Keep alternate contractor bids from inflating one project opportunity

Setup requirements

1. A shared project name does not prove mutual exclusivity. The estimator must confirm exact project and scope plus award relationships.

2. Keep additive phases, alternate options and competing contractor routes as distinct relation types.

3. No probability, preferred bid, revenue forecast or winning contractor is inferred.

4. Agree this bounded synthetic scope and confirm a real unresolved need before any implementation pilot. The written design does not authorize executing it.

Inputs and access

1. Name

   bid_register.json

   Source or owner

   Sales owner

   Scope

   Synthetic project IDs, scope IDs, contractor/deal IDs, bid versions, amounts, currencies and statuses.

   Sensitivity

   Synthetic fixture only. A real-data pilot requires a separate minimized scope and approved handling.

   Permission needed

   Owner approval of exact data, processing environment, retention and recipients before a pilot. No pilot is authorized by this plan.

2. Name

   bid_context.txt

   Source or owner

   Estimator

   Scope

   Synthetic invitation and correspondence excerpts identifying end project, scope and alternative award routes.

   Sensitivity

   Synthetic fixture only. A real-data pilot requires a separate minimized scope and approved handling.

   Permission needed

   Owner approval of exact data, processing environment, retention and recipients before a pilot. No pilot is authorized by this plan.

3. Name

   relationship_rules.json

   Source or owner

   Sales owner

   Scope

   Approved mutually-exclusive groups, additive scopes, revisions, withdrawn routes and any confirmed award.

   Sensitivity

   Synthetic fixture only. A real-data pilot requires a separate minimized scope and approved handling.

   Permission needed

   Owner approval of exact data, processing environment, retention and recipients before a pilot. No pilot is authorized by this plan.

4. Name

   pipeline_export.json

   Source or owner

   Report owner

   Scope

   Synthetic current pipeline values and filters at a frozen date.

   Sensitivity

   Synthetic fixture only. A real-data pilot requires a separate minimized scope and approved handling.

   Permission needed

   Owner approval of exact data, processing environment, retention and recipients before a pilot. No pilot is authorized by this plan.

Human approval boundaries

1. Before a pilot, the accountable owner approves exact synthetic/minimized copies, processing environment, retention and allowed recipients.

2. Owner validates identity mappings, authority, status definitions and all unresolved evidence.

3. Any source mutation, account access, upload, external communication, commercial commitment, payment or changed permission requires separate appropriate authorization.

The problem

Several bids can represent alternate routes to the same end project. Adding their deal values can overstate the opportunity, while merging the records would lose contractor-specific follow-up history.

Suggested task

Build an owner-reviewed graph of alternate and additive bid routes and show economic-opportunity totals separately from deal records.

What you could produce

A project-scope bid map, duplicate-count exposure and scenario values that preserve every contractor relationship.

Why an agent / simpler alternative

An agent may extract project/scope relationships from bid correspondence. Graph constraints and scenario arithmetic should be deterministic. A CRM project object with clean relationship labels and a report is simpler when those records already exist.

When this work comes up

Role

Sales operations coordinator

Trigger

Two or more open bids are linked to the same project and scope.

Human approval

Owner reviews scope, rules, identities and findings; operating decisions remain separately authorized.

Finished output

A project-scope bid map, duplicate-count exposure and scenario values that preserve every contractor relationship.

Proposed evaluation scope — no pilot authorized

Scope

At most 10 projects, 30 bid routes and owner-confirmed exclusive/additive groups.

Limit origin

Original editorial evaluation bound, not a verified tool limit.

Overflow action

Stop and request owner-approved partitioning; no silent truncation.

Pilot authorized

No

Evidence boundary

Source facts describe human friction; O*NET describes duties; shared official documentation supports file primitives. The six-step workflow, safeguards, numerical fixture and outputs are original proposed designs.

Proposed steps

1. 1

   Freeze bids and report scope; separate revisions from distinct contractor routes.

   Output: Bid identity manifest.

   Expected output: Bid identity manifest.

   Checkpoint: Retain source IDs/spans and explicit unknown states. No source writes or external action.

   Approval gate: Owner approves exact inputs and rule scope before any pilot.

2. 2

   Extract project/scope references and suggested relationship edges from source spans.

   Output: Evidence-linked relation candidates.

   Expected output: Evidence-linked relation candidates.

   Checkpoint: Retain source IDs/spans and explicit unknown states. No source writes or external action.

   Approval gate: Owner resolves ambiguous meaning, identity or authority before affected rows advance.

3. 3

   Apply owner-confirmed exclusive or additive edges, retaining unresolved relations and all original deal IDs.

   Output: Approved bid-route graph.

   Expected output: Approved bid-route graph.

   Checkpoint: Retain source IDs/spans and explicit unknown states. No source writes or external action.

   Approval gate: Owner resolves ambiguous meaning, identity or authority before affected rows advance.

4. 4

   Compute record totals and economic-opportunity counts separately; for differing alternative prices show a range or owner-specified scenario, never an arbitrary selected value.

   Output: Count and value comparison.

   Expected output: Count and value comparison.

   Checkpoint: Retain source IDs/spans and explicit unknown states. No source writes or external action.

   Approval gate: Owner resolves ambiguous meaning, identity or authority before affected rows advance.

5. 5

   Explain inflated totals, withdrawn-route effects and unmatched scope questions without rewriting the CRM.

   Output: Pipeline exception review.

   Expected output: Pipeline exception review.

   Checkpoint: Retain source IDs/spans and explicit unknown states. No source writes or external action.

   Approval gate: Owner reviews draft findings; no operational action authorized.

6. 6

   Prepare the graph, arithmetic and acceptance specification for estimator and sales-owner sign-off.

   Output: Bid-overlap review packet.

   Expected output: Bid-overlap review packet.

   Checkpoint: Retain source IDs/spans and explicit unknown states. No source writes or external action.

   Approval gate: Owner accepts the review artifact; any live change or communication needs separate approval.

Original starter prompt — proposed

Origin

editorial_proposal

Execution authorized

No

Text

Using only {approved_synthetic_inputs} and {owner_rules}, Build an owner-reviewed graph of alternate and additive bid routes and show economic-opportunity totals separately from deal records. Follow the six-step design. Preserve exact identities, source citations and uncertainty; make calculations inspectable. Write only separate review drafts to {approved_output_folder}. Do not guess missing facts, alter sources, access accounts, send, upload, buy, post, settle, make personnel decisions or claim the fixture passed.

Expected output schema — proposed

Primary key

1. project_id

2. scope_id

3. bid_route_id

4. bid_version

Columns

1. contractor_id

2. deal_id

3. relation_group_id

4. relation_type

5. amount

6. currency

7. active_state

8. source_spans

9. owner_confirmation

10. economic_count_basis

Record status

draft_review_only

Common provenance columns

1. input_snapshot_id

2. rule_version

3. source_document_id

4. source_row_or_span

5. reviewer_decision

Unknown value policy

Unknown numeric values remain null, never zero. Preserve raw rows and typed relation/allocation IDs; unresolved rows do not silently enter approved totals.

Synthetic output illustration — not an executed result

Label

Synthetic authored example, not observed output

Synthetic

Yes

Executed

No

Input

Exclusive scope s1

1. 120

2. 125

Additive scope s2

30

Expected

Active record total

275

Economic scope count

2

Scenario range

1. 150

2. 155

Expected revenue

Not specified.

Limits

1. Original proposed and untested design; no source documents this complete agent workflow.

2. A reported problem is not proof of prevalence, willingness to pay, harm magnitude or current demand.

3. Historical product reports require current-installation checks; a current capability document only establishes general primitives.

4. Native reports or a deterministic script may be simpler. Exports, identity mappings, context size, privacy controls and actual tool compatibility remain untested.

5. Numerical fixtures are synthetic and have not been executed. Owner review is necessary; no time saving, cost saving or revenue outcome is asserted.

Candidate platforms — compatibility untested

1. Name

   ChatGPT Work

   Required capabilities

   1. Assess this plan’s input, operation and output requirements before selecting an account.

   Capability source urls

   1. https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/get-started-with-work

   Selection basis

   Editorial candidate only. Shared source facts are general primitives; this plan remains unexecuted.

   Workflow compatibility

   BotCurrent has not tested this workflow.

2. Name

   Claude

   Required capabilities

   1. Assess this plan’s input, operation and output requirements before selecting an account.

   Capability source urls

   1. https://support.claude.com/en/articles/16761823-claude-cowork-and-chat-are-one-claude

   Selection basis

   Editorial candidate only. Shared source facts are general primitives; this plan remains unexecuted.

   Workflow compatibility

   BotCurrent has not tested this workflow.

Failure modes

1. Two independent scopes on one project are collapsed into one opportunity.

2. Different bids are merged and contractor history is lost.

3. The highest alternative price is silently presented as expected revenue.

Recovery and troubleshooting

1. Signal

   Two independent scopes on one project are collapsed into one opportunity.

   Recovery

   Hold relation type until the estimator confirms exclusive versus additive scope.

   Resume condition

   The accountable owner supplies the missing authoritative evidence or approved interpretation; otherwise keep the affected result unresolved.

2. Signal

   Different bids are merged and contractor history is lost.

   Recovery

   Keep immutable original deal IDs and create a separate relation table only.

   Resume condition

   The accountable owner supplies the missing authoritative evidence or approved interpretation; otherwise keep the affected result unresolved.

3. Signal

   The highest alternative price is silently presented as expected revenue.

   Recovery

   Show all scenario values or an explicit range, with no probability or expected-value claim.

   Resume condition

   The accountable owner supplies the missing authoritative evidence or approved interpretation; otherwise keep the affected result unresolved.

Unexecuted validation plan

Sample setup

Project P has bids A worth 120 and B worth 125 for the same owner-confirmed exclusive scope S1. Separate scope S2 worth 30 can be awarded in addition. A similarly named project P2 has no explicit relation. Add an obsolete revision of A worth 110 and a withdrawn alternative C worth 130.

Acceptance checks

1. Active record total is 275 across A/B/S2, but there are two economic scopes, not three.

2. Combined scenario range is 150–155 only because S2 is explicitly additive; no 245 or 275 expected-revenue claim.

3. A worth 110 is superseded and C worth 130 withdrawn, with both raw records retained.

4. P2 is not merged by name.

5. No contractor selection, probability, quote change or CRM merge occurs.

6. Every conclusion traces to approved source rows or an explicitly labelled owner rule; rerunning the same frozen input must not change identities or totals.

7. All source copies remain unchanged. Any duplicate, missing key, stale snapshot or conflicting authority is held visibly.

Stop conditions

1. Input scope, required identity or calculation policy is missing.

2. Unexpected real sensitive/personal data is supplied before handling approval.

3. The requested output would require live account access, external upload/send, accounting posting, purchase, access change or irreversible action.

Executed

No

Fixture status

Designed only; no acceptance fixture or workflow executed.

Costs and effort — unknown or hypothetical

Status

unknown_or_estimate

Currency

Not specified.

Items

1. Plan access, model usage, tool runtime and storage costs unknown.

2. Export preparation, evidence cleanup, review and correction effort unmeasured.

3. No native integration, paid service, new account or software installation assumed.

4. Case-specific effort is unknown: source extraction, identity repair, owner-rule preparation, fixture design and review may dominate model cost.

Caveat

No measured time saving, current demand, ROI or price claim. Compare the simpler remedy first.

Canadian adaptation — proposed

Verify local privacy and organizational record-handling requirements before any real-data pilot; preserve original currency, business calendars and time zones. No Canadian deployment or compliance claim.