How to use the Plan Room in Bid Board (Bid Board Pro)

What is the Plan Room?

With the Plan Room in Bid Board Pro, you can discover projects published by general contractors marked as “public” in one consolidated location. This helps you find new projects that your company was not directly invited to, and thus gives you the opportunity to win additional business and increase backlog.

The Plan Room is available to anyone with Bid Board Pro. You can search for and sort discoverable projects based on Location, Work Performed, Company, Bid Due Date, and Expected Start Date. Once you find projects you are interested in bidding on, you will be able to join them and access the Opportunity Summary page.

How to use the Plan Room in Bid Board

To access the Bid Board Plan Room, navigate to Bid Board using the left-hand menu and then click on the "Plan Room" tab.



Your primary office is selected by default to narrow down the projects to just those that match your service area and your work performed. Also, only projects with bid due dates on the current date or later are shown. 

You can filter and sort for projects using various options. Follow the numbers in the screenshot to learn what you can do: 



1. Search the Plan Room by project name.

2. Click the filter icon to open a panel with additional filtering options. 

- Change Search Area: Use the map to select areas to expand or limit your search
- Work Performed: Select what work performed keywords are used to search for relevant projects
- Company: Select a company to find projects with preferred clients
- Dates: Select time frames for bid due dates, expected start dates, expected finish date, job walk     dates, and RFI dates to find projects that work with your schedule. Click "View All Date Filters" to see all date options. 
- Existing Invites: By default, projects already on your Bid Board are not shown. Select the checkbox if you do want to show these projects. 



Click "Apply" to save your selected filters.

Tip: You can also click "Save Filter" to save your selections. This way you do not have to enter in your desired search conditions each time so you can more quickly find relevant projects in the Plan Room. Navigate to the "Saved Filters" tab in the Filters panel to access your saved selections. 

3. Use the drop-down menu to change to another office you are part of to find projects in that service area. You will be asked if you want to keep other filters applied and only change the office. 

4. Click "Sort by" to select from various ways to sort the Plan Room. 

- Location (Closest - Furthest)
- Location (Furthest - Closest)
- Bid Due Date (Earliest - Latest)
- Bid Due Date (Latest - Earliest)
- Expected Start Date (Earliest - Latest)
- Expected Start Date (Latest - Earliest) 
- General Contractor A-Z
- General Contractor Z-A
- Project Name A-Z
- Project Name Z-A

5. View the Plan Room in Map or List view. In Map view, you can click on the red dots that represent projects in that location to open the project details on the left panel. 



To view further details about a project and join the bid, click "View Project". 



You will be taken to the company's public plan room. On the right, you will see the description they've provided about the project and a list of all bid packages available for you to join.

Click "Join" on the bid package you want to take a part in. If you want to join multiple, you will have to join each individually. 

Once you join the project, the project will be added to your Bid Board. The client will see that you have joined their project. You’ll be able to access the Opportunity Summary, Files, Messages and the Bid Form. From here, you’ll be able to go about the bidding process.