Running Your RFP

Where to find it: Dashboard → RFPs Once you send an RFP, round 1 opens and every carrier you invited can bid on every lane. Bids land in Owlery as carriers respond, and you work through them lane by lane until each one is awarded.

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Reading the Bids on a Lane

Open your RFP to see its lane list, then open a lane to see its Current Round table — one row per carrier, showing the bid, the rate per mile, who submitted it, and when. Bids that meet your target rate are flagged for you. The All Rounds tab shows one column per round, newest first, so you can see how each carrier moved between rounds and which round a bid was awarded in.

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Rounds Happen Per Lane

The round number in the lane list belongs to that lane, not to the whole RFP. One lane can be awarded in round 1 while another is still going in round 3, and that’s normal — you’re negotiating each lane on its own.

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Your Three Options

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Extend the Deadline

Use this when you just need more time, not another pass at pricing. From the lane list, select the lanes you want and extend the submission deadline on all of them at once. The carriers on those rounds are emailed the new date.

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Start a New Round

Use this when you want a shortlist to sharpen their bids. In a lane’s Current Round table, choose New Round, pick the bids you want to keep, and set a new deadline. Those carriers move into the next round and are notified. The previous round closes, so no one can revise a bid in a round you’ve moved past. Only carriers who submitted in the round can be moved into the next one.

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Award the Lane

Use this when a bid is where you want it. Award accepts one or more bids on the lane. You can award more than one carrier — handy for primary and backup coverage — and you can award some lanes while others keep bidding. Awarding ends the negotiation on that lane, so New Round is no longer offered for it.

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Another Round or Award?

Run another round when the spread between bids is wide, when you want your shortlist competing against each other, or when a carrier you like came in above target. Award when a bid is where you want it. There’s no prize for extra rounds — carriers get bid fatigue, and a good rate is a good rate.

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What Happens After You Award

Awarded bids become contract rates on your Dashboard → Contracts page, ready to quote and tender against. They also become suggestions the next time you build an RFP.