Completing an RFP

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Creating a project

A project acts as a container for a specific RFP or opportunity.

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Word and PDF RFPs

Many RFPs come as a Word or PDF document written as prose, with requirements in numbered clauses, bullet lists, or sentences such as “The supplier shall…”. Realm can turn such a document into a questionnaire with one row per requirement, so your team can assign, answer, and review each requirement like any other questionnaire. Realm adds Word and PDF files under Supporting files by default. To parse one as a questionnaire, move it to Questionnaires to fill in the upload dialog, or choose Fill as questionnaire from the options menu on the file’s row in the project. Realm reads the document and builds the questionnaire from it:

• Each chapter with requirements in it becomes a section.
• Each requirement becomes a row, including a requirement that has its own numbered heading. A table in the document keeps its own columns. Other requirements get a requirement column, and an ID column when the document numbers them.
• Text that asks for no answer, such as instructions, contact details, and evaluation rules, is left out. A document with no requirements at all still becomes a questionnaire with the text closest to one.

When the questionnaire is answered, Fill the original file writes the answers back into the Word or PDF file. See Exporting the file.

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Project view and tools

In the project view, you’ll see the files, an Analysis tab with the project summary and the Go/No-Go analysis, a Progress tab with progress and the checklist, and project settings. The analysis tools help you qualify the opportunity and understand its requirements.

• Files: A central place to upload and manage all project-related documents, including RFPs and supporting files. From here, you can select a questionnaire to begin filling it out, or open a Document response in the editor. A file you upload directly to the project is a questionnaire to fill, a deliverable, or a supporting file. Until Realm parses a file into an RFP, you can move it between “questionnaires”, “deliverables”, and “supporting files” from the file’s menu. After Realm parses it into an RFP, choose Move to supporting from the RFP’s menu to make it a supporting file again, which deletes the parsed questionnaire and its answers. To rename a file you uploaded, choose Rename from its menu. A file keeps its name when it moves between questionnaires and supporting files. By default, questionnaire answers don’t use the supporting files. To let the questionnaires of this project search and cite a supporting file you uploaded, turn on Use in responses in the file’s menu. A check mark in the menu shows that it is on. The questionnaires of other projects never use the file, and the knowledge base does not include it. When you mark an RFP as completed, Realm adds its answers to the knowledge base, so facts that an answer took from the file reach the knowledge base too.
• Analysis: The project summary and the Go/No-Go analysis, chosen from a sidebar.
  • Project summary: An AI-generated summary of all files within the project. Press Summarize to write it. It opens with an Overview of what the buyer is buying and the figures that size the tender, with Key details beside it: buyer, reference number, procedure, estimated value, contract length, bid deadline, how to submit and the named contact, each marked Not in the documents when the tender leaves it out (a reference number the tender doesn’t give is left out). A bid deadline the tender doesn’t give shows the project’s own deadline, and setting it there sets the project deadline. Press Add on another missing detail to fill it in yourself; what you enter is kept when the summary is regenerated. Under the overview, About the buyer profiles the buyer from your knowledge base (your history with them) and the web. Below, the summary is grouped into sections such as Tender overview, Bid requirements, Evaluation and pricing, Contract terms, Addendum changes and Buyer’s priorities, each made of cards you can fold. The sections are listed under Project summary in the sidebar. Pass/fail requirements and risks are covered by the Go/No-Go analysis. Every fact links to the document it comes from, and opens it at the cited passage when the summary pins one down. Export offers the summary as a Markdown file with its sources listed, or as a PDF: the summary opens alone on a printable page, every card open, where the browser’s print dialog saves it. Press Regenerate to write it again; the current summary stays until the new one is ready. A summary written before the cards existed shows section by section until you do.
  • Go/No-Go analysis: Evaluates the tender files against your company’s capabilities so you can decide whether to bid. It scores the bid along the analysis dimensions your organization defines, such as legal fit and commercial fit, or, where none are defined, screens the formal qualifications (“Can we bid?”) and scores how well your capabilities fit what the buyer wants. Either way it recommends an action and records the decision your team makes, which also sets the project’s status. See Go/No-Go analysis.
• Progress: How far the bid is, in one tab.
  • Progress: A visual dashboard that tracks the overall completion status of the RFP. It shows the total number of questions (scope), how many are started versus completed, tracks Document responses, and lists any tasks assigned to you.
  • Checklist: Everything the bid owes the buyer in one list, with the status of each item: the questionnaires to answer and the documents the buyer’s files ask for. From here you can generate a requested document, open one that exists, name its reviewers and request a review, or approve it.
• Embedded Chat: Open Embedded Chat from the project page header to ask specific questions about the project. Realm sees the page you are on, can read the project’s files, summary, Go/No-Go analysis, extracted requirements, and progress on demand, and keeps a per-project list of conversations, including read-only access to other members’ chats. See Embedded Chat.
• Project settings: Manage project members, their roles, and general project details. Owners can update the project’s language or delete the project; the status and deadline are edited from the project header, and the tags, previous round and CRM links from its Details menu, which also shows when the project started and who owns and works on it. You can archive a project from its status, from the project page menu, or from its row menu in the RFP list. Archiving a project hides it and its RFPs from the RFP list until you check Show archived RFPs and projects in the list settings. Archiving does not add the project’s answers to the knowledge base. Realm adds the answers of an RFP to the knowledge base when you mark the RFP as completed. Before it archives a project, Realm asks you to confirm and lists the RFPs of the project whose answers are not in the knowledge base. Changing the language automatically reevaluates every requirement and regenerates all existing Go/No-Go results in the selected language. Auto-detect follows the language of the uploaded documents. With a language selected, requirement titles, file summaries, the bid plan and the compliance checklist that Realm generates from then on are written in it even when the tender is in another language; requirement text and quotes from the tender keep their original wording.

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Exporting the project’s files

When the bid is ready to hand in, choose Export in the project header. Once the project is marked as completed, it is the header’s main button. The dialog lists every file the ZIP will hold, each under the name and format it will have there, in three sections:

• Deliverables: the project’s questionnaires, the documents written for the bid, and the files added as deliverables. The box in the section header includes or leaves out every deliverable that can be exported. They sit at the top of the ZIP.
• Supporting files: the project’s other files. This section is folded and left out until you check its box, which includes them all. Open the section to leave single files out. They go in a Supporting files folder.
• Attachments: the documents attached to the rows of the questionnaires you export, when your organization uses attachments. The box in the section header includes them; it is on by default, and shows as partly checked when some attachments are left out. An attachment comes with the questionnaires that attach it, so leaving out a questionnaire also leaves out its attachments. A long list is folded behind its count. They go in an Attachments folder. Everyone who can export the project gets the attached documents, even one they can’t open elsewhere in Realm.

For each deliverable:

• Clear a file’s checkbox to leave it out.
• For a questionnaire, choose Fill original to get the uploaded file with your answers, or New file to get a new spreadsheet. A questionnaire from a Word file offers Fill original · Word and Fill original · PDF: the PDF is the filled Word file converted to a searchable PDF. A file type Realm cannot fill only comes as a new file.
• For a document, choose Word or PDF, and pick the layout to format it with from the list next to it: Standard Realm style (Realm’s own formatting), your organization’s layouts, the document’s own layout, or a Word document you add with Add layout.

When a questionnaire was translated as a whole, a language control at the top of the deliverables picks the language of every translated questionnaire: the original document language, which is the default, or the language you answered in. Each translated questionnaire shows the language it will come in. Each deliverable shows the same status as in the project’s Files tab: a questionnaire’s share of approved answers, and a document’s state, such as In progress or Done. A file that is not finished yet can still be exported. A questionnaire that needs every answer approved before export cannot be included until it is, and its attachments are left out with it. A questionnaire Realm is still reading shows as Processing and can be included once Realm has read it; the dialog updates on its own. An orange warning mark after a file’s name points out something to check, such as a questionnaire that cannot be exported yet or an attachment that changed since it was attached. Hover over the mark to read it. The button at the foot of the dialog says how many files the ZIP will hold. The project remembers your choices for the next export. The ZIP is built in the background. While it runs, a thin bar under each row and a percentage after the file’s name show how far that file has come, and the foot of the dialog counts the files that are ready. You can close the dialog and the export keeps going: open Export again to see where it is, or wait for the message that says the ZIP is ready and click it to download. When every file is ready and the dialog is open, the download starts on its own. If a file can’t be exported, its row shows a red mark after its name, and the ZIP still holds every other file. Hover over the mark to see why. Where a different setting avoids the problem, the mark names it, such as Use New file for a questionnaire whose original couldn’t be filled. When a filled original couldn’t hold every answer, its row shows an orange warning mark that says how many answers are missing. The foot of the dialog says how many files are ready and how many failed, with Download for the ready files and Retry to build the failed ones again. A retry takes the files that are already done from the earlier download, so only the failed ones are built again. A file that takes longer than 10 minutes is stopped and marked as failed. If you change any choice after an export finished, the dialog offers a new export of what it now shows; the finished one stays under Earlier exports. After an export with failed files or warnings, Details at the end of the status at the foot of the dialog lists each of them: why the file failed and the setting that avoids it, or which answers a filled original left out and where. Click an entry to scroll to the file’s row. A file that was left out before the export started, such as one removed from the project in the meantime, is listed there too. An attached document that was deleted since it was attached fails like any other file, with the reason The attached file is no longer available; download the ready files to go on without it. Earlier exports, at the top of the dialog, lists your recent exports of the project, with when each ran and how many of its files made it. Download gets a ZIP again; Link expired means it is no longer kept.

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Preparing questionnaires and fill plan

When you upload a questionnaire to your project, you can optionally configure the following:

• RFP language: The language Realm answers the questionnaire in. Realm detects it from the uploaded document, and you can change it if the detection is wrong. Each user can pick a working language in the RFP table toolbar. Realm then shows questions, answers, and titles in that language, and the user can edit questions and answers in it. Realm translates an answer written in a working language into the RFP language and stores it in that language, so collaborators can work in different languages on the same RFP. A questionnaire that Realm translated as a whole keeps that translation, and its RFP language is locked. A toggle above its grid shows every cell in the original document language. While a text cell shows its original-language text, editing it edits that text directly, and the answer in the RFP language stays unchanged.
• Custom instructions: Provide custom instructions that will apply to all AI-generated answers. Only what you write here is stored in this field. Answers can cite these instructions as a source named RFP instructions. Write the facts of this bid here, for example the offered products, quantities, contacts, or contract positions. Only the answers of this RFP can cite them.
• Instructions found in the questionnaire: When a questionnaire states rules about how answers must be given, Realm lists them below the custom instructions, each labeled with the sheet and section it was found in. They apply to all AI-generated answers alongside your own instructions, and you can switch off any rule you don’t want followed. Switching a rule off survives a re-upload of the same questionnaire. In a project whose plan states its own answering rules, those rules govern instead and this list is not shown. The buyer wrote these rules, so answers never cite them as a source.
• Deadline: Set a due date to keep your team on track and prioritize the project.
• Tags: Add tags to answer from a specific product area. Filling draws from sources tagged the same way, and from the project’s supporting files with Use in responses on. Manage tags in RFP settings. An RFP starts with its project’s tags, and a tag you add to the project later is also added to the RFPs already in it. Removing a tag from the project leaves its RFPs’ tags as they are.
• Reviewer column: Show or hide the Reviewer column for this RFP. By default it follows the organization’s Enable reviewers setting. When the column is shown, each row can have a dedicated reviewer who can approve it. You can also add the column later from More in the RFP’s options menu, and remove it from the Reviewer column’s own header menu.

Custom instructions, deadline, and tags can be changed later from the RFP settings button in the RFP header. The same dialog also lets you choose whether answers must be approved before export and shows the RFP language and the original document language. For Excel/CSV files, organization import instructions can exclude rules that prevent drafting descriptions in supplementary columns. Once processing is complete, click Preview to proceed. You then need to confirm Realm’s fill plan. Realm suggests which columns should be filled automatically, and within them leaves out the rows that are part of the questionnaire’s structure rather than questions, such as section headings, spacer rows, and document title or “last updated” lines. Every sheet and row stays in the table either way. Nothing is removed. If something was missed or included incorrectly, you can adjust the selection by clicking the columns or the individual cells. To change many cells at once, drag across them, or click one cell and then Shift-click another to cover everything in between. Both add cells or remove them depending on where you start, so you can widen a selection and then narrow it back down.

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Basing an RFP on a previous round

When a tender goes into a new round, the buyer often sends an updated questionnaire in which only some questions changed, and the requirement numbers often change too. After Realm processes the new upload, it compares the questions with your other RFPs. If the project is linked to its previous round, Realm compares against that project’s RFPs. Otherwise, or if none of them match, it compares against your 100 most recently updated RFPs. If a previous RFP answers at least half of the open questions, or belongs to the linked previous round, the processing view suggests it as the previous round. A bar shows how many open questions it answers as they stand, how many more it answers in an earlier wording, and how many stay open. An RFP that shares only a few questions, such as the company name, is not suggested on its own. The RFP page shows the same suggestion until the RFP is based on a previous one or someone starts answering it. If you don’t want to import, close the suggestion. It stays closed for you on that RFP in the browser you used. To bring the suggestion back, after closing it or after work has started, open the RFP’s ⋮ menu and choose Import answers from a previous RFP. Realm then compares the questions that are still open. To pick another previous RFP, click the suggested one. The list offers the RFPs that answer at least one of the questions, best match first, with each RFP’s match percentage, date, and tags. Without a linked previous round, it offers at most ten RFPs. A long list has a search field. A filled-in RFP you uploaded to the answer library can serve as the previous round too. Click Review answers to see the rows Realm would import before anything is copied. The list shows each row’s question and the previous answer, and marks the questions that changed. Use the tabs to show only the rows to check first, the questions that changed, or the questions that read the same, and use the search field to find a question or an answer. The check box in the header checks or clears all the rows shown. Realm also checks each previous answer for content written for the previous buyer, such as the buyer’s name, a description of the buyer, or references chosen for it. Those rows start unchecked and show why. Realm skips this check when the previous RFP is in the same project or in the project’s linked previous round, because the buyer is the same. Clear the check box of any other row you don’t want, then click Import to base the new RFP on the previous one. Unchecked rows stay open for filling. If a row gets an answer after you open the review, or its previous answer changes, the import leaves that row out and tells you how many rows it left out. Realm matches rows by their question text and ignores requirement numbers, case, and punctuation. For every row whose question reads the same in both RFPs, Realm copies the answer and the review status. For a row whose question was reworded or edited, Realm first checks that it still asks about the same thing. If it does, Realm copies the answer without the review status and labels it Question changed. The same goes for a row whose question reads the same but whose type, priority, or similar column changed, for example from optional to mandatory. Hover over the label to see what changed, with the edits to the earlier wording marked, and review the answer against the change. Assignees and reviewers are not copied. New questions, and reworded ones that no longer ask the same thing, stay open for filling. An RFP can be based on one previous RFP only. When work on the RFP has already started, Realm imports only into rows that have no answer yet. A row with an answer in any of its answer columns is left as it is, and a row where filling found no answer counts as unanswered. While a fill is running, the import is unavailable until the fill has finished. Each imported row records in its activity which RFP it was imported from, and the answer keeps its original sources. Imported rows are left out of the fill plan, including answer cells the previous round left empty on purpose, so filling the section writes only the rows that are still open. Cells that already hold an answer are never overwritten. A cell in the fill plan that still shows the buyer’s text, such as “Select from the list”, counts as unanswered. Imported answers are labeled Imported in the grid, and the RFP header shows which RFP they came from. To import again, remove the link first. Click the previous RFP’s name in the RFP header and choose Remove link. Only RFP managers can remove the link. The answers already imported stay, and a new import fills only rows that have no answer. This copies answers between questionnaires. To compare this round’s requirements with the previous round for the bid decision, link the previous round on the project instead. See Comparing with a previous round.

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Answering questions

The RFP grid is a spreadsheet-like view where you manage the entire question-and-answer process.

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Navigating the RFP grid

Navigate between cells by clicking or using the arrow keys.

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Filtering rows by column value

Open a column’s actions and select Filter by value to show rows with one or more chosen values. The filter is available on every content column. Realm initially shows the ten most common values in the current rows; use the search field to find any other value. For columns with an Excel dropdown, Realm uses the declared labels for choices that occur in the current rows. Every filter list (values, statuses, answer qualities, responders, reviewers, and comments) shows next to each option how many rows it matches, counted with your other active filters applied. Realm groups differences in capitalization, spacing, compatible Unicode characters, and accents into the same choice. For example, Yes, YES, and yes are treated as one value, as are Café and cafe. Ordinary punctuation remains significant, but recognized citations and directives are ignored during matching. Select Empty… to find incomplete rows. You can combine it with other values in the same column. Active value filters remain available from the column menu and, in the redesigned grid, from the filter chip above the table.

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Undo and redo

Use the undo and redo buttons in the RFP header, or press Cmd+Z (Ctrl+Z on Windows) to undo and Cmd+Shift+Z (Ctrl+Y on Windows) to redo. Undo reverses recent actions such as answer edits, hiding questions or columns, marking columns for deletion, assignments, reviewers, review status changes, and bulk section actions. Each section keeps its own history, so switching sections shows that section’s actions and switching back restores it. History is per session and clears when you reload the page.

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Filling sections with AI

Select which agent to use for filling. Realm is the default agent. Use the Fill section button to generate answers for an entire section at once. A column that asks for evidence, references, or supporting documents is treated differently from an answer column. With attachments turned on, Realm pairs documents from your attachment sources with the row. With attachments off, Realm writes only links to public web pages found in your sources into that column, and leaves the cell empty when there are none, so the buyer is never pointed at an internal document. Open the Fill manually menu next to the fill button for the alternatives to filling with AI. Select Fill manually to answer the section’s questions yourself. Select Don’t fill section to stop Realm from filling the section and leave it out of the RFP’s question totals. Answers already in the section stay. The same option is in the section actions menu (⋯) in the toolbar above the grid. A section Realm doesn’t fill has its tab struck through, the toolbar says Realm doesn’t fill it, and Restore section brings it back. These sections are still included in the exported file. Realm also leaves a spreadsheet tab unfilled on import when it holds nothing for you to answer, such as a table of the buyer’s own figures. It appears the same way, so you can restore it if you disagree. To generate cells again in a section you have already filled, select Pick to regenerate in the toolbar above the grid to open the cell selection. While the cell selection is open, the same button reads Done and leaves it again. The first time you open the cell selection it shows Realm’s fill plan, and the cells you add or remove there are saved with the RFP. Once the section has answers, the cell selection opens with the cells from that plan already picked. Adjust the pick by clicking or dragging across cells, and act on it from the bar below the grid:

• Regenerate N writes a new answer in every picked cell, including cells the fill plan left out. In a conditional column, only the rows that match the column’s conditions are answered; the rest stay blank.
• With prompt… does the same after you add instructions for this run. It works on up to 50 cells at a time.
• Revert N puts back what the uploaded sheet said in the picked cells.

Once the section has answers, a pick lasts only while you stay in the cell selection. It is not saved, and it does not change the RFP’s progress, the export, or the Question and Answer split in the Answer details panel. If a picked cell still holds the questionnaire’s own text, Realm asks you to confirm before replacing it. To answer a whole section again, open the cell selection and select Regenerate section in the toolbar. Every answer cell in the section gets a new answer, so Realm asks you to confirm first; earlier answers stay in each cell’s history. Starting the regeneration closes the cell selection. The button is unavailable while the section is being filled, while cells in it are still generating, or when a trial’s fill limit is reached, and the tooltip says which of these applies.

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Column prompting

Open a column’s actions and select Add column prompt to include instructions on how that column should be filled. For example: “This customer expects SOC-2 certification. Wherever this is addressed, say that we are SOC-2 compliant and are preparing formal certification this year.” If the column already has a prompt, select Update column prompt to edit it. Hover the column header to read the current prompt. Save keeps the prompt for later answers, and Save and regenerate column applies it to the column right away. Column prompts and conditions can be changed whenever the RFP is editable, not only while the cell selection is open. The same menu can mark a column as Don’t answer, hide or show it, and mark it as conditional. A conditional column is answered only when the values in other columns match the conditions you configure. Select Freeze up to this column to keep that column and every column to its left in place while you scroll sideways. Pinned columns, such as Responder, stay to the left of the frozen ones. To undo it, select Unfreeze columns from the menu of any frozen column, or select the snowflake on the last frozen column’s header. Frozen columns are your own: they apply only to the current tab of this RFP and are remembered in this browser. A hidden column stays hidden while frozen. Hiding the last visible frozen column unfreezes the columns, and Realm asks you first. Use the - and + buttons in the toolbar to zoom the table out or in by 10%, and select the percentage to go back to 100%. Zoom changes only the table, not the rest of the page. Like frozen columns, it is your own and remembered in this browser, but it applies to every tab of the RFP. When an uploaded questionnaire itself states such a rule, for example “only elaborate in the comments column if you answered No”, Realm configures the condition automatically during parsing. You can review or change it from the column’s actions like any other condition.

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Adding a column

Open a column’s actions and select Add column left or Add column right to insert an empty column beside it. The section menu’s Add column at end still appends one after the last column. You can add columns while you select cells and after you start the fill. A column keeps the position you gave it everywhere the sheet is read, including the exported spreadsheet. The fill plan decides which cells the AI answers. It does not restrict what you can type: every cell in the grid stays editable, including the question columns. The Answer details panel groups a row’s cells into Question and Answer by the same fill plan.

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Assessing AI-generated answers

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Reviewing sources

Click the answer to select it, then click it again to open the Answer details panel on the right side of the RFP grid. You can review the sources used to generate an answer and see an explanation of how Realm produced it, when that version of the answer has one. To read the explanation without leaving the grid, open the answer’s actions and hover over Explanation. The explanation appears in a tooltip; clicking the entry opens the full explanation under the answer.

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Answer quality score

The Answer quality score appears next to each answer in the RFP grid. A detailed breakdown is available in the Answer details panel. See Understanding the answer quality score for more details.

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Editing answers

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Manually editing answers

Edit any cell by double-clicking it in the RFP grid, or by clicking it in the Answer details panel (question cells included). Cells that the questionnaire restricts to a fixed set of values open their option list on a single click. You can also edit a cell while Realm is still generating its answer. When you save, your text stays: Realm stops answering that cell, and the other cells in the row still get their answers.

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Cells that still hold the questionnaire’s text

A cell Realm has not written to still shows exactly what the uploaded sheet said: question text, template values, and anything else that came with the file. The Answer details panel marks such a field with a small lock icon. Editing one asks you to confirm once, and you can tick Don’t show again to stop asking. Nothing is blocked, so a parsing mistake in a question stays fixable.

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Working on several cells at once

While an RFP is in progress, you can also select a range of cells in the grid without opening the cell selection: click a cell and Shift-click another, or hold Shift and use the up and down arrow keys. A bar floats over the grid with Regenerate N, With prompt…, and Revert N for that range. Here Regenerate covers only answer cells that are not already generating, so question cells and cells outside the fill plan are left out of the count; to answer those, use the cell selection instead. Press Escape to drop the range.

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Reverting to the original

Open a cell’s actions, in the grid or in the Answer details panel, and select Revert to original to put back what the uploaded sheet said in that cell, or to empty it if the sheet left it blank. The cell counts as untouched again and, when the sheet had text there, the Answer details panel shows its lock icon again. Documents attached to the row are removed as well. Undo restores the answer and its documents. To do the same for a whole column, open the column’s actions and select Revert column to original. Realm asks you to confirm and lets you choose whether cells it was never asked to answer are reverted as well. To revert every column of a section at once, open the section actions menu (⋯) in the toolbar above the grid and select Revert section to original. It asks the same questions as the column action and is unavailable while the section is being filled or any of its cells is generating. Reverting a section also opens the cell selection, which shows Realm’s fill plan again, so you can adjust the plan and fill the section from scratch. Undo restores the answers and returns to the grid.

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Editing answers with AI

Use the Refine or update with a prompt feature in the Answer details panel to give the AI further instructions for regenerating the answer. Realm refreshes the Answer quality score after the regenerated answer is saved. When you regenerate with your own instructions, Realm writes the requested detail into the answer itself, so that version has no separate explanation. Columns limited to fixed options keep their explanation, because the answer can only be one of the configured values. Earlier versions of the answer keep the explanation they were saved with. To regenerate all answer cells in a single question row, hover over the row number and select Regenerate row. You can regenerate immediately or add row-specific instructions before regenerating. To regenerate every answer cell in one column, open the column’s actions and select Regenerate column. This is the quickest way to apply a new column prompt, because it refills that column only and leaves the rest of the section untouched. Existing answers in the column are replaced, so Realm asks you to confirm first. A conditional column is regenerated only in the rows that match its conditions, and the action is unavailable while the section is already being filled.

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Collaboration

Realm shows each RFP assignment, comment, mention, and deadline as a separate card in the in-app notification panel. Use the All, Due, and Past views to focus the list. Assignment links open the RFP in the My Tasks modal. Comment and mention links open the comment, and a card that groups several mentions opens the newest one. Opening a card or marking it as read moves it to Past. Slack, Microsoft Teams, and email group related RFP activity into a contextual briefing. Mentions are sent immediately, and new assignments follow after a short grouping window. Other activity arrives in a daily briefing, including being added to a project. Work due today or tomorrow, and reminders sent by a teammate, also trigger an earlier briefing after the same grouping window. Overdue reminders appear in Realm, Slack, and Teams, but are not sent by email. In Slack, a briefing about a single RFP, document, or project arrives as a card with its due date, your open tasks, and the latest comment. Hover the card and choose Open to go to it in Realm. A briefing that covers several items, and the Monday workload summary, arrive as a heading followed by one card per item, showing up to five. Microsoft Teams shows the same cards. By email, a briefing is organized by project: the subject names the project, and each RFP and document is listed by name under its project. In every channel, a mention link opens the comment, or the newest one when there are several, and each comment in an email links to it. The Monday workload summary is delivered in Slack and Teams only, and it covers active RFPs: those with an upcoming or recently passed deadline, or rows edited in the last 30 days. RFPs and Document responses in a completed, archived, or No-go project are left out. Realm sends no reminders for a completed or archived RFP, or for an RFP in a completed, archived, or No-go project. This applies even when some rows are not approved. The reminder buttons are not available for these RFPs. External briefings include affected questions, comment excerpts, current deadlines, and a link to My tasks. In your personal notification settings, you can:

• Choose how much RFP activity is sent to Slack, Teams, and email.
• Include assignments, mentions, manual reminders, and work due within a day with the Important only level.
• Enable or disable the combined daily briefing and Monday workload summary.
• Select individual reminders for three days before, one day before, the due date, and one, three, or seven days overdue.

To receive RFP briefings in Slack, an organization admin must install the Realm Slack app or connect Slack as a data source. Each recipient’s Slack email must match their Realm account email, and their personal Slack notifications setting must not be Off. Syncing Slack messages into Realm is not required. When a notification cannot be delivered to Slack, Realm sends it by email instead, as long as your email notification settings allow it. To receive them in Microsoft Teams instead of, or as well as, Slack, connect Microsoft Teams in your notification settings. In-app RFP notifications remain available so important work is always visible in Realm. New reminder preferences start with 3 days and Tomorrow selected.

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Assigning work

Assign individual questions or entire sections to team members. Click the Responder column in the RFP grid to select a user. The Responder column menu can assign all rows or only unassigned rows to yourself or another user, unassign all rows, and filter the grid to your rows, unassigned rows, or selected assignees. Assigning all rows skips rows that show no responder, such as section headings (see Review status).

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Assigning a team

You can assign a question to a team instead of a person. In the Responder cell, search for the team and pick it. To assign many rows at once, select them first. In the Responder column menu, Assign responder > Assign all to user or team or Assign unassigned to user or team assigns a section’s rows to a team. Teams with no members can’t be picked. A question has either a team or people as its responder, never both, so assigning a team replaces anyone assigned to the question. Every member of the team except you is notified in Realm and, depending on their notification settings, by email, Slack, or Microsoft Teams. The question also appears in their My tasks. Until someone takes it, the cell shows the team’s name. To take a question, open its Responder cell and pick yourself from the team’s members. You can also hand it to a teammate, or choose Select from other people to assign anyone else. Once a person holds the question, the team no longer does. Teams can only be responders. Reviewers are always individual people. To move a lot of questions at once, use Assign with prompt and describe the change in plain language, tagging people with @. Prompts can add people (“assign all security questions to @Ville”), take them off (“unassign all questions assigned to @Ville”), or hand work over (“reassign all pricing questions from @Ville to @Sara”). Realm shows the matching questions and the exact changes for review before anything is applied, and you can drop individual rows from that list. The Reviewer column offers the same prompt.

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Suggested responders and reviewers

If your organization has turned on intelligent assignment, Realm suggests responders, and depending on the setting reviewers, for unassigned questions when an RFP is activated. Questions that already have a responder or reviewer keep them. Nobody is assigned until someone accepts a suggestion, and only people who can assign questions on the RFP see and handle suggestions. When suggestions are ready, a green badge with a count appears in the Responder and Reviewer column headers. Until you open it, a question with a suggestion shows Unassigned with a small green dot. Click the badge to review every suggestion for that column at once: each question is listed with its suggested person or team, all selected at first. Clear the ones you don’t want, then click Accept all or Dismiss all (Accept N or Dismiss N when only some are selected). To handle a single question, click its Responder or Reviewer cell. The suggestion is listed first under Suggested, with the reason for it: “From your assignment policy”, or how many similar questions the person answered or reviewed. A suggestion from history can also offer an Alternative suggestion. Pick a suggestion to accept it, choose Dismiss suggestion to remove it, or pick anyone else as usual. Assigning someone by hand also hides the suggestion. Accepting assigns the question as you, so the usual assignment notifications go out. A suggestion can name a team instead of a person when your assignment policy gives the question to a team. Accepting it assigns the question to that team. To see the questions that have a suggested responder, open the Responder filter and select Suggested responder. Suggestions are made only for RFPs in progress. To get suggestions for an RFP that was activated before intelligent assignment was turned on, or for questions added later, open the Responder column menu and choose Suggest responders and reviewers. Realm then suggests people for the unassigned questions that don’t have a suggestion yet. Questions whose suggestion you dismissed are not suggested again. While Realm works, the column headers show Suggesting…. If intelligent assignment isn’t set up, or your organization doesn’t yet have enough completed RFPs for Realm Intelligent Suggestions, Realm shows an error instead. Reopening a completed RFP doesn’t create new suggestions, so use this action there too. Suggestions are made on behalf of the person who created the RFP. If that person is no longer active in your organization, Realm skips the RFP.

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My tasks

Every open item assigned to you is collected on the My tasks tab at the top of the RFPs page. It covers three kinds of work:

• Questions where you are the assignee or the reviewer, until the answer is approved.
• Questions assigned to one of your teams that no one has taken yet. They’re counted next to the RFP with a people icon until someone takes them or the answer is sent for review.
• Unresolved comment threads assigned to you on a Document response.
• Open questionnaires and projects you own. You own a questionnaire or project you created or were added to as an owner, and every questionnaire in a project where you are an owner. Rows you own carry a green owner badge next to your task counts. A project owned by someone else shows an outlined badge with the number of its questionnaires you own.

Each row is a questionnaire or Document response with work waiting for you. Rows belonging to the same project are grouped under it; expand the project to see them. A row shows how many items are assigned to you, the status, the RFP deadline, your own task deadline, the owner, and the creation date. Click a column header to sort. By default the nearest deadline comes first and work without a deadline comes last. Click a row to open the questionnaire’s grid in a window over the list, filtered to your own questions. Answer or review it there, then close the window to return to the tab. The tab has no separate “done” action. A question leaves the open list when its review status becomes Approved, and a comment thread leaves when it is resolved. Questionnaires that are completed or archived never appear in the open list, and neither does work in a completed, archived, or No-go project. Finished work is not lost. Switch the tab from Open to Recently done to see the questionnaires and Document responses holding work that recently left your plate: answers you handed off to review or that were approved, and your assigned comment threads that were resolved. An item is listed when it was sent for review, approved or resolved in the last 30 days. Editing an answer later does not bring it back. The most recent items come first.

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Viewing team workload

The Workload tab on the RFP list gives team leads a timeline view of who is working on what. Each person is listed with the RFPs they are assigned to answer or review. Every RFP shows as a bar spanning from when it was created to its deadline, and the filled part of the bar runs to that person’s own task deadline. Where a person has no task deadline set yet, click the bar to set one. Counts next to each RFP show how many rows that person still has to answer and to review. A person also sees the open RFPs they own, marked with a green owner badge. Zoom smoothly between a wide, multi-year view and a close-up week view by pinching on a trackpad (or holding Cmd/Ctrl and scrolling) over the timeline, or with the zoom buttons, and use the Today button to jump back to the current date. Switch to the By RFP view to see the same timeline grouped by RFP instead of by person. This view lists every RFP you can access (including ones with no one assigned yet) with the people working on each below it. A filter bar lets you search by name, pick specific RFPs, and filter by creator, status, assigned person, or deadline. Your filter choices are remembered when you leave the page and come back. When you expand an RFP that has no one assigned, an “Assign people” row appears that opens the RFP so you can add people. Neither view shows completed, archived, or No-go projects, or the RFPs inside them. The status chip on each project and RFP header can be changed from the timeline. Project status is open to any member of that project, while RFP status follows the Can mark RFP completed permission. Where a status cannot be changed, hovering the chip explains why.

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Review process

Optionally, designate a reviewer for each question to ensure quality and accuracy. Click the Reviewer column in the RFP grid to assign a reviewer. The Reviewer column menu provides the equivalent bulk controls: set the reviewer for all or only unassigned rows, clear reviewers, and filter by your reviews, unassigned reviews, or selected reviewers.

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Review status

Use the Review status column in the RFP grid to track the progress of each answer. Statuses include Pending, Ready for review, and Approved. Rows that hold no question, such as section headings or instruction text, show no responder, reviewer, or review status. These rows do not count toward review progress, and the bulk assign and approve actions skip them. A row shows these cells when someone edits one of its cells or assigns a responder or reviewer to it. To track any other row, hover over its Responder, Reviewer, or Review status cell and click Show assignment & status. To hide the cells again, choose Hide assignment & status from the row menu.

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Leaving comments

Add comments to any question or answer by clicking it twice to open the Answer details panel on the right side of the RFP grid. To comment straight from the grid, hover over a cell and click the comment button in its top-right corner. A cell that already has comments shows a marker in that corner instead; hover over the marker to read and reply. Type @ in a comment to mention a teammate and notify them. When you mention someone who is not yet on the question, Realm asks below the comment box whether to add them: pick Responder or Reviewer to assign them to the question on top of its current assignees, or dismiss the prompt to only mention them. To see every comment thread in a questionnaire at once, click the comments icon in the toolbar above the grid. The panel has two tabs:

• All comments lists every thread.
• For you lists open threads waiting on you: threads that mention you where you have not replied since, threads on a question you are assigned to or reviewing where someone else commented last, and threads where someone replied after your last comment.

Switch between Open and Resolved threads, and pick a sheet to narrow the list when the questionnaire has several. Each thread shows where it is, who started it, when, and how many replies it has. Click a thread to jump to its cell and open the conversation. If a filter hides the thread’s row, Realm tells you so instead, and the filter stays as it is. Use Resolve or Reopen on a thread to change its status without leaving the list.

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Finalizing and exporting

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Marking as complete

Once all questions are answered and approved, you can mark the RFP as complete. This also adds the questions and answers to your knowledge base, improving future AI suggestions. Marking an RFP as complete also approves every row that is not yet approved. Realm first asks you to confirm and tells you how many rows this affects. Each of those approvals is recorded in the row history, so you can see who approved a row and what its previous status was. When your organization limits approval to reviewers, only RFP owners and admins can complete an RFP this way. A completed RFP stops accepting changes, so a submitted response cannot drift afterwards. Answers, rows and sections are locked, and filling and regeneration are refused. You can still read it, export it, and change its status: move it back to In progress to edit it again. An archived RFP is locked the same way, and you unarchive it to unlock it. Only completed RFPs end up in the knowledge base, so marking a project as completed can also complete the RFPs in it that are in progress, approving their rows the same way. Before you confirm, Realm lists the project’s open RFPs with the ones it can complete preselected; clear the checkbox of any RFP that should stay in progress. RFPs you are not allowed to mark completed and RFPs that are still being processed cannot be selected and stay as they are.

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Exporting the file

Click Export to download the completed questionnaire. There are two options:

• Fill the original file: Fills the answers into the original RFP file. Rows and columns added in Realm are not included; the export dialog notes this before you export. If the file’s layout leaves an answer’s place unclear (for example, two columns or rows share its name) or its cell already holds other text, the export still finishes and lists the answers it left out. Use Export as a new spreadsheet to include them.
• Export as a new spreadsheet: Exports the questionnaire as a new Excel file.

You can also pick the export language. The RFP language exports content exactly as written. When people worked on the RFP in other languages, Export translated exports a version in one of those languages, and text that a user wrote in that language exports as written. A questionnaire that Realm translated as a whole also offers the original document language, which restores the uploaded file’s questions verbatim and translates your answers to match. For such a questionnaire, exports default to the original document language.

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Turning responses into a document

Some buyers want the answers in a separate written document. For an RFP in a project, open the RFP’s ⋮ menu and choose Turn responses into document. Realm adds a response document to the project, opens it in the editor, and starts writing it at once from the RFP’s original file and the RFP’s current answers. Those answers are the source of truth for facts, and their wording is kept where it fits. Where documents are planned section by section, Realm plans the response first, and you choose Create document to draft it. You can edit the document and download it as a Word file. Turn responses into document is available once at least one row of the RFP has an answer; until then, hovering over it says to fill a row first. It also needs the RFP’s original file to be one of the project’s files. Any project member can use it, even while the RFP requires approval before export and some rows are not approved yet: the document is written from the current answers, approved or not, and goes through its own section approvals. The RFP’s approval rule applies when you export the RFP itself.

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Writing a document from one column

Some buyers want the answers to certain questions as a separate appendix, for example the answers in an extra column you added with a column prompt. For an RFP in a project, open an answer column’s actions and choose Create document from this column. The option appears once the column holds at least one answer. Realm adds a document named after the RFP and the column to the project and opens it in the editor. Realm writes it from that column’s answers only, one entry per requirement in the RFP’s order. When the RFP has several sections, each with its own answer column of the same title, the document covers that column in every section. Rows with an empty cell in the column are left out. Like Turn responses into document, any project member can use it while rows still wait for approval.