Start with the operating model
TruBuild is organized around the way tender teams already work:| TruBuild layer | Enterprise meaning | Typical owner |
|---|---|---|
| Organization | The legal entity or business unit using TruBuild | Procurement director or system admin |
| Project | A capital project, development, or procurement program | Project procurement manager |
| Package | A tender package inside the project | Package lead or package manager |
| Round | An analysis cycle for a submission or clarification stage | Commercial or technical evaluation lead |
| Award | The final package decision and supporting rationale | Procurement lead and award committee |
Access follows the same three layers. Organization roles (Owner, Admin, Member) control administration. Project and package roles then control who sees commercial data, technical data, both, or neither. See Roles and permissions for the full mapping.
Recommended rollout sequence
Create the organization
The first person in signs in, enters the organization name, selects the country, and clicks Create Organization. That person becomes the organization Owner. The country sets regional defaults, including the default currency offered when packages are created.
Confirm enterprise configuration with TruBuild
Single sign-on, mandatory MFA, seat limits, and feature modules (Commercial Evaluation, Technical Evaluation, Tender Queries, Vendor Database, AI Chat) are enabled per organization by TruBuild. Agree these before you invite the wider team, so evaluators land in a workspace that already matches your security policy.
Invite administrators and members
Go to Settings, open the Members area, enter each email, pick an organization role, and click Send Invite. Keep Owner and Admin to a small administrator group: only owners and admins can create projects and change organization settings. Everyone else joins as Member and gets access through project and package roles. Pending invites can be resent or cancelled.
Create the first project
Only owners and admins see this option. Click Create Project, enter the project name, and confirm the country (it defaults to your organization’s country). Use a real tender program, not a demo workspace: the pilot should produce evidence you can show the award committee.
Define packages and award weightings
For each package, click Add Package, then set the package name, currency, and technical weight. The slider moves in 5% steps and the commercial weight is calculated automatically as the remainder, so the split always totals 100%. Then add the bidder list: use Search Existing to pull contractors from the vendor database, or Add New to enter them manually. Agreeing weightings before submissions arrive keeps the decision frame fixed, which matters if the evaluation is later challenged.
Assign teams by discipline
Add the procurement manager as Project Lead or Package Lead, commercial evaluators as Commercial Team, technical evaluators as Technical Team, and owner-side reviewers as viewers. Where governance requires separation of commercial and technical evaluation, package roles enforce it: a Technical Team member cannot open commercial data, and vice versa.
Upload controlled documents
Upload the issued RFP, BOQ, evaluation criteria, and each bidder’s technical and commercial submissions into the relevant package areas, keeping each file against the correct contractor. Watch the ingestion status on each file: Pending means processing, Ingested means ready for analysis, and Failed shows the reason so you can fix and re-upload before evaluation starts.
Run one package end to end
Complete one commercial round, one technical round, the query register, and an award decision on a single package. Use it as the template for the wider rollout. Run your first package walks through this pilot in detail.
Enterprise security controls
TruBuild includes account controls that large firms typically need for procurement audits and information-security review:| Control | How it works |
|---|---|
| Single sign-on | Your organization can require sign-in through your corporate identity provider. When SSO is required, email sign-in links are blocked and users are directed to your company SSO. |
| Multi-factor authentication | Your organization can require MFA. Sign-in is refused unless your identity provider confirms the user completed MFA. |
| Idle timeout | Sessions end after 15 minutes of inactivity by default, and the user must sign in again. |
| Account lockout | Repeated failed sign-in attempts temporarily lock the account. |
| Seat limit | Organizations can carry a member cap, agreed with TruBuild. |
| Activity log | The organization keeps a timestamped record of administrative actions: members invited or removed, projects and packages created, and similar changes. Evaluation rounds and awards keep their own records. |
Team design
For a high-value package, start with this structure:| Team | TruBuild access | Main responsibility |
|---|---|---|
| Procurement manager | Project Lead or Package Lead | Owns the process, timetable, award recommendation, and final package record |
| Commercial evaluation team | Commercial Lead or Commercial Team | Uploads BOQs, runs commercial rounds, reviews pricing anomalies, prepares commercial clarifications |
| Technical evaluation team | Technical Lead or Technical Team | Uploads proposals, manages criteria, reviews AI-drafted scores, prepares technical clarifications |
| Owner representatives | Project Viewer or Package Viewer | Reviews status, award evidence, and decision trace without changing evaluator work |
| External advisors | Package-scoped role | Reviews only the package or discipline they are engaged to support |
| Organization administrator | Owner or Admin | Manages organization membership, workspace settings, and enterprise configuration |
Procurement stage gates
Use TruBuild rounds and records as evidence at each stage gate:| Stage gate | Evidence to prepare in TruBuild |
|---|---|
| Tender launch | Package setup, contractor list, weights, document register, assigned team |
| Initial compliance check | Uploaded submissions, missing-document list, query register, ingestion status per file |
| Commercial evaluation | Commercial comparison round, pricing anomalies, unpriced items, commercial clarification list |
| Technical evaluation | Criteria, technical round, reviewer overrides, and reviewed scores |
| Clarification cycle | Issued clarifications, bidder responses, round-to-round changes, carry-forward decisions |
| Award recommendation | Technical and commercial rankings, selected contractor, award comments, activity log |
Document standards for bidders
Extraction quality drives evaluation speed, so set submission rules in your tender instructions before bids arrive:- Require Excel BOQ submissions wherever possible. Native spreadsheets level far more cleanly than priced PDFs.
- Require one upload set per bidder, and keep each file against the correct contractor in TruBuild.
- Avoid scanned PDFs unless OCR has been applied; image-only pages are where parsing typically fails.
- TruBuild accepts PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, text, and common image files, plus ZIP and 7z archives (inner files are extracted and processed). Files can be up to 5 GB each.
Success metrics
Track rollout with operational metrics, not vanity usage:| Metric | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Submission completeness | Shows whether contractors returned usable documents before analysis starts |
| Ingestion success rate | Files stuck on Failed measure how much manual cleanup the evaluation teams face |
| Clarification turnaround | Shows whether tender queries are answered quickly enough for the award timetable |
| Override rate | A high override rate can indicate poor documents, vague criteria, or evaluator calibration issues |
| Round cycle time | Measures time from document receipt to review-ready commercial or technical outputs |
| Award evidence completeness | Confirms the committee has scores, comments, queries, and final rationale in one place |
Enterprise launch checklist
Governance
Governance
- Confirm project and package naming conventions.
- Fix technical and commercial weightings before submissions arrive.
- Agree when a commercial round or technical round is considered review-ready.
- Decide who may approve final commercial and technical outputs.
- Decide who can record the award decision on a package.
Access
Access
- Confirm SSO and MFA requirements are in place with TruBuild before wide invites.
- Add procurement leads at project level.
- Add commercial and technical teams at package level where separation is required.
- Add owner-side reviewers as viewers.
- Scope external advisors to the minimum package and discipline.
- Review current members and pending invitations in the Members area before batch-inviting evaluators.
Documents
Documents
- Require Excel BOQ submissions wherever possible.
- Require one contractor folder or upload set per bidder.
- Keep RFP, criteria, submissions, and clarification responses in their correct package areas.
- Confirm every file shows Ingested before a round starts; resolve any Failed files first.
Committee readiness
Committee readiness
- Export the commercial comparison.
- Capture the reviewed technical ranking and scores.
- Summarize open and closed clarifications.
- Record award comments against the selected contractor.
- Use the activity log and round records to evidence who did what, and when.
Housekeeping
Housekeeping
- Archive completed or dormant packages from Settings so active views stay clean; archived work can be restored later.
- Remove temporary external users after their review is complete.
- Re-run the access review before each award decision.
Next
Roles & permissions
Map enterprise roles to TruBuild access levels.
Run your first package
Pilot one package end to end before the wider rollout.
Settings and administration
Manage members, invitations, branding, and the activity log.
Evaluation governance
Set up controls for commercial and technical evaluation teams.