Solicitations User Guide

Change Summary

Introduction

Pre-award is a powerful, user-friendly application designed to streamline and optimize the pre-award contract lifecycle for both government and commercial contracts.

This user guide helps you manage solicitations using Pre-award. It walks you through the detailed workflows involved in creating, submitting, approving, and tracking solicitations.

Audience

TechnoMile Contracts Users

Prerequisites

Ensure that the Microsoft Dynamics Contracts application has already been installed and configured. The version of this package must be 2025.2 or higher.

Solicitations

For the effective management of multiple solicitation requests from the government, it is recommended that you allocate a new solicitation record (type: Market Research, Sources Sought, RFI, RFQ, and RFP) for each government solicitation you receive. This ensures consistent tracking of every request type throughout the entire process.

Government Contracts Solicitations

Creating Solicitations

To create a solicitation:

1. Log in to your Microsoft Dynamics instance.

2. Navigate to Solicitations and click New.
   

3. Specify details such as Solicitation Number, Solicitation Type,Opportunity to link the solicitation to, and  Solicitation Description.
   

   NOTE

   RFQ/Quote Status and Status are auto-populated when you create a new solicitation.

4. Click Save.

   A solicitation record is created, and a linked Proposal record is auto-generated.

   NOTE

   A Proposal record is automatically generated only for solicitations with a specified Return By date. The absence of a Return By date indicates that no response is required, and consequently, no Proposal record is auto-generated.

   The following are the key fields in the Solicitation record:

   Field Name	Field Description
   Solicitation Number	The unique government ID for this Solicitation, typically an alphanumeric value listed in the documentation (for example: RFQ000000, 00TU00-24-Q-0000, or HQ0000R0000).
   Solicitation Type	The type of Solicitation record. Values may include Market Research, Sources Sought, RFI, RFQ, and RFP.
   Issued Date	The date the solicitation was released.
   Opportunity	The opportunity linked to this Solicitation, if applicable.
   Solicitation Description	A summary of the solicitation's requirements.
   RFQ/Quote Status	The current status of the Solicitation, either Open (accepting bids) or Close (no longer accepting bids and/or cancelled).
   Status	The current internal status of this Solicitation.
   Return By	The deadline for submitting responses to the Solicitation.

Adding a Team Member

You must add team members before submitting the newly created solicitation bid. 

To add a team member:

1. Navigate to the Team Members tab and click New Team Member.
   

2. In the Quick Create: Team Member section, select the role as Approver and enter the Employee and Sequence.
   

3. Click Save & Close.
   A new team member is added.
   

Submitting the Solicitation for Approval

To submit the solicitation for approval:

1. Go to the solicitation record created in the Creating Solicitations section.

2. Under Action, click Submit for Approval.
   

3. Click OK to send an email to the approvers.
   The status changes to In Review, with updates in the Date Sent and Review Status column.
   The solicitation is submitted for approval. The approver receives an email to approve or reject the solicitation.
   

Approving the Solicitations

To approve the solicitations:

1. Open the Microsoft Power Automate email.

2. Click Approve and specify the approval comments.
   

3. Click Submit.

Alternatively, if you are a licensed Dynamics 365 user,you can also approve the bid directly in the Microsoft Dynamics instance.

NOTE

You must have a Dynamics 365 license to perform the following steps.

1. On the Solicitation page, navigate to the Team Members tab and click the approver's name.
   

2. On the Team Member page, click the Respond Link to open the Power Automate page.
   

3. On the Power Automate page, select the solicitation bid to approve, select Approve in the Choose your response drop-down menu, and click Confirm.
   

   The Solicitation is now approved, and the stage changes to Approved To Bid.
   

Approval Workflow

The following chart shows the solicitation approval flow:

Case 1: Solicitation is approved:

The Solicitation moves to the Approved To Bid stage, and all the members of the Proposal Team receive email notifications about this update.

If the Solicitation is approved, the focus shifts to working on the proposal's details and getting it approved for submission to the Customer.

Case 2: Solicitation is rejected:

If the Solicitation gets rejected, it goes to the No Bid stage. The linked Proposal status changes to no bid, and this effect cascades to all related records. An email notification about the No Bid status is sent to all Proposal Team members.

You can also return from the No Bid stage to the In Review stage and resubmit the Solicitation for approval. For example, if you get a Solicitation Amendment that changes the requirements on the Solicitation, you can change the stage to No Bid. After factoring in the amendment, you can manually change the status back to In Review and resubmit the Solicitation for approval.

Once approved, the Solicitation moves to the Approved To Bid stage.

Amending the Solicitations

When a Solicitation Amendment is generated, all proposal team members are notified by email to make the necessary updates based on the amendment.

To amend the solicitations:

1. On the Solicitation page, navigate to the Solicitation Amendments tab and click New Solicitation Amendment.
   

2. On the New Solicitation Amendment page, enter the Name, Solicitation Amendment - Type, and Solicitation Amendment - Description.
   

3. Click Save.

   All the Proposal team members are notified by email about the Solicitation Amendment.

Viewing the Solicitations List

To view the solicitations list:

1. Navigate to Solicitations and click All Solicitations.

2. Select the required Solicitations views from the drop-down menu.
   

   The Solicitation list appears based on the selected views.

Submitting the Proposal to the Customer

Once the contract manager approves the proposal, you are notified by email. For more information, see Pre-Award on Microsoft Dynamics - Proposals User Guide. You can then submit the Proposal to the Customer. After the submission is complete, you can update the status in the Solicitation record.

To submit the proposal to the customer:

1. Navigate to the Proposal record for which you have received the Approval.

2. In the Status field, select Bid Submitted.
   

3. Click Save & Close.

   The bid is submitted, and you receive a notification when the evaluation is complete.
   

Handling a Proposal Win

To close the solicitation in a win status:

1. Navigate to the solicitation record.

2. In the status field, select Closed Won.
   

3. Click Save & Close.
   The status changes to Closed Won, and an email notification is sent to the proposal owner.