Evaluation criteria

Evaluation criteria are an optional feature that adds structure to your analysis. You don't need them for a basic compliance check, but they make a big difference for complex procurements where you're comparing multiple vendors.

Evaluation criteria

What they do

Criteria tell the AI exactly what to extract from each proposal. Instead of a general "check for compliance", you get specific data points that you can compare across vendors.

Two types

Pass/Fail criteria - a binary check.

• "Does the vendor have ISO 9001 certification?" - Pass or Fail
• "Is the proposed timeline within the required 12 months?" - Pass or Fail
• "Did they include three reference projects?" - Pass or Fail

Scored criteria - rated on a scale of 0-100.

• "Relevant project experience" - maybe 85/100 (strong track record)
• "Quality of proposed methodology" - maybe 60/100 (adequate but not detailed)
• "Team qualifications" - maybe 90/100 (exceeds requirements)

Setting them up

Click Evaluation Criteria in the sidebar workflow. You have two options:

Sync from requirements - criteria are a projection of your approved RFP requirement ledger. Click Sync from requirements and the buyer's qualification gates and award/scoring rules from your approved requirements become criteria automatically. If you haven't extracted requirements yet, you'll be sent to the RFP requirements step first to extract and review them, then come back and sync.

Manual setup - click Add manually to add criteria one by one. For each, specify the name, type (pass/fail or scored), and optionally a description of what to look for.

Evaluation method

Criteria carry richer detail than a simple name and type. Each one can:

• be an exclusion, selection, or award criterion — matching how the buyer screens and scores bidders
• carry a weight (%), maximum points, or a formula or threshold used to score it
• belong to an overall evaluation scheme — the buyer's award method (for example, lowest price, or best price-quality ratio)
• apply to specific lots

All of this is traced back to a source quote from the RFP. The criteria table shows Criterion / Method / Lots / Source so you can see, at a glance, what each criterion measures, how it's scored, which lots it applies to, and where it came from.

Editing criteria

You can add, edit, or remove criteria at any time from the Evaluation Criteria view. But changes only affect future analyses - existing results stay as they were. To get updated values, re-run the analysis.

Tips for good criteria

• Be specific. "Technical capability" is vague. "Number of certified engineers on proposed team" is measurable.
• Match your RFP. If your evaluation methodology defines specific criteria with weights, replicate those here.
• Don't go overboard. 10-20 well-defined criteria gives you plenty of comparison data without making the analysis unnecessarily slow.

When criteria are configured, the sidebar shows a green checkmark next to "Evaluation Criteria".

Criteria with lots

When you combine evaluation criteria with lots, the analysis becomes very structured — for each vendor, for each lot they bid on, for each criterion, you get a specific value. The comparison shows this as a multi-dimensional matrix. See Lots for details on setting up multi-lot procurements.