What's new in Offra: one-click analysis, drafted answers, and dates that follow the notice

Almost everything that changed in Offra this week comes down to one idea: fewer steps between the notice and the filing. The decision is made on the notice's own page. A writing task opens on an answer that is already written. A postponed date moves everywhere it appears. Here is what changed, where to find it, and what each change does not do.

The tender page, rebuilt

The « Notice » tab now opens on the decision: « Decision: bid or not ». On a paid plan, the verdict sits there with its five factors. Once the analysis has run, the measured odds and the first three things to do are added to it.

The report now fits in five tabs: Notice, Competitors, Client & references, Price and Method, plus « Outcome » once the contract is awarded. The page's old Summary, Your odds, My company, The client and Your documents tabs are gone. A tender's files now go into the submission.

The analysis starts in one click, with « Analyse this tender », and it is included in paid plans: there is no report counter any more. The standalone report page and the one-off report purchase are retired. The analysis now lives on the tender's page, where the decision is made.

« Client & references » is a new tab. It answers three questions:

• Which of the contracts you won to put forward, ranked by what they share with this tender.
• What you have already bid with this client, and against whom.
• This client's contests over the last five years, with the full list of bidders and your place in it.

It counts only contracts published on SEAO, and it needs your company to be linked to your account. Private projects do not appear in it.

The « Price » tab now leads with published prices. The price estimate is shown there and nowhere else, folded under « Experimental model estimate ».

Finally, « Submit a bid » and the link to the original notice now sit together in the Notice tab's side panel, with the deadlines. Opening a submission uses nothing: it only counts once you upload documents to start the analysis.

A drafted answer for every writing task

On a task that calls for writing, the « Generate an answer » button writes the answer on the first click. It appears on the left. On the right, a conversation lets you rework it. The button then reads « View the answer ».

The answer leaves blanks in square brackets, such as [PROJECT MANAGER'S NAME], for what only you can supply. They are highlighted and counted, and clicking one starts filling it in. The price stays yours: any amount found neither in the tender documents nor in your own messages is replaced with [AMOUNT TO BE DETERMINED].

A copied answer pastes into Word with its headings, lists and tables. The button only appears on tasks that call for text, not on those where you sign, attach a document, pay or attend a site visit. It is part of the Business plan, and of the first submission on us.

The « Tasks » tab is now organised by document: the list of documents to produce, then one page per document. Its tasks are grouped under « Needs correction », « To complete » and « Completed ». A task opens beside the other tasks of its document, and you move from one to the next without going back to the list.

You can assign a task, a whole document or the entire submission. A document's owner inherits its tasks that nobody holds yet, without touching the ones you assigned by hand. Assignment emails are grouped by submission, and can be turned off in your preferences under « Tasks assigned to you ». A new « History » tab shows who did what, day by day.

In the « Intelligence » tab, the verdict stays the one that was computed until you click « Regenerate ». The tab shows when it was computed, and flags when the submission has changed since.

Dates that follow the notice

On SEAO, an addendum that postpones the closing date is common. After a postponement, Offra sometimes still showed the original date, and a tender that was still open could look closed and drop out of the feed. The feed, the notice page and the analysis now take the closing date SEAO publishes, on the day of the postponement.

Addenda are counted as addenda, not as files: an addendum published as several files counts as one. Their number appears in the feed, beside the countdown.

Submissions opened from CanadaBuys, Toronto or bids&tenders are now tracked, not only those from SEAO. When the closing date moves, the submission's dates move with it: the countdowns and the closing reminder follow the new date. The « Notice tracking » panel, on the submission's summary, shows the closing date in effect, the addenda, any withdrawal and every change detected. The bell flags it, and the person who opened the submission gets an email when the date changes or the tender is cancelled.

This tracking has limits. Each portal is re-read at its own pace, from every two hours to once a day, and the panel says which. Only SEAO lets us tell automatically whether you won the contract. And a new addendum is not re-analysed on its own.

On the « Key dates » page, one event cited by two documents now appears once, with each of its sources. The time is shown too: 13:30, not just the date.

bids&tenders notices now show the questions deadline, with its countdown, the trade agreements that apply, and a « Published details » block: tender number and type, how and in which language to submit, and the public opening. These values are the portal's own, as it publishes them. The « View the original notice » link is also back for free accounts, on many CanadaBuys and bids&tenders notices.

A feed sorted by relevance

The « Relevance » sort now ranks relevance before a notice's state. Notices in your trades are no longer buried under previews from other trades or under notices marked « Outside your trades ». A notice closing in under three days drops below the ones that still leave you time to prepare a bid.

For a new client, at the end of onboarding, Offra reads the company's website, its description and the titles of the tenders it bid on, and draws from them its sub-trades and up to twelve specialties. They appear on the company profile, under « Specialties found automatically ». You can remove one, and « Scan my website » reads them again. A notice in your trades that names one of your specialties rises to the top, marked « Your specialty: … ». These specialties sort the feed; they never touch the verdict.

A company that has bid only once on SEAO now gets a verdict on the trades it declared in its profile. It never goes above « Mixed », and it is marked « declared » wherever it appears: in the feed, on the notice, in the analysis and in the saved-search email.

Advanced filters now fit in seven sections instead of thirteen. The ones on what the source publishes — region, category, source, closing date — are on every plan. Score, competition and « Contract value » are the Business plan's, and the last now also applies to the full market list.

Getting started, and subscribing

Signing up fits on one screen, and onboarding on two: link your SEAO company, then check the trades ticked from your bids. A company that has never bid picks « My company has never bid », then gives its name, province and trades.

The first submission is on us, and it now is for companies that have never bid as well. It gives every Business feature on that submission, for you and up to ten colleagues. A card is required to activate it: verified, never charged. One per card, and one per company once your company is linked.

The pricing page is simpler: a free account and three plans. Because the analysis is included, plan limits now count prepared submissions. A subscriber who reaches their limit can buy one more submission, charged on the spot. Its price is on the pricing page.

Taxes (GST and QST) are calculated at payment in the app. Our terms and privacy policy have been rewritten for the product as it is today. Among other things, they promise sixty days' notice before any price increase.

Support and fixes

• The help assistant keeps your conversations. You can rate an answer, and a poorly rated answer offers to reach a person.
• A member who has left a workspace can now delete their account. The deletion used to fail.
• In a workspace with several members, the company profile page loaded empty and saving did nothing. That is fixed.

On offra.ca

The homepage has been rebuilt, and every feature now has its own page, gathered under Features. Québec's first public procurement review is also out.

What does not change

• The verdict is still a weighted rubric of five factors, computed on SEAO notices.
• The price estimate is still experimental, and your documents do not move it.
• The price of your bid stays yours: a drafted answer never sets it for you.

Further reading

• Bid or pass
• Drafting answers
• Managing bids
• Notice tracking
• Find tenders
• Pricing