What this is for
Insights shows how your bids are doing over time. It reads your own bid records and presents them, so you can see a pattern rather than judging one bid at a time. It covers the reasons behind wins and losses and a bid cost retrospective, which looks back at what bids cost you to produce from the rate cards and effort you recorded.
A reading screen
Insights reads your data, it does not produce documents. Each figure is read for the period it covers, so a figure from one quarter is never mistaken for an all time figure. The full Insights view is part of the Pro plan of Velstrian Bid and above. On a lower plan the rest of the screen shows its upgrade lock, and the win and loss insights and the bid cost retrospective stay open to you below it.
Step by step
- Open Insights from the Velstrian Bid menu.
- Read the win and loss section to see how recent bids have gone and why.
- Read the bid cost retrospective to see what bids cost to produce.
- Check the period each figure covers, so you compare like with like.
What happens next
Use the patterns to decide where to spend your bidding effort. If a type of work loses more often, Insights helps you see it early. To produce a document rather than read a trend, use the Bid reports tab beside Insights.
How to read it well
Insights is most useful when you look at the shape rather than any single number. A run of losses in one kind of work, or a rising cost to produce certain bids, is a signal worth acting on. Because every figure carries the period it covers, you can compare one window against another on a fair footing, instead of comparing a busy quarter with a quiet one. Treat the cost retrospective as a prompt to check whether a type of bid is worth the effort it takes, not as a verdict on any one person.
Common problems
Part of Insights is locked: the full view needs the Pro plan, and the lock names the plan that opens it. A figure looks low or high: read the period it covers before you act on it. The numbers feel thin: Insights reads your own bid records, so the more of your bidding runs through Velstrian Bid, and the more outcomes and costs you record, the fuller the picture becomes.