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RFP Operations
RFP Operations finds government bids that fit your business. It searches federal and state and local sources, scores every opportunity against what you sell, and brings you only the strong matches to pursue or pass. When you pursue one, it can draft the proposal for you to review. It never submits a bid.
The room is # rfp-ops. Its crew has three teammates: Scout finds and files opportunities, Qualifier brings you the calls only you can make, and Drafter writes the proposals.
What it does for you
- Searches federal listings (including those posted on SAM.gov) and state, local and education bids in one search.
- Scores each opportunity from 0 to 100 against what you sell, and shows you the reasons.
- Checks each state and local link and deadline before showing it to you.
- Tracks every opportunity from new to won or lost.
- Drafts proposals and builds a compliance matrix from the solicitation's requirements.
What you need
- One sentence about what you sell, and to whom. Every score is measured against it.
- A Pencel account, signed in. Searches run on Pencel's shared access to the bid sources, so there are no keys to set up. You can add your own keys later.
- AI access: credits on a Pencel plan or your own API key. See Accounts, plans and credits.
- Optional: Gmail connected, if you want to email bid briefs to your team.
Set it up
From Home
- On Home, in the What should Pencel find for you? card, choose Find government RFPs.
- Answer What does your company sell, and to whom? in a full sentence. Be specific, for example: "We build AI traffic-monitoring sensors for state DOTs and city transportation departments."
- Optional: fill in What looks similar, but you'd never bid?, for example "household moving". Pencel saves it as a rule and filters those bids out.
- Click Start scanning.
Pencel installs RFP Operations and starts one search across every government source. A thorough first search usually takes 4 to 10 minutes. A Finding RFPs that fit you card on Home shows its progress, and you can follow along in # rfp-ops. When it finishes, the strongest fits appear on Home and in the room, ready for you to pursue or pass.
Answer the follow-up cards
A few short cards then appear on Home. Each takes seconds and sharpens every future score.
| Card | What you tell it |
|---|---|
| Which registrations do you hold? | Small business, 8(a), WOSB, SDVOSB, HUBZone, State MBE/DBE, or None of these. A matching set-aside is worth up to 15 points of every score. |
| What contract sizes are worth your time? | $25K to $100K, $100K to $1M, $1M to $5M, $5M+, and optionally No bids under $50K. |
| Where you can deliver, and how much runway you need | Nationwide or a list of states, plus the minimum days you need to respond: No minimum, 7, 14 or 30 days. |
| Confirm what you sell | Shows up when Pencel researched your company and found likely facts. Click ✓ Confirm on what's right and ✕ Not us on what isn't. |
Your answers become confirmed facts in Knowledge ▸ Facts, and every search after that uses them.
From Programs
You can also install it from Programs ▸ + New program (see Ready-made Programs). Before the first search, tell Pencel what you sell: in Knowledge ▸ Facts, under For bids and quotes, add it to Products & Services. Then click Scan RFPs at the top of the room.
Your day to day
One search for everything
Click Scan RFPs at the top of the room to search now. Federal and state and local sources are searched together, and the room reports back once, when the whole search is done. The status line at the top of the room shows when the last scan ran and how many new opportunities it found.
Turn on the daily scan
The daily scan is off when you install. After your first results, Scout offers to run every morning. Accept its Daily scan card to turn it on. If you chose Not now, click make it daily? on the room's status line whenever you're ready.
The daily scan runs each morning and posts only opportunities that are new, skipping anything already in your pipeline. Like all scheduled work, it runs only while Pencel is open and your computer is awake.
Pursue or pass
Each strong match arrives as a card, on Home and in the room. Click Pursue or Pass.
On an opportunity's own page the same choice reads Pursue (bid) or No-bid, with a box to note why. Pencel saves your reason with the decision and uses it when judging future bids.
Your pipeline
The wall on the right of the room shows your pipeline in four stages.
| Stage | What's in it |
|---|---|
| New | Fresh finds, best fit first. Pursue or pass. |
| In progress | Bids you're pursuing, soonest deadline first. |
| Submitted | Bids you've submitted yourself. Record Won or Lost when you hear back. |
| Closed | Won, lost and passed. |
Click a stage to open it as a full page. Filter it with All, New today, Deadline ≤ 14d, Score ≥ 80 or Passed.
Click any opportunity to open its page. The buttons at the top move it along (for example to Submitted, then Won or Lost). Share saves a one-page brief you can forward. The tabs are Overview, Requirements, Evidence, Proposal, Decisions and Activity. On Requirements, Mine from solicitation pulls the requirements out of the posting and marks each one Unknown, Satisfied, Partial, Gap or N/A.
Read a fit score
The Overview tab shows the fit score out of 100, with one line per reason and where each fact came from. The score weighs:
- Product fit, the biggest factor. Work you said you don't do scores zero, and a bid that isn't a real match for what you sell is dropped, however good the rest looks.
- Contract value, against the sizes you said are worth your time.
- Response runway. Full points when the deadline is 14 or more days away.
- Set-aside match, against the registrations you hold. For state and local bids, where you can deliver counts instead.
Only opportunities scoring 70 or higher reach you. By default Pencel looks at bids whose responses are due within the next 60 days.
Next to the score you'll see Grounded or Provisional. Grounded means the score rests on facts you've confirmed. Provisional means some key facts are missing, and a button names them so you can confirm them in Knowledge. The scout's first-pass score is shown too, marked "advisory". Rely on the fit score.
Needs manual review
For state and local bids, Pencel opens each link and checks the deadline before it shows you anything. A strong match it can't confirm doesn't become a card. It goes into a Needs manual review section of that day's digest, with the reason, so you can check it yourself. Digests are saved as documents in the room's Artifacts tab and in Documents.
Share with your team
On the pipeline, Share saves a forwardable brief of a stage. Email team turns that brief into an email to the addresses you enter: click Draft the email, review it, and it sends from your own Gmail only when you press Send.
Draft a proposal
There are two ways to start, both from an opportunity page or its row under In progress.
| Draft for me | Write proposal (or Tailor) | |
|---|---|---|
| When | After you pursue the bid. | Any time before the bid closes. |
| What happens | Drafter writes a full proposal from the solicitation and your company facts, and marks any claim it couldn't back up so you can check it. | Opens Tailor, which adapts one of your own documents, such as a past proposal or template, to this bid's requirements. |
| Where it lands | Linked to the opportunity (Open proposal), in the room's Artifacts tab and in Documents. | A tailored copy in Documents. Your original is never changed. |
To tailor a document yourself:
- On the opportunity page, click Write proposal (on the Proposal tab it's Tailor myself).
- Under Choose a document to tailor, pick your past proposal or template. A Word (.docx) file or a Pencel document keeps its formatting. A PDF comes in as text only.
- Check the Requirements. They're filled in from the opportunity. Paste or upload more if you need to.
- Click Analyze requirements. Pencel creates a tailored copy and suggests changes.
- Accept or Reject each suggestion.
- Click Export compliance matrix to save a requirement-by-requirement table as a new document.
The compliance matrix lists each requirement, where it came from, where your proposal addresses it, and a status: Compliant, Verify (format), Presumed covered (confirm), Excluded or Not yet addressed. Only Tailor exports the matrix.
Improve its judgment
- Confirm your company facts. In Knowledge ▸ Facts, the For bids and quotes section holds what RFP Operations scores against: Products & Services, Capabilities, Certifications, Past Performance, Bid Preferences, Customers & Buyers, and People & Expertise. Facts Pencel finds on its own wait for you to Confirm them. It never scores against a fact you haven't confirmed. See Teach Pencel about your business.
- Review facts in the room. When facts are waiting, a line in the room says so. Click Review here, then Confirm or Dismiss each one. When a confirmed fact changes a score, the room tells you which opportunity moved.
- Give standing rules. Tell the room "never bid on janitorial services" or "flag anything over $2M". It replies "Saved as a standing rule" and applies it to every search. If it misunderstood, click Not what I meant.
- Say why you pass. The reason you give with a No-bid helps Pencel judge similar bids later.
Sources and keys
| Bids | Where Pencel looks |
|---|---|
| Federal | GovCon, which gathers federal listings, including those posted on SAM.gov. |
| State, local and education | HigherGov, plus a focused search of public bid portals such as BidNet Direct, DemandStar, OpenGov, PlanetBids and Bonfire. |
When you're signed in, searches use Pencel's shared access to these sources, with a daily allowance for each user. To search beyond the daily allowance, add your own GovCon or HigherGov key in Settings ▸ Connections. See Connect your accounts.
If a source can't be searched, Home tells you:
- Can't reach the RFP sources means no source could be reached, so no search started. Click Sign in, or Add my own keys.
- GovCon wasn't searched or HigherGov wasn't searched means your last search ran without that source. A tag says why: Allowance used up, Key needed or Turned off. Add my own key takes you to Settings ▸ Connections. The card clears itself after the next clean search.
What it never does
- It never submits a bid or proposal. You submit through the agency's own process.
- It never sends an email without you. Email team only drafts. Nothing sends until you press Send.
- It never treats a guess as a fact. Company facts Pencel finds on its own wait for your confirmation, and state and local bids it can't verify go to Needs manual review, not onto a card.