The workspace's search profile determines which new tenders arrive in Pipeline and which tender alerts the team receives. CPV codes, keywords and prioritised buyers are also used to calculate relevance scores.
Only an Administrator can change the workspace's search profile. Changes apply to the whole team.
Set up filters by selecting Search Overview in Settings.
From here, you can customise these filters:
CPV Codes: When buyers publish new tenders, they choose from a set of standardised CPV codes. Here you choose which codes Cobrief should show you tenders for.
Keywords: When a notice contains one of your selected keywords in its description or title, Cobrief shows you the tender.
Contracting Authorities: Select specific buyers you want to receive or exclude from alerts.
Tender phases: Choose whether to include planning phases so you can prepare for upcoming competitions.
Country: Choose one or more of the 30+ European countries Cobrief covers. With no country selected, you get competitions from every country we cover. See coverage per country, or how to add new countries.
Place of performance: Choose one or more regions where you can deliver to narrow your search. Use Not location bound to include notices without a specified location.
Relevance Score: The CPV codes, keywords and buyers you have prioritised affect the tender's relevance score, based on both their specificity and the number of matches. Tender phases, country and place of performance do not affect the score. This filter lets you receive alerts only for tenders at or above a selected score. It is available during the trial and on paid subscriptions.
The two most important filters are CPV codes (1) and keywords (2).
How the filters work together
Understanding how the filters combine helps you see which tenders you will receive.
CPV codes and keywords widen the search. A tender appears if it matches either one of your codes or one of your keywords. It does not need to match both. Tenders from prioritised buyers are also included, as long as they meet the other restrictions.
Country, place of performance and relevance score narrow the search. A tender must also meet these filters to appear. If you set the place of performance to a single region, for example, tenders to be delivered elsewhere are removed.
Buyers you have excluded are always removed, regardless of whether the tender matches your codes or keywords.
Because codes and keywords widen the search, adding more of them gives you more matches, not fewer. For fewer and more precise alerts, try adjusting the place of performance and relevance score.
CPV codes
Under CPV codes, you can search for specific codes, with matches highlighted. The codes are arranged in a tree, from broad categories to more specific subcategories. Broad codes near the top of the tree generally produce the most matches and the most noise, because buyers use them for many different tenders.
Cobrief matches tenders tagged with exactly the codes you have selected. Selecting a parent code does not automatically include its more specific child codes, so tick the child codes you want to follow.
When you select CPV codes, Cobrief suggests other codes that buyers often use alongside the code you selected. This can help you find more relevant codes for your company.
Next to the save button, you can see how many matches your search will produce. This helps indicate whether the search is too narrow or too broad. Use the estimate to compare your choices. How many matches are useful depends on what you deliver and where.
Tip: Watch the change in weekly matches when selecting a code to avoid overly broad CPV codes.
Keywords
Notices do not always use the most accurate CPV codes, so keywords help you find tenders you might otherwise miss. Keywords also contribute to the relevance score, which is useful if you filter by score.
Click Keywords in the menu on the left.
Cobrief suggests relevant keywords based on your selected CPV codes. You can also enter your own in the text field and click Add.
Choose industry-specific keywords to avoid alerts from unrelated industries.
Examples of precise keywords are “marketing”, “graphic design”, “visual identity” and “typography”. Broader terms such as “management”, “consultation” and “advisory” may produce less useful results.
Each keyword is evaluated separately. A tender matches if the text contains at least one of your keywords, so more keywords broaden the alerts. A multi-word keyword such as “graphic design” matches when the words appear next to each other. Entering two words separately does not require both to appear, and you cannot exclude words.
Select and save suggestions
Suggested service areas and CPV codes are not the same as selected codes. Tick the codes you want to follow and click Save under CPV Codes. Reopen the page to check that your selections are still there.
Keywords are not translated automatically. Add local variants yourself when following tenders in other languages.
Add a CPV list through the agent
Do you have a list from a spreadsheet or a previous search setup? An Administrator with access to the agent can follow these steps:
Open Agent and paste the CPV codes as text, preferably with their names.
Write, for example: “Add these CPV codes to the workspace's search profile. Keep the codes we already have. Show me what you will change before I approve it.”
Check the list of codes to be added and removed. Ask the agent to correct the proposal if anything is wrong.
Select Approve to save, or Reject to keep the current setup.
Open CPV Codes and check the result.
If you want to replace the entire list, say so explicitly. An agent proposal does not change the search profile until you approve it. There is no separate button for importing or exporting CPV lists under CPV Codes.
Search profile, Search and saved searches
Where you make the change | How the filters work | What the change affects |
Workspace search profile | Matches at least one selected CPV code, keyword or prioritised buyer. Country, location, phase and relevance threshold narrow the results. | The team's inbox and shared tender alerts. |
Search, without the workspace's default filters | Selected CPV codes and keywords also match at least one of the choices. If you also select a buyer, the result must be from that buyer. Other filters narrow the results further. | The results list you see now. |
A saved search | Uses its own saved filters. Multiple CPV codes and keywords match at least one of the choices. | Your personal email alerts. The workspace's relevance threshold does not apply here. |
Example: You select a CPV code for cleaning and the keyword “window cleaning”. A tender can then match the code or the keyword. In Search, you can limit both to one municipality using the buyer filter. Prioritising the municipality in the workspace's search profile instead widens the search to include its tenders.
The relevance filter in Pipeline does not change alerts
Under Search Overview, an Administrator selects the Relevance Score threshold for workspace alerts. The choice is saved immediately. With 60+, a tender must score at least 60 to trigger an alert.
The relevance filter in Pipeline only changes the results list you see. If you lower it to All there, the team's alerts still use the saved threshold in Search Overview.
Read more about relevance scores and setting up tender alerts.