# Summarizing Terms of Reference and Bill of Quantities for Etimad Tenders with GPT or Claude ## Introduction The **Terms of Reference and Specifications document (TSD)** is the most important document in any government tender, and it's also usually the longest and most complex. It includes the contract duration, technical and financial evaluation criteria, the list of required guarantees, small and medium enterprise preferences, and the list of attachments, in addition to the **Bill of Quantities (BOQ)**, which can extend to dozens or hundreds of line items in large tenders. Reading these documents in full manually before deciding whether to bid can take hours, especially if you're doing this for several tenders in the same week. By connecting **ChatGPT** or **Claude** to TendersAlerts' MCP server, your AI assistant can read these documents and summarize them for you using just the tender's reference number, without uploading or manually attaching any file. ## The Two Tools Responsible: tender-documents and tender-boq The MCP server provides two tools dedicated to this purpose: - **tender-documents**: displays the terms of reference and specifications, evaluation criteria, list of attachments, a BOQ summary, and an AI-generated summary of the tender. - **tender-boq**: lets you browse the bill of quantities row by row, with quantities and units for each item, which is very useful when you need to price the tender or compare it against another tender's items. Both tools work with the tender's reference number, which you get first from **search-tenders** or **tender-details** if you don't already have it. ## A Full Practical Example > "Show me the details of tender 260839002113, then summarize the terms of reference and the bill of quantities for me." In this single question, the assistant performs three sequential steps: - Calls **tender-details** to fetch the basics: owning agency, deadlines, contract duration. - Calls **tender-documents** to read the terms of reference, evaluation criteria, and list of attachments. - Calls **tender-boq** to summarize the number of BOQ items and the most important ones. The result arrives as an organized summary similar to: 24-month contract duration, evaluation criteria 70% technical and 30% financial, bill of quantities with 48 items and 6 attachments. ## What Exactly Can a Terms of Reference Summary Reveal? When you ask for a terms of reference summary, the response can include: - **Contract duration and expected start date.** - **The technical vs. financial evaluation ratio**, an important signal for where your proposal should focus. - **Required guarantees** (initial, final, maintenance) and their value. - **Small and medium enterprise preference conditions**, if any. - **The list of required attachments** for a complete bid. - **A general AI summary** describing the nature of the tender in a sentence or two, for anyone who wants a quick understanding before diving deeper. ## Reading the Bill of Quantities: From Pricing to Comparison The bill of quantities is often the part that consumes the most preparation time, since it requires reviewing every item, quantity, and unit to price it accurately. With the **tender-boq** tool, you can ask: > "Show me the bill of quantities items for tender 260839002113 with quantities and units." Or request a more specific filter: > "Which items in the bill of quantities relate to networking only?" This speeds up the initial pricing phase and helps the procurement team prepare vendor quote requests based on the actual line items much faster. ## How Much Time Does This Actually Save? To estimate the benefit concretely, compare the two approaches for a mid-sized tender with a 30-page terms of reference document and a 50-item bill of quantities: - **Manually**: reading the full terms of reference document (30-45 minutes), then reviewing the bill of quantities item by item to understand quantities and units (another 20-30 minutes), then writing up the key points in an internal document to share with the team (10-15 minutes). Total: can exceed an hour per tender. - **Via ChatGPT or Claude connected to MCP**: one question returns a comprehensive summary in under a minute, with the ability to ask immediate follow-up questions about any unclear item, without re-reading from scratch. When you're tracking 5 or 10 tenders a week, this difference turns from a small saving into full hours given back to your team to focus on crafting stronger bids instead of spending them on initial reading. ## Different Uses Depending on Each Team Member's Role - **Tender manager**: needs the quick general summary to decide which tenders, out of dozens of weekly opportunities, deserve full follow-up. - **Technical engineer**: focuses on the bill of quantities details and precise technical specifications to start initial pricing. - **Compliance and contracts team**: needs the evaluation criteria, guarantee conditions, and preference percentages precisely before internal approval to bid. Since a single conversation supports follow-up, each team member can direct different questions at the same tender based on their needs, instead of waiting for one unified report that covers every detail for every party. ## Practical Tips for Phrasing a Summary Request - **Always mention the tender reference number** if available, to skip the **search-tenders** step and reduce the chance of confusion between similarly named tenders. - **Request the summary in two stages**: first a quick general summary, and if the tender looks suitable, ask for deeper detail on a specific item or evaluation condition. - **Explicitly ask about required attachments** so you can start preparing them in parallel with your review of the rest of the terms. - If you have alert keywords tied to specific product names or part numbers, remember that matching them in the bill of quantities requires enabling **includes_boq: true** when creating the alert — a detail the assistant can explain if you ask it directly. ## An Important Warning: The Summary Is an Acceleration Tool, Not a Substitute for Legal Review It's essential to emphasize that the AI summary, despite its high accuracy in extracting information from the document, **should not be the sole reference** for a final decision to bid, especially regarding precise legal or contractual terms. Use the summary to prioritize your review and quickly understand the big picture, then review the original terms of reference document in full yourself or have your team's legal specialist review it before signing or officially submitting any bid through the Etimad platform. ## Quick Comparison Across Multiple Tenders in One Session One useful, rarely mentioned use case is the ability to compare several tenders against each other in the same conversation. Instead of summarizing each tender in isolation, you can ask: **"Summarize the terms of reference for these three tenders, and tell me which has the highest technical evaluation weight, and which requires the lowest initial guarantee."** The assistant processes the three documents in sequence, then gives you a direct comparison that helps you prioritize which to bid on in a week crowded with opportunities. ## Frequently Asked Questions **Is summarizing terms of reference documents available for free?** No, the **tender-documents** and **tender-boq** tools are among the tools that require an [active subscription](/plans). **How many times per hour can these tools be used?****tender-documents** is limited to 150 requests per hour, while **tender-boq** falls under the general category limited to 300 requests per hour, per account. **Can the assistant read manually attached PDF files instead of using the tender number?** This article covers direct reading via the MCP server using the tender's reference number, which is the more accurate and faster method since it works on structured data straight from the source, instead of relying on text extraction from a scanned PDF. ## Conclusion Reading the terms of reference and bill of quantities for an Etimad tender shouldn't have to be a full-hour task every single time. By connecting ChatGPT or Claude to TendersAlerts' MCP server, a tender reference number and a single sentence are enough to get a comprehensive summary of the contract duration, evaluation criteria, and bill of quantities items, leaving you more time to focus on crafting a competitive bid instead of digging through documents. [Connect your AI assistant to Etimad tenders now](/mcp) and try summarizing your first terms of reference document in your next conversation.