen you will need to edit the image to make it smaller.

 

Also remember that some of the subcontractor companies that you are sending these invites to are going to be receiving them via Fax not email.  So color comes into play.  If you have a color like yellow in your image that might not translate well when faxing.  Another thing to look out for is, if for instance you are putting in your company logo, if you have small writing in your logo that small writing might not transmit well over the fax machine.

 

Inserting Lists

The ordered list and unordered list features just setup bullet points for you

  1. The ordered lists have numbers
  • The unordered lists have bullet points

 

Inserting Horizontal Lines

This is a nice little tool that just inserts a Horizontal Line so you can break the page up nicely.  In the example shown below there is a horizontal line inserted below the words Invite to Bid and below the unordered list:

 

Creating Tables

 

Expand the Table drop down menu and click on the Create Table button to bring up the screen shown above.  You can use this pop up to custom build a table that you would like to insert into your template.  The example shown above would result in a table like this being inserted into the template:

 

In the picture above I have already clicked on the top three cells and entered in some text to show you how you can use this.

Template Fields

When you expand the Template Fields drop down menu you will see a lot of choices.  Some of these have to deal with Subcontractor records and some of them have to deal with information that you entered into the Project Setup/Project Details page.

 

This first set of template fields deal with mail merging information from the subcontractors record into the Invite page.

 

Clicking the Contact Company would add the company’s name into the invite where your cursor is blinking.  The example below depicts how you could setup a section for listing the Sub’s Contact Information:

 
 
 

 

 

Remember that this is completely customizable.  As I have inserted these fields in the example above they are all “aligned left.”  I could also center that information on the screen or I could even stick those fields in the table I created.

 

 

 

 

 

Todays Date and Time – adds a short line showing the todays date and time.
 

 

Invited CSI Codes  - adds one of the required fields that looks like this:

This section allows the Sub to see what they have been invited to on this project.  The Accept all and Decline All links allow them to reply to the invite right from their email.

 
 


Project Access Link

This also adds one of the required fields that looks like this:

 

This link will allow the sub to access the project online with out having to login they will be taken right to the project.

 

Sub Profile Link

This will insert a link that allows the sub to go right to their company profile so they can update their contact information.  The link looks like this:

 

Custom Header and Text

Clicking this button will add your company’s Custom Header and Text.  The Custom Header is created on the Edit Construction Office info page.

 

These commands will add information dealing with the Project Details to the invite page.  I won’t discuss each one because the are pretty self explanatory.  In the example shown below you will see that when you use these fields it also includes a label with it.

 

So if you project were named New Highland Elementary when you use the Project name Template field it would add it to the invite with the label:

Project Name: New Highland Elementary
 

 

Once you have made the necessary adjustments to your Invitation layout you can click the Save button to Save your changes.

 

If you have the Role Based Permissions to create Templates
 
you can click the Save Template button to save the changes you have made to the Invitation back to the template AND the project.

 

Project Templates

Even if you don’t have the Role Based Ability to create new Templates you will still be able to choose a template to use, and then edit it before you send out your invitation for your project.  Each time you come back into the Issue Notification area the invitation that was last used to send invites on the project will be the one visible to use.  So in essence you are creating a project template.  You wont have to open a template and make your changes to it every time, the invite that was used last will be the default for the project.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Attaching Documents

At the top of the edit screen there is a section that allows you to attach a document to the invite.

Sending Invites

 

Clicking the Notify button will send the invitations. They are sent to all the companies that had a status of "pending" in the Bidder Management section. Those companies’ status will change to "Invited" once the invitations have been sent.

 

The emailed and faxed invitations will appear to come from the project manager as opposed to iSqFt. 

 

IMPORTANT TIP:

On your first few invites you should create a dummy sub company for yourself and send your self the ITB.  You might even want to do this on every project.  This will get you more familiar with what the sub sees and access the project from their side of the website.

 

For the New Highland Elem Sch Phase 3 project, if the Invites were sent out with “This Project” selected in the aforementioned drop down menu, the email would appear to 

             come from:                                   and the subject line would read:

 

 


ACME CONSTRUCTION    Bid Solicitation for New Highland Elem Sch Phase 3

(YOUR COMPANY NAME)

 

When the companies you invited reply to their emailed invites the replies will come back to the Project Inbox as shown above.