Where do alerts come from, and what is duplicated?
AusTender and state portals, GETS for cross-Tasman readers, paid aggregators, panel call-off emails, partner forwards, and the buyer who rings directly. The same opportunity routinely arrives three times under three titles: the portal notice, the aggregator digest entry, and a colleague’s forward with “thoughts?”. Deduplication is step one of the workflow: one register row per opportunity, aliases merged, source noted. The service comparison behind the alert layer is tender alerts and procurement platforms; the register that receives the output is the pipeline register.
Who screens, and how fast?
One named screening owner (a role, not a committee) triages every inbound within 48 hours against coarse filters: geography, value band, buyer type, mandatory profile, obvious mismatch. Pass means a row in the register and a gate date. Fail means a recorded no-bid with one line of reason, the fastest, cheapest decision the firm makes. Unsure means review with a named question, an owner, and a date, never “let’s have a look.” The layer definitions sit on what a qualification layer is; the layer comparison on qualification vs response.
What are exceptions, and where do they route?
Exceptions are inbounds the filters cannot decide: the first tender in a new sector, the buyer that changes the rules, the panel call-off with a 72-hour fuse, the invitation from a relationship that matters. Each routes to a named person with a deadline: the partner for strategy exceptions, the delivery lead for capacity exceptions, commercial for risk exceptions. An exception without an owner and a date is not an exception. It is a zombie in a holding pattern.
What does this mean for the bid/no-bid call?
The handoff is the call’s supply chain. Design it before buying more alerts: one register, one screener, 48 hours, owned exceptions. Then, only then, consider whether paid notification earns its keep. No integration is promised here and none is needed: this workflow runs on discipline first, tooling second. Where the vendor landscape sits is on the software list.