RFP and RFI operations manual

Use MSP → Proposals to manage a solicitation from receipt through qualification, response, award and project handoff. An RFP requests a proposal; an RFI requests information and is not an award or authorization to deliver. Confirm the current issuer, reference number, deadline and scope before acting on historical material.

On a small screen, use Open navigation in the header to reach Proposals. Close the menu by tapping outside it or pressing Escape; the form and Sol assistant fit within the screen.

Intake and addenda

1. On New proposal, choose Upload documents or paste text or Enter manually. Document intake does not require a title, issuer or deadlines: attach the material, and optionally open Known details to supply facts you already know. Manual entry requires only a working title and issuer; everything else can wait.
2. Treat an email and its attachment as one solicitation. Keep addenda and issuer Q&A with that record. Review extracted text against the source, especially scanned PDFs, form fields and tables. Missing extracted content is not evidence that a requirement is absent.
3. Staff forwards and issuer threads can then be filed automatically. Review the recorded sender, reference and thread match; a similar subject is not proof of a scope amendment.
4. Review the activity feed for skipped attachments or extraction failures. Correct the source or add the missing requirement before drafting. Adding documents does not transmit anything to the issuer.

Attach multiple related documents to one solicitation and label them as the original, addendum, issuer Q&A, reference or supporting attachment. Separate solicitations need separate proposals. Supported intake files are PDF, DOCX, text, Markdown and EML, up to 20 MB each, with up to 49 attachments plus pasted text. Pasted text is saved as a source document so it remains available after a failed analysis or a later retry.

Choose What should AI do? before creating the record:

The page checks the current workspace AI policy, then checks it again before an AI-enabled submission creates a proposal or uploads documents. This policy check does not call an AI provider, consume credits or guarantee provider availability. If the policy check is unavailable, choose Save only or retry the check.

Reviewed-source AI: new proposals, and older proposals in QuickBooks-restricted workspaces, can use independently sourced documents after local inspection and recorded source evidence. Save the files, use Review AI sources, then continue extraction and preparation. The original accounting restriction remains active for mixed context. Accounting, catalogues, private notes and chat history are excluded; pricing is calculated locally and research uses the reviewed sources only. See source review and troubleshooting.

• Save only retains the proposal and documents for manual work without AI analysis.
• Extract details and requirements fills unknown issuer details, dates, scope, evaluation criteria and the requirement matrix from the combined source material. Kind and currency can be detected or explicitly supplied. Existing known values remain in place; the raw extraction is retained for review.
• Full proposal preparation extracts first, then starts bid analysis, qualification, issuer research, clarification drafts, the delivery plan, response drafts, suggested pricing, readiness review and the work-back schedule.
• Choose analysis steps runs extraction followed by the preparation steps you select, in pipeline order. Set the bid-score threshold if bid analysis is selected.

Awaiting source review is a normal setup step after saving documents. Inspect each source in the panel at the top, record its provenance and complete-text review, then use Continue extraction and preparation. The selected Full preparation or custom plan is retained on that setup page.

Failed uploads pause setup before any analysis starts. Continue setup resumes unfinished steps on the same proposal and retains acknowledged uploads and extraction. If the page is closed, reopen the saved proposal and use Documents and Autopilot to continue. A lost acknowledgement when starting preparation is checked against the saved run before another start is attempted.

Incomplete reading pauses automated intake before extracted fields are applied. Reviewed-source processing allows 20 MB per file, 300 pages per PDF and 150,000 combined source-text characters. PDFs are parsed locally; scanned files need a complete local OCR transcript. A missing clause must never be treated as absent because a file could not be read. See the source review guide for the full limits and recovery procedure.

Qualification, requirements and response

1. Review the extracted requirements and evaluation criteria. Assign mandatory items, eligibility evidence, owners, compliance status and response status.
2. Run bid analysis and qualification. AI recommendations inform the bid/no-bid decision; a person records it and the reason. Unknown compliance needs evidence or clarification.
3. Research the issuer and draft clarification questions before the question deadline. Confirm facts and sources. Draft questions are not sent automatically.
4. In reviewed-source mode, add and review independent Reference documents for current certifications, staff biographies and capability evidence. The existing content library and prior bids are excluded from the AI package. Standard-mode legacy proposals can use the content library for current certifications, staff biographies, references, case studies and reusable responses. Review scope, dates and permission to reuse client information. Missing evidence stays to confirm; AI must not invent credentials, partners or service commitments.
5. Draft responses, review their source references, resolve contradictions and run fact check. A confidence score is not approval. Keep exceptions, assumptions and exclusions explicit.

Delivery, pricing and review

On Delivery, define the proposed phases, tasks, dependencies, labour, milestones, acceptance criteria, risks, assumptions, exclusions and contract/payment terms. Separate finite onboarding or migration from recurring managed services. Split independent workstreams when their scope, acceptance or rollback differs.

Review pricing lines by one-time, recurring, hourly and optional components. Validate quantities, hours, costs, margins, currency and term before approval. AI estimates are proposals for review, not accepted commitments. Review the work-back schedule after every deadline change; rebuilding it updates its checkpoint tasks.

Before submission, reconcile every mandatory requirement, response, price, assumption and supporting document. Export and inspect the final response in the required format. Meet the issuer’s actual submission process; recording Submit in Solidlio tracks the submission and does not upload to a procurement portal or email the response.

Automation settings and recovery

In Proposals → Settings, an MSP admin chooses the default owner, notifications, enabled autopilot stages and bid threshold. The run details show each stage as pending, running, done, skipped, failed, gated or credits exhausted. Autopilot prepares artifacts; the bid decision, external submission, award and infrastructure authorization remain explicit decisions.

You can also select preparation steps and the bid threshold when creating a proposal. Research consults public web sources; drafting uses the current MSP’s facts and reusable library.

If a stage stops, inspect its recorded reason. Supply missing facts, eligibility evidence, plan access or credits, then rerun the required work. Do not create a second solicitation to bypass an incomplete run. One autopilot run is allowed per proposal at a time. Review addendum analysis for changed dates, new clauses, affected answers and outstanding clarifications.

Automated drafting processes every unanswered draftable requirement, with credits checked and recorded per answer. If credits run out partway through, saved answers remain, the draft step is marked Credits exhausted, and later preparation steps are skipped. After resolving the limit, rerun drafting to continue with unanswered requirements. A partial draft is not a completed preparation run.

Award and project handoff

An MSP admin records the outcome. Lost bids need a loss reason; retain debrief notes and lessons. WON plus a correctly linked client is required for Convert to project. Creating a client is a separate provisioning action; choose the correct client before conversion.

Select a delivery playbook and review the plan. Handoff creates a project and brings across tasks, dependencies, milestones, risks, billing milestones, a draft SOW and source documents. It does not accept the SOW or authorize execution. If part of the handoff fails, use Retry incomplete handoff on the same proposal. Saved checkpoints and stable resource identities prevent duplicates after a lost acknowledgement. A changed baseline requires review before resuming.

Continue in Project → Delivery. Client work needs current client authorization and an accepted SOW where billable. Internal Tridacom work belongs to the MSP’s own organization and is not billable. Historical samples and pending RFI records must not be marked won or accepted merely for demonstration.

Access and help

Proposal operations are available to MSP technicians and administrators within their account. Recording outcomes, archiving, deleting library items and project conversion require MSP admin privileges. Organization/customer portals do not manage proposals. Project permissions and client scope are checked again during handoff.

The board, library and insights belong to the signed-in MSP account. Signing out or changing user, account, organization, portal or permissions clears the previous context’s cached data and unsaved drafts. A different MSP starts with its own proposals, or an empty board; sample proposals are not shared across MSPs. Portal branding does not grant access to the host’s account. A direct link to another MSP’s proposal returns not found.

Ask Sol to search the knowledge base for RFP, RFI, handoff, autopilot or project recovery, then open the cited article. Sol can explain the workflow; it must not claim to have submitted, awarded or executed work without a recorded result.

Current capabilities and assessment feedback

Maintain reusable certifications, partnerships and service capabilities in MSP Capabilities → Your MSP capability profile. On an Autopilot step, Add facts / feedback captures proposal-specific relationships or corrections, then lets you reassess that step alone or continue subsequent steps with the same bid threshold. Review source evidence and validity dates first; staff assertions stay distinct from documentary evidence. Prior scores remain in activity history. See MSP capabilities and step feedback for scope, renewal, evidence and reassessment instructions.