List Preferences

Posted in: Help on April 27, 2010 | No Comments

Bidspeed allows you a great deal of control over what you can do in a list.

Adding or Removing Columns

All lists allow you to change which columns are displayed. Here’s how:

1. Click the Customize Button
2. Choose the columns to be displayed
3. Click OK.
4. To remove columns, click the little red ‘x’ at the top of each column.

User Preferences

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At Bidspeed, we’ve always believed that software should do what you want it to, not the other way around. In most parts of the application (lists, in particular) we remember everything – where you put your columns, your last search, sort, grouping, and column widths.

You may want to look at a few application wide settings that give you more control over everything. As usual, we’ve tried to keep it simple, so there are only a few settings that may need tweaking.

To change application wide settings, first click “Preferences.” (Upper right corner next to “Change Password.”)

My Account

Most of the settings are self-explanatory. The only one you will typically need to change is the “Full Page Width” setting. If you haven’t tried this yet and you have a wider (or higher resolution) monitor, then you might like it.

You can now change the overall display width of pages in Bidspeed from the standard centered version (800 pixels wide) to a full width version (as wide as your monitor).

Here’s how:

1. Click Preferences.
2. Check “Full Width” box on the Preferences page.
3. Click the Save button at the top of the page.

Full Width Preference

External Opportunities

Posted in: Help on April 21, 2010 | No Comments

So the deal you’re working on ISN’T in FedBizOpps? No problem. From the Home tab click ‘Create a new Opportunity’ and fill out the information. Note that these opportunities will be available ONLY to your account.

After you’ve created the opportunity, it will show up in your watchlist just like all other opportunities, and you’ll be able to attach documents, create tasks, assign priorities, and set important dates. It’s a good idea to attach the document(s) that are related to the opportunity as document on the opportunity.

The Solicitation Number you create is up to you. Our suggestion is to pick something that makes sense – we typically like to include a state prefix in the number – for example: TX-RFP-2054-9877. The text of the solicitation is optional, but we strongly suggest you type or paste at least a summary of the requirements into the summary editor.

On page 2 you’ll notice that you can enter a URL to the opportunity. It’s a good idea to enter a link to the main notification page and NOT the solicitation document, rather, attach the solicitation document to the opportunity as a document, and keep the link as a way to check for updates and amendments. (Remember, Bidspeed can’t check for updates on private opportunities.)

How to attach documents to an opportunity

Posted in: Blog, Help, Using Bidspeed on November 10, 2009 | No Comments

Part of the value of Bidspeed is that it keeps track of everything related to an opportunity. Most of the time, you’ll want to attach everything –email, proposals, designs, and any material you send to the contracting officer. This allows you to revisit the opportunity later for reference purposes and even reuse documents on another proposal.

Bidspeed allows you to attach any type of document and store it along with the opportunity. Documents stored in Bidspeed are secure, only available to authorized users of your account, and automatically indexed for searching purposes.

Attaching a document is easy. To attach a document, first navigate to the opportunity. Next, click on the “New” link on the upper right corner of the “Documents” panel.

Now, from the “New Document” form, click on the browse button, select the file from your file system, type a description and click save.

Bidspeed supports full text searching of documents. To search for a document, type the prefix “doc:” plus the text you want to search for in the search box at the top of the page and press enter.

Filtering your Opportunities

Posted in: Blog, Help, Using Bidspeed on August 29, 2009 | 6 Comments

The Bidspeed application provides simple and flexible filtering capabilities. Most of the time, you’ll be looking for Active Opportunities that are posted to your “main” classification code.

For example, if you are in the “Lease or rental of facilities” business, the most effective search is to add a “Class Code” filter of your classification code. (You can click on the filter funnel () in the Class Code field to see a list of available codes.)

Here’s what it looks like:

To toggle the filter so that you see only Active opportunities, simply click on the Filters button (at the top of the page), and check ‘Active Opportunities Only.’ (Active opportunities have not been archived.)

To apply the filter, click the little ‘Apply’ button () at the top left corner of the list or press ‘Enter.’

You can also add more fields to the list – either to refine your filter or to see more columns – by clicking on the ‘Customize’ button (at the top of the page) and selecting ‘More Fields.’ The fields will be added with a little red ‘x’ on the top left corner that will allow you remove the column if you no longer want it in the list.

Here’s what it looks like:

Click on the filter funnel in a field () and you will get a list of options for even further filtering. Many fields support multiple selection – for example, the ‘Type’ field (add it using the Customize, More Fields menu item) allows you to select multiple opportunity types.

Here’s what it looks like:

As always, if you have any questions, comments, or ideas about filtering or anything in the application, we love to hear from you.