How to import your bids history (Bid Board Pro)

With Bid Board Pro, subcontractors can import their bidding history so you can take full advantage of Bid Board Pro’s full suite of bid analytics tools.  
 
The bid analytics tools in Bid Board Pro allow you to track hit rates, team performance and overall business health in real-time.  
 
Please contact your Autodesk Account Executive or click here to reach our sales team for more information on how to get started with this service offering.

Preparing your spreadsheet to import your bids

There are five steps you need to take to get your bid spreadsheet ready for import: 

1. Discuss the size and scope of your import request with your Account Executive or Implementation Consultant, and agree on the services required to import your bid data.
2. Get your import template Google spreadsheet from your Account Executive or Implementation Consultant. 
3. Add your current bid tracking spreadsheet to the import template spreadsheet for reference.
4. Map your data to match the correct format. 
5. Fix any errors that appear in the template.
6. Validate errors to ensure they are fixed.  

Step 1: Request access to the Google spreadsheet from your Account Executive or Implementation Consultant.

Your Account Executive or Implementation Consultant will add you as a collaborator to a Google spreadsheet. Using Google instead of Microsoft Excel allows you and your Autodesk account executive to easily collaborate. Check your inbox for an email notification. You can also add your colleagues by using the share button in the top right corner. 

Step 2: Add your spreadsheet for reference.

Copy and paste your current bid tracking spreadsheet into the tab labeled “Scratch worksheet (paste your spreadsheet here)”. This tab is blank and will be used for you to reference your original spreadsheet.

Step 3: Map your data to the right format.

BuildingConnected supports a wide variety of data types, but it needs to be formatted correctly to be successfully imported. Use this section as a guide to make sure your data is ready for import.  
 
To make this easier, we have an “Import Sheet” tab in the spreadsheet that has special formatting rules. This ensures your data is ready for import. The easiest way to add data to the “Import Sheet” is to use the formulas and drag them down to apply to the entire column.  

Getting Data from your Reference Spreadsheet to your Import Spreadsheet

1. Type “=” into the first cell under the header (cell A2) of a field in the import spreadsheet. These categories are for general information you would have on your bid sheet, such as project name or opportunity number. 
2. Click on scratch spreadsheet and find the field that matches up. Click on the first cell you want to copy and hit enter. 
3. Go back to your import spreadsheet and drag that cell down. Your data will populate into our template. Green means the data is formatted correctly; errors will show up in red. 

Step 4: Fix any errors 

If you have questions about any errors, ask your account executive and they can help you get them resolved.  

Once your data is formatted correctly, it is ready for import! Reach out to your account executive and they will take it from there.  

How to ensure fields are correct

Selecting which fields to import into Bid Board Pro is important because it determines what you can report. Review the Field Glossary section below to see all the fields available for import.  
 
If you have any questions on which fields you should be including, please reach out to your Account Executive or Implementation Consultant. 

Fields Glossary

Required fields:

For the import to be successful, we require the fields below. Each line in your spreadsheet needs to include the following: 

• Project Name
• Your Owning Office

“Owning office” can be a company division or a regional branch. Work with your Account Executive to make sure this is filled out correctly. Use the name found in your BuildingConnected settings.  

If you are importing bids you have submitted, we also require:

• Either a due date or a submitted date
• Either an assignee or a “Submitted by”

Project fields:  

This data reflects the project in general. We will add your bid information afterward. These fields are technically optional, but we recommend you provide as much data as possible to get the most out of our analytics and reporting tools:  

• Opportunity number
• Full street address
• Client company name
• Client email address
• Assigned user
• Date Due
• Property owner
• Architect
• ROM $
• Trades
• Project size (sq ft)
• Date invited
• Market sector
• Notes
• Custom tags

None of these fields are required, but we strongly recommend you include client email address.

Providing client information helps us keep our network of construction professionals accurate, so users like you always have the most up-to-date contact information on all your clients.  

Make sure the client's name is complete and unambiguous. If you don’t have the client's name, leave it blank. If you bid to multiple clients, make a new row for each client. We will mark the ones that won later.

Bid information fields:

BuildingConnected tracks each bid and any revisions you submit or report on a project. There are some rules in the data here to make sure this is clean and reliable.

• Proposal or budget: Indicate whether the bid was a proposal or a budget. 
• Assigned user field: Add the full name of whoever was assigned to the project. If that employee no longer works there, add an executive, manager, or owner. You can add the former employee's name to “Notes or Tags”.
• Submitted by: Allows you to track if the estimator assigned to the project and the person who sent in the proposal is different 
• Project Status: For any project you bid, we require a few extra fields. In the below example, see that the “declined” project is green and there are no errors. The next row was “Bid” and so we need to know a few things about it. 
• Due date: Indicate when your bid is due. 
• Date proposal submitted: Provide a date on which the bid was sent. We’ll use the “Due Date” field if you don’t have a different date.
• Proposal amount: You do not need to provide a proposal amount, but if you do, it must be a valid currency amount. If you bid for multiple scopes of work on the same project, enter each bid as a separate row.
• Submitted by: Each bid needs a user to send it. Add the employee who sent or submitted the bid to the “Submitted by” column. If the “Assigned user” is filled out and was also the sender, leave “Submitted by” blank.
• Property owner: Indicate the property owner or client. 

Your data should look something like this when you’re done. 
 
Custom data:

Have other fields you need to track? There are two good areas to do this:

• Notes: This is a free text field. This provides you with the flexibility to put in whatever you want. 
• Custom tags: Tags are comma-separated items. You can build reports using the “Custom tags” field which makes it powerful. For example, if you also have a salesperson on a project, you can add this person’s name to “Custom tags” to quickly make reports off them.