1. User Guide
  2. Create a Request for Proposal (RFP)
  3. Work with Bids

Work with Bids

When your vendor completes the RFP and submits a bid to you offline, you can import the bid back into ClearTrial to do a thorough comparison against other bids or to the benchmark's planned values.

Parent topic: Create a Request for Proposal (RFP)

Import a Bid

Once a vendor has submitted a bid, you must save the submitted bid grid to your computer, then upload it.

  1. From the Edit menu, select RFPs.
  2. On the RFPs screen, select the RFP plan name and click Import Bid.
  3. On the Import Bid screen, in the Bid Information section, choose the bid grid file to upload by clicking Browse and finding the files on your computer. ClearTrial assumes that you have saved the submitted bid grid to your computer.
  4. Add a short description to identify the bid, the bid number supplied by the vendor, and any comments about the bid to efficiently identify the bid in the future. Upon successful bid import, ClearTrial displays and associates the vendor name with the bid.
  5. Click Ok.

    Tip:

    If a bid already exists for the provider, ClearTrial creates a new bid version number for that provider.

    ClearTrial generates warnings that you might want the vendor to correct, but will still successfully import the Bid Grid.

    Tip:

    For successful bid imports, warnings are allowed; fatal errors are not and must be fixed for successful imports.
  6. To see or save the list of issues encountered, click the Download Issues link.
    • You can also see the list of bid issues from the Edit Bid screen launched by selecting a bid from the Bids screen, clicking Edit, and navigating to the Issues tab.
    • You can download the list of issues from this screen by clicking the Download link located at the upper right hand side of the screen.
  7. Save the issues list to your computer and share it with the vendor.
  8. After the vendor resolves the fatal errors, you can import the revised bid.
  9. To complete the import action, click Continue.
  10. Click Close.

    All imported bids are available on the Bid List screen where you can review and select them for comparison.

Parent topic: Work with Bids

Replace a Bid

You can replace a bid associated with an RFP with another bid.

  1. From the Edit menu, select RFPs.
  2. Select Replace Existing Bid, and then select the bid to replace from the list displayed.
  3. In the Bid Information section, choose the Bid Grid file to upload by clicking Browse and browsing the files on your computer.
  4. Add a short description to identify the bid, the bid number supplied by the vendor, and any comments about the bid.
  5. Click Ok.
  6. Click Continue.
  7. Click Close.

Parent topic: Work with Bids

Review Vendor Bids

Once vendors submit bids, you can review the bids.

  1. From the Edit menu, select Bids.
  2. Select a bid with a status of Pending Review, and then click Edit to display the Edit Bid screen.

    You now have access to four tabs: Details, Labor, Costs, and Issues.

  3. On the Details tab, edit basic information about the bid including the short description, CRO bid number, status, and comments.
  4. On the Labor tab, review the proposed effort and fees supplied by this vendor.

    If the selected bid includes information at the resource by location level, an Include Inflation option is available on the Edit Bids Labor and Edit Bids tabs. Also, if the vendor has submitted values for the inflated billing rate column, the Include Inflation option is selected by default.

  5. On the Costs tab, review pass-through and miscellaneous costs supplied by this vendor.
  6. On the Issues tab, you can review the warnings and issues ClearTrial found when importing the bid. These issues must be corrected by you or the vendor.
  7. To view the Bid Grid, on the Bids screen, click the Download button.
  8. Click Close.

Parent topic: Work with Bids

Update the Status of a Bid

You can manually update the status of a bid.

  1. From the Edit menu, select Bids.
  2. On the Bids screen, select the bid, and then click Update Status.
  3. On the Change Bid Status screen, from the Status drop-down list, select the status to assign to the selected bid.
  4. To add this action to the bid history, select the Update Bid History check box.
  5. Click Save & Close.

Parent topic: Work with Bids

Compare bids

You can compare bids for a single RFP or bids across RFPs.

The information in the comparison report generated depends on the comparison scenario:

  • When comparing a bid to the benchmark/planned values, the report shows the variance between the bid and the benchmark.
  • When comparing two or more bids, ClearTrial generates the variances between the chosen baseline bid and the remaining bids.
  • When comparing two or more bids and the RFP, ClearTrial generates the variances between one chosen baseline and the remaining bids or the RFP.
  • Rules governing the comparisons include:
    • The baseline plan appears first.
    • Total hours variances are highlighted in blue if greater than the user-defined threshold. Total cost variances are highlighted in yellow if greater than the user-defined threshold.
    • Hours, dollars, and variances with negative values appear in parentheses; for example, (4.5).
    • Bottom line discounts are also compared across providers.

To compare bids:

Choose one of two ways to compare bids:

From the RFPs screen
  1. From the Edit menu, select RFPs.
  2. Select an RFP plan name with two to five bids.
  3. Click Compare Bids.

    ClearTrial assumes that you want to compare all bids for this RFP. If you want to limit your comparison to specific bids for this RFP, access the comparison from the Bids screen

  4. On the Vendor Bid Comparison Options screen, specify the options to include in the Bid Comparison report. Continue with the steps under Vender Bid Comparison Options.
From the Bids screen
  1. From the Edit menu, select Bids.
  2. Select the bids to compare and click Compare.
  3. On the Vendor Bid Comparison Options screen, specify the options to include in the Bid Comparison report. Continue with the steps under Vender Bid Comparison Options.
Vendor Bid Comparison Options

When configuring the reporting parameters for comparison, you can choose the level of granularity, which values to compare, and whether or not to highlight variances above the user-defined threshold specified for costs and hours.

Available options depend on the granularity of bids selected for comparison. By default, bids are rolled up to the corresponding common lowest level of granularity.

For more information about each option, you can also click the blue question mark icon in the upper right hand side of the screen.

  1. In the Level of Comparison section, select the level of data for the comparison. Major task is selected and disabled by default since this high-level activity is static in all bid grid formats. If the bids selected include data at the task-resource level, those options are available to choose from for values comparison.
  2. In the Location Options section, if one bid is global and the other bid is by location, global is selected by default because comparisons can be done at their most common level.
  3. In the Values to Compare section, select all the data points you want included for the bids comparison. Total Cost is always selected and included in the comparisons.
  4. In the Variance Display section, specify whether or not you want to highlight costs and or hours variances above a user-defined (positive/negative) percentage threshold.
  5. In the Baseline for Comparison section, you can include the planned values or a specific bid as the baseline, if you are comparing multiple bids. If you are comparing a single bid to the benchmark's planned values, then the planned values are always included in the comparison and selected.
  6. Select the format for the report. Excel (.xls) is selected by default and the preferred format for comparison reporting.
  7. Click Ok.
  8. Click Close.

Parent topic: Work with Bids