Tips for Reading Bid Matches
This section covers the various components of the profile search output that you receive from either your Illinois Procurement Technical Assistance Center Service at Illinois Central College or Softshare and indicates how to identify and interpret each of them. Note that if you receive your profile search e-mails in plain text format instead of HTML or if you receive your search results via a method other than e-mail (such as fax), some formatting aspects will differ slightly from those shown and described here.
The following graphic shows a sample article from a profile search results e-mail. Each of the numbered components in this graphic is identified and described in the following table.
| View Screenshot |
| 1 | Database Header | Indicates the source of the articles that follow. See the Identifying Procurement Data Sources section of this help for a complete list of the data sources that can contribute to your profile search results. |
| 2 | Buying Agency | Usually lists the government agency publishing the article, along with related general contact information. |
| 3 | Federal Supply Group (FSG) | The government-maintained Federal Supply Group code identifying the product or service sought by the buyer. Alphabet codes denote services while numeric ones denote supplies. |
| 4 | Solicitation Number | The unique, external identification code for the solicitation, which you will use to identify the solicitation to outside parties such as government buyers and may also be used to access the solicitation on government-maintained Web sites. |
| 5 | Solicitation Closing Date | This is the deadline by which a response must be received in order to be considered for a contract award. |
| 6 | National Stock Number (NSN) | The 13-digit National Stock Number identifying the product sought by the buyers, included in many federal, defense-related solicitations. Each NSN consists of a 4-digit Federal Supply Classification (FSC) code followed by a 9-digit National Item Identification Number (NIIN). Note that NSNs apply to products only and not to services. |
| 7 | Matching Search Term(s) | The profile search term(s) that caused the article to match against your research profile display in bold, blue text in HTML-formatted search result in e-mails. In the case of non-e-mail or plain text search results, matching search terms are indicated with an asterisk (*) in the left margin of the line in which they occur. |
| 8 | Web Link(s) | Most solicitation articles contain links to the specific Web site where the solicitation can be searched for or, in some cases, a direct link to the posted solicitation itself. Some solicitations may also include links to Web sites where related drawings and/or specifications can be downloaded. |
| 9 | Softshare Article Number | The code used by Softshare to uniquely identify the article, containing the following three components: article post date; source database abbreviation; and a unique, Softshare-generated Identification code. Note that this internal code is significant only to your PTAC and/or Softshare; when identifying an article to an outside party such as a government buyer, use the solicitation number listed in the article itself rather than the Softshare article number. |
| 10 | Matching Keywords | List the specific search term(s) in your profile that caused the article to match and be included in your search results. |
