User Guide
Getting started with Bid Intelligence
New here? Start at the top and work down — most firms are fully set up in about ten minutes. Questions any time? Visit Help & Support.
1. Requesting access & first sign-in
Bid Intelligence is invite-based. Here's how a new firm comes on board.
- Request access. On the homepage, fill in the access request form with your name, work email, and firm. Phase 1 is open to Florida FDOT contractors.
- We review and approve. Once your request is approved, we email a branded invite to set up your firm's workspace.
- Set your password. Click the link in the invite and choose a password. This first account is your firm's Admin — you can add the rest of your team afterward.
- Sign in. Your workspace opens straight to the dashboard, loaded with your firm's data and the shared FDOT market data.
Coming back later? Sign in with the email and password you set. Forgot your password? Choose Forgot password? on the sign-in screen and we'll email a reset link.
Signing out. Use the Sign out control in the dashboard header — it's available from every screen.
2. Inviting teammates & the three roles
Every firm is private. Only your firm's members can see your projects and bids — FDOT's published market and competitor data is shared because it's public record.
Inviting a teammate
If you're an Admin, open Firm Settings (top-right of the dashboard header), go to the Team tab, and use Invite a teammate:
- Enter your colleague's work email.
- Pick their role — Viewer, Estimator, or Admin (explained below).
- Click Send invite. They'll get an email, set their own password, and land in the dashboard.
On the same Team tab you can change anyone's role or remove a member at any time. (Your firm always keeps at least one Admin.)
What each role can do
| Capability | Viewer | Estimator | Admin |
|---|---|---|---|
| View the dashboard & all data | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Import & edit bids | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Manage the team & billing | — | — | ✓ |
- Viewer — read-only. Can browse every screen and report but can't change data. Good for executives and reviewers.
- Estimator — everything a Viewer can do, plus import bids and edit unit prices and quantities. The day-to-day role for the estimating team.
- Admin — everything an Estimator can do, plus invite and remove teammates, change roles, edit firm settings (name, logo), and manage billing and plan.
3. A tour of the dashboard
The sidebar groups your screens into Performance, Market Data, and Bid Intake. Here's what each one is for. (The Market Data screens are part of your plan — if you don't see them, your Admin can review plans under Firm Settings → Billing.)
Performance
Overview
Your home screen. A quick read on how your firm is doing — recent bids, win record, and the headline numbers — so you know where things stand the moment you sign in.
Projects
The full log of every project your firm has bid: outcome, your bid, the low bid, your rank, number of bidders, and the spread. Filter and sort to find any past job.
Benchmark Review
Checks each of your unit prices against the FDOT market benchmark for that pay item. Prices that run high are flagged for review and ones that run low are flagged as aggressive — so you can see at a glance which prices are defensible before you submit.
Bid Review
Your pre-letting sign-off page. Pick a project and see your bid stacked against FDOT averages, item by item, with a clear verdict. You can edit a unit price or quantity inline and save the change, then print or save the whole review as a PDF to share before letting day.
Bid History
Compares your current bid, grouped by division, to your own past prices on the same pay items — so you can spot where you've drifted higher or lower than you used to bid. Export the comparison to Excel when you need it.
Market Data
FDOT Pricing
The going rate for every FDOT pay item across Florida. Search by pay-item code or description to see typical pricing anywhere in the state.
Competitor Intel
Your firm versus the field. See every FDOT letting where you bid — your rank, total, and gap to the low bid — how you stack up against each competitor, and how the wider market prices the work, including jobs you didn't bid.
Competitor Profiles
A dossier on any single competitor: how active they are, their win rate, where they bid across the state, how they tend to price, and their record against you. Pick a bidder to pull up their profile.
Bid Strategy
Forward-looking decision support for upcoming FDOT lettings. See what's coming up — with the engineer's estimate and the advertised work — filtered by project type and district, so you can decide where to focus.
4. Importing a bid
Estimators and Admins can bring a bid into the dashboard from InEight. Open Upload Bid under Bid Intake:
- Export your bid from InEight as an EBS
.xlsxfile. - Drag that file onto the import area.
- Confirm the project details — County, Letting Date, Project Type, and Contract Days.
- Click Import. Your bid is saved to your firm's workspace and the dashboard opens it in Bid Review within a couple of seconds.
From there you can fine-tune prices, run the FDOT benchmark check, and print your sign-off.
5. Two-factor authentication
For extra account security you can turn on two-factor authentication using an authenticator app (such as Google Authenticator, Authy, or 1Password). It's optional but recommended.
- Open Firm Settings (top-right of the dashboard header) and go to the Security tab.
- Choose to enroll, then scan the on-screen code with your authenticator app.
- Enter the six-digit code from the app to confirm. From then on, you'll enter a fresh code when you sign in.
You can remove two-factor from the same Security tab. If you ever lose access to your authenticator, contact support to recover access.
6. Where to get help
Stuck on anything, or want to change your plan or add seats? Head to Help & Support — it answers the common questions and gives you a direct line to our team. We reply within one business day.