Respond to an RFP

An RFP gives your team the buyer's exact request and a deadline for responding. In Tap, your job is to check the request, prepare accurate Avails, and make a deliberate decision before anything is shared.

Tap's property catalog supports all media types represented in the supplier app. The weekly Avails workspace described here appears for broadcast RFPs that ask for TV or radio spot inventory.

Find the request

Open Pipeline, then keep Incoming RFPs selected. Each opportunity shows the property, buyer, owner, stage, due date, activity, and next action. Use the owner and property filters when your team handles many requests.

Open the opportunity. The RFP workspace keeps the request and response journey together across Request, Avails, Orders, and the delivery stage.

Review the request before pricing

Start on Request. Confirm the objective, market, spot length, flight dates, response deadline, calculated request budget when impression goals make one available, additional notes, audience, and requested dayparts. Review the active weeks and any impression goals.

Look for requirements you cannot meet as written. If a schedule, audience, exclusion, or commercial point is unclear, use Message buyer before making an unsupported assumption. A clear question is better than a confident but incorrect Avail.

If the response deadline has passed but the Exchange remains open, Tap still allows submission and labels it late. If the Exchange is closed, the request remains as a record but no longer accepts changes or new Avails.

Start a private response

Open Avails. You can choose Respond manually or Upload source file.

• Manual entry starts a private Avail Response draft against the current RFP revision.
• Source upload accepts one text-readable PDF, XLSX, or CSV at a time, such as a rate card or program schedule.
• Tap processes an uploaded source into a private draft. It never submits the response for you.

Edits autosave. Watch the save status before leaving the page or starting review. If the buyer has revised the RFP, Tap marks an older draft stale and requires you to start from the current request.

1. Open each requested daypart

   The Avails workspace creates a card for each requested daypart and spot length. Open each card and confirm that it answers the correct requested line.

2. Name the inventory

   For TV, enter the exact program or rotation name. For radio, enter the daypart name when needed. Confirm the spot length and market-local days and time windows.

3. Enter weekly commercial fields

   For every active week you offer, enter the spot rate and projected impressions per spot for the RFP's primary audience. Use Apply when the same value is correct for every week, then review the individual weeks.

4. Explain any alternative

   Mark an Avail as Alternative when it varies from the request, then write the reason. Do not present substituted inventory as an exact match.

5. Complete the exclusion review

   Select No known conflict only after checking the inventory. If there may be a conflict, leave it for review or record that a person reviewed and acknowledged it.

Tap marks cards Not started, In progress, or Complete and flags missing rates or impressions. A response cannot be submitted while required fields are incomplete.

Review what the buyer will receive

You need Edit Avails to create or change a response and Submit Avails to send or withdraw it. These are separate permissions. That separation lets one teammate prepare the work while another makes the final commercial decision.

For one completed Avail, select Send avail. For several completed Avails, you can review and Send all. The review dialog summarizes the property, revision, number of Avails, active weeks, response deadline, and any replacement revision.

Replace or withdraw a response

After submission, the Avails page shows the response revision and its status. A submitted revision is immutable. If something changes, prepare a replacement response, review it, and select Replace response. Tap preserves the earlier revision in history and makes the replacement current.

You can also withdraw the current response if the inventory should no longer be available for a new Order. Withdrawing the Avail Response does not decide an Order that the buyer already sent. Review any pending Order separately.

Decide the next step

If the buyer sends an Order, open Orders in the same RFP workspace. Review every schedule, quantity, rate, spot length, and buyer message. A person with Confirm Orders can confirm or decline the whole Order.

Confirming locks the displayed schedule, quantity, rate, and spot length. Confirmed terms are immutable, so resolve questions in the buyer conversation before the decision.

For setup that makes future requests easier to route and answer, set up Supplier Properties. To understand the buyer's side of the handoff, read how buyers review Avails and Orders.