Introducing Column Planrooms: Full-Service Bid Package Management for Public Works Projects

By Casey Allen  •  Product Manager  •  November 3, 2022
Column Wiki

We are delighted to announce that Column has released a new feature for government agencies, architects, and engineers to seamlessly and securely manage bid packages for public works projects: Column Planrooms!

Column Planrooms is a free feature that eliminates the risks of manually managing bidders and bid packages for public works projects and can save users nearly 100% of the printing costs per public works project.

Are you responsible for managing the documents for public works projects? Does any of this sound familiar?

  • Ordered way too many plans at the start of a project
  • Unannounced visits from contractors to review plans
  • Didn’t have plans to provide a contractor because we had already run out
  • Forgot to add a company to the plan holders list
  • Wasted hours sending addendums and chasing receipt confirmations
  • Wound up with a bill for tens of thousands of dollars on printing costs

If so, you need Column Planrooms.

To bring this new opportunity to Column users, we’ve partnered with the specialists at Biddy. For over 10 years, Biddy has been meticulously handling this process for architecture firms, public bodies like school boards and municipalities, and construction managers. In that time, they’ve handled over 30,000 public projects and distributed over 791,000 bid packages.

How does Column Planrooms work?

 

You can set up your Planroom by uploading your bid documents within the same process in Column you’ve been using to submit your public notices. We’ll automatically add the link to the Column Planroom for your project to the notice. Then, once posted, you can simply email any addendums or updates to [email protected] and we’ll ensure they’re sent to your planholder’s list for you. And once the bid deadline has passed, you’ll receive a final email that includes your up-to-date planholder’s list.

With Column Planrooms, you can seamlessly:

  • Keep track of your planholder’s list
  • Distribute your bid packages to prospective bidders
  • Eliminate printing costs for your next project — folks save over $8,000 per project on average!
  • Handle the distribution and collection of confirmation receipts for all addendums
  • Eliminate the need to host plans at a physical location for review

This is new feature is offered at absolutely no additional cost to you whatsoever.

If you want to start enjoying the benefits of Column Planrooms has to offer, please send an email to [email protected] or schedule a demo session using this link.