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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Project view and tools

In the project view, you’ll see the files, progress, project settings, and project-level analysis tools that 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.
• 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.
• Summary: Generate an AI-powered summary of all files within the project to get a quick overview of the scope and key requirements.
• Go/No-Go analysis: Uses an AI agent to evaluate the RFP documents against your company’s capabilities, providing a compliance score and a detailed breakdown of requirements to help you make an informed decision on whether to bid.
• Chat with files: Ask specific questions about the documents in your project, allowing you to clarify details without reading through every page.
• Project settings: Manage project members, their roles, and general project details. Owners can update the project’s status, set a deadline, or delete the project.

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Preparing questionnaires and fill plan

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

• Language translation: If the document is in a foreign language, you can translate it to your working language. When exporting the completed RFP, you can choose to export it in either language.
• Custom instructions: Provide custom instructions that will apply to all AI-generated answers.
• Deadline: Set a due date to keep your team on track and prioritize the project.

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. If something was missed or included incorrectly, you can adjust the selection by clicking and modifying the columns.

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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. Realm offers this filter when a column contains up to ten distinct values, even if the original spreadsheet did not define a dropdown. For columns with an Excel dropdown, Realm uses the declared labels for choices that occur in the current rows. If the column contains too many other values, Realm can still offer those currently used declared choices when the complete dropdown defines at most ten choices. 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.

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Column prompting

Column prompting allows you to include instructions on how a specific 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.”

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Assessing AI-generated answers

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Reviewing sources

Click the answer 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.

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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 AI-generated answer by clicking it in the RFP grid or in the Answer details panel.

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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. 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.

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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, Comments, and Past views to focus the list. Opening a card or marking it as read moves it to Past. Slack and email group related RFP activity into a contextual briefing. Most activity arrives in a daily briefing. Work due today or tomorrow, and reminders sent by a teammate, can trigger an earlier briefing after a short grouping window. Overdue reminders appear in Realm and Slack, but are not sent by email. 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 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.

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 Assigned column in the RFP grid to select a user.

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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.

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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.

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Leaving comments

Add comments to any question or answer by clicking it to open the Answer details panel on the right side of the RFP grid.

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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.

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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. Note that any rows added during the process will not be included.
• Export as a new spreadsheet: Exports the questionnaire as a new Excel file.

If the RFP was translated to your working language, you can also choose between exporting the original language RFP with the answers translated back, or exporting the translated RFP as is.