LFW Bid Board
Your bid postings, on your own website.
Each solicitation gets a page with its documents, addenda, answers and award. Bidders sign up for alerts, and the status changes on its own when the due date passes.
Free plugin · built, not public yet
What bidders get.
RFPs, RFQs, IFBs, RFIs and any other type, each with its number, dates, contact and documents.
- An index of every solicitation Open ones first, soonest due first, then closed, awarded and canceled ones. Bidders filter by status and type.
- A page for each one Details, the description, documents with file type and size, addenda newest first, published answers and the award.
- Dates in their calendar One link adds the due date, the question deadline and the pre-bid meeting, in each bidder’s local time.
- Email alerts For every new solicitation, or for one solicitation’s addenda, answers, award and cancellation.
- Questions and answers Bidders email the contact, or use an optional form that stays open until the question deadline.
- An RSS feed New solicitations and addenda, in a feed any reader can follow.
What your purchasing staff do.
A Bid Board menu in WordPress, with plain boxes on each solicitation.
- Fill in the boxes Details, documents, addenda, questions and answers, the award and cancellation, each in its own box.
- Addenda numbered for you Each new addendum takes the next number.
- Due date changes on the record A new due date goes through an addendum. The page says “Changed by Addendum 2” beside the due date, with the date it replaced.
- Status nobody has to remember Open until the due date, then Closed. Awarded once a vendor is entered. Cancelled when the box is ticked.
Built for input from the public.
- Nothing shown unreviewed
- Nothing a visitor types appears on a page or in an email until staff publish it with an answer.
- Confirmed sign-ups
- Alerts start only after the bidder presses Confirm on the page the email opens. A mail scanner that opens links cannot confirm or unsubscribe anyone.
- One-click unsubscribe
- Every alert carries an unsubscribe link and the headers mail programs use to offer one-click unsubscribe. Unsubscribing deletes the address.
- Limits
- Sign-ups and questions are limited per visitor, questions are capped at 2,000 characters and unconfirmed sign-ups are deleted after seven days.
- No IP addresses
- Limits use a keyed hash that expires. The question form asks for no name, email or address.
Accessible pages.
Its test suite runs axe accessibility checks at desktop and phone widths.
- Status in words Each status is a word, never a color alone.
- Real tables and headings The index is a table with a caption and column headers. Headings are in order, fields are labeled and keyboard focus is visible.
What it does not do.
Sealed electronic bid submission, bidder registration or vendor accounts, plan-holder lists and bid tabulations. Bidders respond the way each solicitation says.
What it needs.
- Your website
- WordPress 6.4 or newer, PHP 8.1 or newer.
- Setup
- Activation creates a Bids and Solicitations page, which you can rename or move. Administrators and editors manage the board; a role editor can give that to others.
- Alerts go out through your site’s own mailer every five minutes, 40 at a time by default. Use an SMTP or transactional mail plugin for reliable delivery.
- An LFW account
- Not needed. Everything runs on your site, and nothing is sent to LFW.
- With LFW Activity Logger
- Each solicitation published, addendum added, answer published, award and cancellation is recorded.
- Your records
- Solicitations are kept when the plugin is deleted.
- License
- GPL-2.0 or later.
- Release
- Version 0.1.0 is built and tested in LFW’s repository and not public yet.
Ask about it for your site.
Tell us where your bids are posted today. We reply within one business day.