If your agency has enabled the option, contractors have the ability to ask questions about a proposal using the Questions and Answers feature. Questions are numbered based upon the proposal and when they are received by the agency.
You have the option of marking the question as public or private. You can see the list of questions for all proposals on the Manage Questions and Answers page, or you can see questions for specific proposals through the proposal's Questions and Answers page. If you signed up for email notifications, you will receive an email when a bidder submits a question.
Follow these instructions to see the list of questions:
Select Manage Questions and Answers from the Agency section of the Manage Agency page. The Bid Express® service goes to the Unanswered Questions for All Proposals page and displays a list of the unanswered questions.
To see all questions, click Show All Questions.
From here, you can answer or delete questions or mark them as pending, make them private or public, and edit your response. Questions that have already been answered are marked Answered.
Follow these instructions to respond to a question:
Select Manage Questions and Answers from the Agency section of the Manage Agency page if you are not already there. The Bid Express service goes to the Unanswered Questions for All Proposals page and displays a list of the unanswered and pending questions.
Select the question subject from the list. The Bid Express services goes to the question asked.
To make the question public, click No in the Public column. This changes the status to public and the question can be seen by any Bid Express user.
If you want to acknowledge to the contractor that you are reviewing the question, select pending reply. This changes the question's status as answered but will display a pending reply message. The contractor will not see any response entered in the response field.
If you are answering the question, enter your answer in the available field. Your name will not be visible as the agency member you answered the question.
Click public reply if you wish for anyone to be able to see the answer or click private reply so only the contractor asking can see the answer.
Once you select the type of reply, the Bid Express service displays the unanswered questions list and the displays both the question and reply on the question's page. The bidder that submitted the question will receive an email with the answer for a public or private response, but not for a pending reply.
Once you have the answer to a question to which you answered pending reply, you can enter your new answer. Follow the same steps to respond to a question.
You can change the questions asked or your response to the questions.
Select Manage Questions and Answers from the Agency section of the Manage Agency page if you are not already there. The Bid Express service goes to the Unanswered Questions for All Proposals page and displays a list of the unanswered questions.
If you do not see the question for which you want to change the response, select Show All Questions. The Bid Express service displays all questions. You can sort the questions by column name.
Select the question subject from the list. The Bid Express services goes to the question asked.
Click Edit in the question section to change the question. Click Edit in the answer section to change the answer.
Make the changes to your question or answer and select Save Changes. The bidder that submitted the question will not be notified that the question has been changed.
Return to the questions by selecting Manage Q & A in the navigation trail.
You can delete a submitted question.
Select Manage Questions and Answers from the Agency section of the Manage Agency page if you are not already there. The Bid Express service goes to the Unanswered Questions for All Proposals page and displays a list of the unanswered questions.
If you do not see the question that you wish to delete, select Show All Questions. The Bid Express service displays all questions. You can sort the questions by column name.
Delete the question by clicking the red X for that question. Click ok in the delete confirmation window to delete the question or click cancel to return to Bid Express without deleting the question.
You can export the questions and answers from the lettings or proposal levels into a CSV or as a tabbed file.
If you are exporting all questions at the letting level, select Questions and Answers in the Also Available section of the letting. The Bid Express service opens the Search Questions for Letting page.
Click Export (csv) or Export (tab) to export the questions and answers.
If you are exporting all questions at the proposal level, select Questions and Answers in the Also Available section for the proposal. The Bid Express service opens the Search Questions for Proposal page.
Click Export (csv) or Export (tab) to export the questions and answers.