Awarding a bid in DemandStar makes notifying and providing the next steps for your awardees very simple and straight forward. In order to begin, head to a bid with a completed due date and click "Award Bid" at the top right. Don't worry if you have to step away during the process, you can always cancel and start again.

Step One - Select Awardee(s)

Select your awardee or awardees if there's more than one. On the right side section you will see "Select Awardee(s)" with a dropdown below. Click this menu and select the Supplier that you wish to award the bid to. Once added, click the same dropdown below the Supplier you just added and repeat to continue adding any additional Suppliers you're awarding to.

If there are any non-registered Demandstar Suppliers you are awarding to, click the "Award to non-DemandStar Supplier" button and enter the name and email for the Supplier. Click save and this awardee will be added for the following steps to be completed.

Before clicking Continue, enter in the Award Amount in the field to the respective Supplier, or in the case where no money is being awarded tick the N/A box.

Step Two - Send Documents to Specific Awardees

*please note* If you have selected more than one awardee in the previous step, you must first select which Supplier you are setting up documents for by selecting the appropriate one from the dropdown at the top of step two.

You must complete the steps for each of the Supplier you wish to send documents to.
With the correct Supplier selected, click the "Add More Documents" button. You may want to send a wide variety of documents, but these will be for non-public documents specifically.

A new section to Upload your document will appear. Here it will repeat again which awardee these are being sent to. Enter in a Document Title, and from the "Award Document Type" select the most appropriate type of document you're sending. If a category does not exist that your agency wishes to use, click the "Add / Edit Document Types" button and anything you add or edit will be applied for everyone in the agency. Once you have a Title and Type selected, click "Choose a File" below the Title field and navigate your computer's files and select the one you want. Click "Upload" and the file will be uploaded to the system with that Title and Type and will appear under the Supplier's name. You can always remove a file from a Supplier if you've made a mistake.

Repeat this process for as many files as you wish to send a Supplier and remember you have to re-associate files for each Supplier you are awarding. Once you're ready with all the documents to be sent, click "Continue"

Step Three - Get Documents from Awardees

You may also want to get certain documents from Suppliers. Unlike sending documents, since you are requiring documents from each of the Suppliers, there is no option to select specific Suppliers to request from. Each document request will be relayed to each awardee as a request to upload.

To select a file request and add it to the award, click on the drop down menu titled "Request a Document from Awardees" and select the relative one from the list. If you would like to add or edit any items on the list, similar to previous steps click the "Add / Edit Document Types" button and save your changes.

Each requested document can have its own individual due date, and can be updated after being added to the request. You can also use the "Update All Due Dates" to apply a single date to all requested documents at once.

Suppliers will be notified that a document request is awaiting their attention and your agency will be notified when they upload those documents.

When you are all finished setting up your requests, click "Continue"

Step Four - Add Public Documents

Uploading your public documents if very similar to sending documents from step two. You will enter a document title, select a type, and use the "Choose File" button to find a file from your computer to upload. Once you've filled in the fields you can click "Save and Upload" to add it to the system.

Repeat this process for as many documents as you need and click "Continue"

Step Five - Notify Awardees

This is where you can customize the message that will be sent to notify awardees that they have been selected as the winning parties. You can draft a subject line and body of the email that will be sent, along with the information the awardee can use to get in touch and get more info. These sections should be used in as much detail as possible to ensure the awardee has all the info they need to complete the next steps.

Anywhere you see a a small box with a pencil icon you can click that icon to edit the field its next to.
Instead of a "Continue" button on this screen, instead you will click "Preview" and be shown what that email and info will look like when sent to the Supplier. Please review and make sure that all contact info and next steps are provided and correct.

Once you have reviewed and verified the messaging is correct, click "Continue"

Step Six - Notify Unselected Bidders

Next you can set up messaging for Suppliers who bid but were not chosen as winners.

The same subject line and email body text will be available to customize. And the Bid details will also be automatically gathered to include in the email. Unselected Suppliers will not be sent the contact info seen in the last step.

Same as step five, you must click "Preview" and review the messaging, then proceed by clicking "Continue"

Step Seven - Notify Colleagues

Any user with a DemandStar account on your agency with proper permissions will be able to login and see the bid details along with who won and any document requests that came after.

If you'd like to send additional messaging, or notifiy colleagues outside the DemandStar portal, you can add them here.

Enter their name, email, which are mandatory, and a optional role for added clarity. The same subject line and email body text will be available to customize along with the automatically associated bid details. Adding a person's info will automatically add an emtpy field below them for additional users.

You must also "Preview" these messages before clicking "Continue"

Step Eight - Finalize Award
The last step is to finalize the award. There are two options that you will have on this screen.
"Recommendation of Award" is if your agency needs additional sign off before fully commiting to the award. Selecting this and then clicking "Recommend Award" will allow selected awardees to start submitting and exchanging documents, but will not notify the non-selected Suppliers. Once the final recommendation is approved, you can return to this screen and change the option to the second one.
Selecting "Award ______" will immediately notify the awarded Suppliers and they will begin their next steps.

After the Awarding

Once you have selected and completed the bid award process, you can return to the Bid Details page and select the "Awardee Management" tab.

This is where you will find all the files that awardees have uploaded as per your requests. If you had awarded more than one Supplier you can select the Supplier you wish to see from the dropdown at the top.

You can see on a per document request basis the current status of that request per awardee, and the respective due date for that request. You will receive a notification whenever a Supplier upload a document and then from this screen you can click the name of the document and download a copy.
You can also add additional requests from this page for your awardees to complete.

If you would like to review this process in video form please click below