Proposal evaluation
This module is part of Tenders, which is enabled per organization.
When offer reception closes, the tender moves to In evaluation. Sourced combines two complementary engines to decide better: the human evaluation of the technical evaluators and the AI evaluation. Both feed the scorecard on which you award.
Technical evaluators
They are experts, internal or external, who score the technical part of the proposals. They work like this:
Access without an account: the buyer invites them and they receive a link by email; they get in by verifying their identity with a one-time code, with no need to create a user.
They only see the technical side: each criterion has a share with the technical evaluator toggle. The evaluator sees only the shared criteria and the technical documentation; the commercial data stays hidden (prices, payment terms, commercial notes) so as not to bias their judgment.
They score by criterion: they assign a grade from 0 to 100 to each criterion assigned to them, with a confidence level, a justification and the risks they detect.
With AI assistance: they receive AI suggestions scoped to their criteria, which they can take or ignore.
Technical questions: bidders' technical queries can be routed to them; they put together a draft answer (with AI help) that the buyer reviews and publishes, or returns with feedback.
Reminders: the system reminds them of the evaluation deadlines.
The buyer manages the evaluator pool, which criteria they share and who they assign each one to. More detail in Technical evaluators.
AI evaluation
The buyer triggers the AI evaluation with a button on the Comparison tab. Sourced's AI evaluator reads the specification and all the proposals (including the attached documents: PDF, Excel, Word, etc.) and produces a complete analysis. It works in three passes:
Technical analysis: it compares each proposal against the specification (not against the others), item by item. It detects specification compliance, missing information, technical risks and strengths.
Commercial analysis: it reviews prices, cost structure, hidden costs, payment terms and competitiveness, and identifies negotiation levers. It flags items well above market and suspiciously low prices.
Synthesis and decision: it combines the technical and the commercial into a recommendation per supplier.
The result includes, for each supplier:
Scores by criterion (weighted according to the tender's weights) and a total score.
A suggested decision: AWARD, NEGOTIATE or DISCARD, with its rationale.
Technical and commercial summary, strengths and weaknesses.
And at the tender level:
Ranking of suppliers and an executive comparative analysis.
Red flags with severity (critical / warning / informational).
Negotiation strategy: rounds, concrete tactics and expected savings.
Compliance check: certificates and annexes submitted, expirations and missing items per supplier.
The AI evaluator cites the evidence for each statement, indicates its confidence level and, if it does not have enough data, does not invent a score (it leaves it empty and reports it as missing). The analysis can be downloaded as a PDF.
The scorecard
The scorecard brings everything together on the Comparison tab: the ranking of offers, a radar chart of scores, the AI insights panel and the evaluators' scores (with an average per criterion and each one's confidence). The criteria and their weights are the ones you defined when creating the tender; the scores come both from the AI and from the evaluators, and are weighted for the total.
Awarding
With the scorecard in view, you choose the winning supplier and award. The winning proposal is accepted, the others rejected, the tender moves to Awarded and the purchase order is generated. If the negotiation warrants it, you can open a new round before deciding.