Responding to RFPs
RFP responses is a separate mode in Deal Desk for answering a document someone else wrote: a request for proposals, a request for information, or a customer's own form. You upload it, Deal Desk lists every requirement in it, drafts the answers from what your company already knows, and checks each answer before you send it.
It comes with the RFP responder add-on: $49 a month on any paid plan, with 5 documents a month included and $10 for each one after that. A document counts only once it has been read successfully. Design partners have the add-on included.
1. Fill in What we know
Open What we know and drop in the documents your answers should come from: past proposals, a capability statement, résumés, your insurance certificate. Drafts are written from these and cite the passages they used, so the more you add, the less you have to type later.
Everyone on your account shares the library, and answers you mark Answered are added to it automatically. It is one drop zone and a list, not a data room.
2. Upload the document
Switch to RFP responses and press Upload the document you need to answer, or drop the file on the page. Deal Desk reads:
- a PDF with selectable text,
- a Word .docx,
- or text you paste in.
Documents up to about 100 pages work. A long one takes a few minutes to read, and you can leave the page and come back. A scanned PDF has no text to read; paste the text in instead.
3. Check the compliance matrix
When reading finishes you get the compliance matrix: every discrete requirement as a numbered list. Each row keeps the document's own reference (for example L.4), the section it sits in, what kind it is (Question, Requirement, Form field or Instruction) and whether it is Required.
Use Not linked to a deal to link the response to one of your deals.
4. Read the evaluator's read
Evaluator's read finds the evaluation criteria in the document. On each requirement, How this is scored shows which criterion applies, quoting the document's own words, so you can see where the points are before you write anything.
How to answer it gives guidance for the kind of document you are answering, and each requirement has a A strong answer includes checklist for its type.
5. Draft all
Press Draft all. Every open requirement is drafted in the background from What we know, and each draft cites its sources as [1], [2] so you can check where a statement came from.
Drafts are written by AI and can be wrong. Read every answer before it goes out; you are responsible for what you send.
6. Read the margin
Each answer is checked by fixed rules, not by the AI grading its own work. Findings appear in the margin beside the answer:
| Finding | What it means |
|---|---|
| Needs a fact from you | The answer needs a real fact (a name, a date, a figure, a reference) that is not in What we know. The draft asks for it rather than inventing one. |
| Not in your sources | A figure, date or name in the answer that is not in the sources it was drafted from. Check it before you send. |
| Says nothing your company said | The answer only repeats the requirement back, so an evaluator has nothing to score. |
| Needs proof | A claim, such as a superlative, that an evaluator will challenge unless you can back it up. |
| Vague | A commitment too general to score. |
| Words to cut | Filler an evaluator should not have to read. |
| Older than the solicitation allows | The requirement sets a recency window, such as "within the last three years", and the answer cites work outside it. |
| Spell out on first use | An acronym that has not been expanded. |
7. Answer the open items
When requirements are waiting on you, press Answer N open items in a few questions. A short set of questions asks only for the missing facts. Type into Type it here, or press the microphone and dictate, then press Save and redraft.
Your answers are saved to What we know, so the next RFP already has them.
8. Export
- ⤓ Compliance matrix downloads the matrix as a CSV.
- ⤓ Filled document is there when you uploaded a Word .docx: it downloads the customer's original file with your answers written in.
Credit
The evaluator guidance (what a strong answer includes and how each kind of document is scored) draws on the MIT-licensed federal-proposal-copilot project.