# How Bidroq works — from invitation to a cited scope sheet

Canonical page: https://bidroq.com/how-it-works

Four steps. The first one is the only one you do.

## 01 · The invitation arrives

Connect a mailbox (Exchange, Outlook or Gmail), connect a bid portal (BuildingConnected, SmartBid and The Blue Book are connected today; Dodge, Procore and ConstructConnect Bid Center are built and available; sign in once and portal sessions last about two weeks), or forward to one address and drop PDFs, ZIPs, scans and saved emails by hand. Bidroq follows the plan links inside the email and collects the full set: plan sheets, spec book, addenda. It watches connected portals so nobody re-logs in every morning, prompts for a verification code when one is needed, and tells you when a fresh login is required instead of failing silently. If invitations keep arriving from a source you have not connected, it tells you.

## 02 · Bidroq reads all of it

Every document, front to back. It answers the same questions on every bid: scope, systems and assemblies, insulation thicknesses, substitutions and alternates, code requirements, warranty terms, and where the documents disagree. Drawings, specs and addenda are cross-checked against each other and mismatches are surfaced, not smoothed over. Each document also gets its own readable summary. When an addendum lands it attaches to the bid it amends, updates the dates and scope items it touches, and strikes the superseded line — both lines keep their citation.

## 03 · Every line cites its source, and the citation is checked

Under every extracted requirement: the spec section and page. One click opens the original document at that page with the passage highlighted. Where the documents are silent the line reads "not stated, confirm with the GC," and a "the documents disagree about this" callout names every conflict in plain language; anything ambiguous is flagged as ambiguous, never guessed. Open questions come out RFI-ready with their page chips and can be turned into an RFI, asked of the GC by name, or carried as an exclusion. A bid cannot be marked ready if a document failed to load or a required field was not reviewed. Bob recommends bid or no bid with the open question count and the reasoning shown. Your call is what gets recorded. "Not now" snoozes the card — tomorrow, this weekend, next week, or the day before it is due — and it comes back on its own.

The loop: extracted line → source page at that page → conflicts and open questions → estimator confirms or corrects → the correction is applied to the next read.

## 04 · Ask it anything, forever

Nothing is discarded. Every package ever received, every manufacturer's documentation and every decision your office has made sit in one AI, on desktop or mobile. Questions it answers:

- "What came in this week that fits us?"
- "Which projects in the last year specified 60 mil TPO over a metal deck?"
- "What coverage rate does Elevate require for this adhesive on polyiso?"
- "What did we change on the last three tapered-insulation bids?"
- "Draft the RFI to the GC about the scupper count."

Every answer is cited to the page or the sheet. The assistant can also act: start a read, check a portal, open any document, draft the email. It never sends without a person clicking Send.

## Beta: automated takeoff to a filled estimate

Bidroq performs the takeoff. It opens Bluebeam on your estimator's Windows desktop and runs a preliminary roofing takeoff — areas, edge lengths and counts — written as real Bluebeam measurements your estimator can open, inspect and correct in the tool they already use. The measurements flow into your own Excel estimating template: it works on a copy, writes only the input cells, never touches a formula, and reports each cell it wrote and each it refused. A different template per roof system. When rules conflict it escalates to a person. Beta with the design partner; no accuracy figure is published until it is measured, and an estimator approves every number before anything leaves the office. Requires a Windows desktop with a licensed Bluebeam install.

## Limits — what it gets wrong, and what it refuses to do

Scanned drawings from a phone camera read worse than vector PDFs. Handwritten addenda need a human. Vendor and marketing email still reaches the inbox as "plans missing," and duplicate invitations for the same project from two senders arrive as two rows. Anything ambiguous in the spec is flagged as ambiguous rather than guessed.

- It will not overwrite a formula it cannot justify.
- It will not treat coincidence as a learned rule.
- It will not interpret manufacturer silence as approval or rejection.
- It will not mark a bid ready when anything failed to load or was not reviewed.
- It will not send an email without a person clicking Send.

In estimating, a confident wrong answer is the most expensive failure. Bidroq is built to say "I don't know, here is why" rather than guess convincingly.