Documentation
How Sidona works
Sidona aggregates official Canadian procurement notices into one portal on a 12-hour sync, matches them to your KYC company profile, and helps your team shortlist and interrogate tenders with AI grounded in the official documents. It does not write proposals or submit bids for you.
Overview
Public-sector buying is spread across federal, provincial, and territorial portals, each with different formats. Sidona syncs registered official sources into a single contract database every 12 hours so your team can search from one dashboard.
Getting started is account → KYC matching profile → 10-day free trial. Your profile powers matching so the best opportunities rise on Home. That is discovery and triage—not proposal drafting.
Talk to the Tender is limited to opportunities where the RFQ or tender package is available as a PDF from the source. Opening those contracts queues document prep; when indexing finishes, you can ask about requirements, timelines, and eligibility with answers tied to specific pages.
Coverage includes Canadian federal, provincial, and territorial portals (for example CanadaBuys). Municipal opportunities appear as coverage expands. Submission always happens on the issuing portal—Sidona finds, matches, and helps you read notices; it does not write or submit proposals.
Using the app
A typical customer path from signup to a bid / no-bid decision.
- 1
Create your account
Start at Get started, create a Clerk account (email or SSO), then continue into onboarding. Prefer to talk first? Open the contact page, send a note, or pick a time on the calendar there.
- 2
Complete your KYC matching profile
Tell Sidona what you do, where you work, and your certifications before checkout. That profile powers tender matching—not proposal writing.
- 3
Start your 10-day free trial
After onboarding, continue to Stripe to start your trial (card on file, no charge today). An active trial or subscription unlocks Contracts, Saved, matching, and document tools.
- 4
Start on Home
After login you land on the overview: new opportunities in the last 24 hours, tenders closing in the next 14 days, your saved count, matched suggestions, and shortcuts into the rest of the app.
- 5
Browse and filter Contracts
Open Contracts to search with AI semantic search. Narrow by government level, province, closing dates, sort order, matched fit, or chat-ready documents only.
- 6
Save what matters
Use the bookmark on any contract card to build a shortlist. Review everything later under Saved.
- 7
Open a tender and review details
Click a contract for full metadata and procurement context, plus a link back to the official source portal. If a PDF exists, opening the page starts document prep for chat.
- 8
Use Talk to the Tender (RFQ required)
Chat only appears when the opportunity includes a tender document from the source portal. Look for the Chat badge, or filter Contracts by Chat Ready. While prep runs, you will see download/index progress on the detail page.
- 9
Manage billing in Settings
Update payment method, download invoices, or cancel from Settings → Manage billing (Stripe Customer Portal). Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current period.
- 10
Make a faster bid / no-bid call
Use matching, search, deadlines, saved items, and document Q&A to decide whether to pursue the opportunity. Sidona does not write your proposal—you still draft and submit on the issuing portal.
Talk to the Tender
AI document Q&A is only offered on tenders where an RFQ / tender PDF exists on the official listing. Every contract in Sidona is searchable; chat is an extra layer on top when the document is present and processed.
Quick rule
No RFQ PDF on the portal → metadata and source link only. RFQ PDF attached → open the contract to queue prep. Indexing complete → Talk to the Tender unlocks on the contract detail page.
RFQ not available on the listing
Some opportunities only publish summary metadata on the portal. You can still search, filter, save, and open the official source link—but Talk to the Tender is not offered because there is no PDF for Sidona to analyze.
RFQ found — preparing
When you open the contract (or start chat), Sidona queues download and indexing. The detail page shows progress such as “Downloading…” or “Indexing…” until the document is ready. You do not need to wait on the Contracts list—open the tender to kick off prep.
RFQ ready — chat enabled
Processing is complete. Ask questions about scope, requirements, deadlines, and eligibility. Answers are grounded in the document and include page citations you can follow.
How to find chat-ready tenders
- Contracts filter: enable Chat Ready in the filter panel to show only tenders where Talk to the Tender is available now.
- Contract cards: a Chat badge means the RFQ is processed; a PDF badge means the document is attached but may still need indexing when you open it.
- Home shortcut: use the “Chat with PDFs” action to jump straight to chat-ready listings.
Capabilities
Unified tender feed
Official Canadian procurement portals sync into one searchable workspace every 12 hours so you stop hopping between sites.
AI semantic search
Search finds tenders by meaning, not just exact keywords. Narrow results with filters for level, province, dates, matched fit, and chat-ready documents.
Talk to the tender
Only available when the issuing portal provides an RFQ / tender PDF. Opening a contract queues document prep; chat unlocks once indexing finishes.
Saved watchlist
Bookmark opportunities worth tracking and jump back to them from Saved without rebuilding your search.
Deadline-aware browsing
Home highlights new contracts and ones closing soon so you can prioritize go/no-go work before time runs out.
Company-profile matching
After you complete your KYC / company profile, Sidona scores new notices against your capabilities, regions, and certifications and surfaces fit scores on Home and in the Matched filter on Contracts.
AI sequence
What happens behind the scenes before a tender shows up as searchable or chat-ready.
- 1
Collect from official sources
Scheduled scanners pull tenders from registered Canadian procurement portals on a 12-hour cycle (for example CanadaBuys and provincial boards).
- 2
Normalize and store
Each opportunity is stored as a structured contract record—title, dates, level, province, source link, and related metadata—so it can be filtered and searched consistently.
- 3
Detect changes
When content or attached PDFs change, Sidona updates the record and re-queues document processing so you are not stuck on a stale package.
- 4
Ingest tender PDFs (when available)
When the source listing includes an RFQ or tender PDF, Sidona can download it and prepare the text for analysis (with OCR fallback when needed). Full indexing for chat often starts when you open the contract, so you only pay for documents you actually review.
- 5
Chunk and embed
For tenders with a PDF, text is split into page-tagged chunks and embedded. When that finishes, the contract is marked chat-ready and Talk to the Tender appears on the detail page.
- 6
Search and answer
AI semantic search ranks opportunities by meaning across the feed. On chat-ready contracts only, Talk to the Tender retrieves the most relevant chunks and streams a cited answer from the RFQ.
Data flow
Sources → database: scanners run every 12 hours against registered portals, normalize tenders, and upsert them into MongoDB with stable change detection.
Profile → matching: new notices are scored against your KYC company profile so Home can surface higher-fit work first.
Documents → chat: when an RFQ PDF exists on the source, opening the contract queues download, extraction, chunking, and embedding. Talk to the Tender only unlocks after that pipeline completes—not on metadata-only listings.
You → decision: your team searches the feed, reviews matches, saves candidates, opens details, and asks the document questions—then writes and submits the proposal outside Sidona on the issuing portal.
What Sidona does not do
Sidona does not draft proposals, fill bid forms, or submit responses. It finds official notices on a 12-hour sync, matches them to your profile, and helps you read them so your team can decide go / no-go faster. Richer amendment alert inboxes are on the roadmap.
- Home — overview stats, matching, and deadline shortcuts
- Profile — KYC company capabilities used for matching
- Contracts — AI search, filters, matched and chat-ready views
- Saved — bookmarked opportunities
- Settings — match digest, threshold, and Manage billing (Stripe portal)
- Docs — this guide
- Contract detail — metadata; Talk to the Tender when RFQ PDF is chat-ready
- Admin — scanners, trials, billing tools (admins only)
Billing changes (payment method, invoices, cancel) run through Stripe's Customer Portal from Settings—Sidona does not store card numbers.