DeskOS guide: Tender and donor ESG desk

DeskOS gives engineering, environmental and social, and donor advisory firms a free web desk with ten working calculators, a signals list and AI scoring that runs on your own AI key. This guide explains every part and what it does not do.

1. Get your desk

• Go to the DeskOS home page, choose this desk, and enter your firm name, email and country.
• DeskOS emails you a private link. That link is your login: bookmark it and do not share it.
• Lost the link? Use "Email me my desk link" on the home page. If you think someone else has it, open your desk and press "Send me a fresh link": the old one stops working.

2. The ten calculators

Open the Calculators tab. Yellow fields are inputs; results update as you type. Percentages are entered as percentages (15 means 15%). Each result shows the formula it uses.

• T01 Bill of quantities escalation stress test: Base BoQ with material escalation, currency risk and contingency compounded.
• T02 Joint venture qualification check: Combined turnover and lead-partner share against the tender minimums.
• T03 Donor-funded assignment budget: Expert fees, field allowances and reimbursables for a consulting budget.
• T04 Quality and cost based selection (QCBS) score: Combined score from your technical score and your price against the lowest bid.
• T05 Bank guarantee charges: Commission on a bid or performance guarantee for its validity period plus the issuing fee.
• T06 Interim payment after retention: Net payment on an interim certificate after retention and advance recovery.
• T07 Resettlement and land rehabilitation estimate: Compensation and rehabilitation cost with a monitoring allowance on the whole amount.
• T08 Local content share: Local subcontracting and labour as a share of the bid price.
• T09 Key personnel billing net of mobilisation: Billable expert months minus mobilisation, permits and a replacement reserve.
• T10 Liquidated damages exposure: Delay damages after approved extensions, capped at the contract maximum.

The same calculators are in the Excel workbook under Downloads. They are planning estimates: check rates, rules and contract terms for your own jurisdiction before relying on a figure.

3. Signals

Open tenders from 13 public sources (World Bank, UN agencies, UNDP, EBRD, the EU's TED, and national portals in the UK, South Africa, Kenya, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Colombia), read once a day. The free desk follows one region, your own country first; Pro follows the regions and sources you choose. Contract awards are left out.

• Sources: World Bank; UN Global Marketplace (UNGM); UNDP Procurement Notices; EBRD Client e-Procurement Portal (ECEPP); TED, Tenders Electronic Daily (EU); Find a Tender (UK); Contracts Finder (UK); eTenders (South Africa); Public Procurement Information Portal (Kenya); CanadaBuys; AusTender; GETS (New Zealand); SECOP II (Colombia). The full list, what each covers and what is not covered yet: /sources.
• Each notice shows its source and links to the original notice page, with the buyer, the deadline and the documents.
• Choose regions at the top of the Signals tab. The free desk follows one region, your own country first; Pro follows as many regions as you like and lets you untick sources you do not need. "Multi-country and global" is for programmes that cover several countries.
• New notices arrive once a day: up to 10 a day on the free desk and 40 on Pro, newest first. Notices whose deadline has passed and contract awards are never added.
• On Pro, put keywords in Assets and keywords (for example: solar, water, ESIA, supervision) and only notices that mention one of them are added.
• Some sources publish in their own language (SECOP II in Colombia is in Spanish; TED titles are in English).
• Add your own signals with "Add a signal": a title, the organisation, a deadline, a link and notes.
• Free desks keep up to 25 signals; Pro keeps up to 200. The oldest feed items are removed first; items you added yourself are never removed automatically.

4. AI scoring with your own key

DeskOS does not pay for or supply an AI model. If you add your own key, DeskOS sends the title, organisation, country, type, deadline and your notes of up to ten unscored signals, plus your assets and keywords, to your provider and saves the score (0 to 100), a short reason and a next step it returns. Without a key nothing is scored.

• Google Gemini: Free tier with a Google account. Create a key in Google AI Studio. Sign up: https://aistudio.google.com/app/apikey
• Groq: Free tier. Sign up, then create an API key. Sign up: https://console.groq.com/keys
• OpenRouter: Free models available. Sign up, then create a key. Sign up: https://openrouter.ai/keys
• Paste the key in the AI key tab and press Save, then Test. Your key is stored encrypted and is only used for your own desk. Press Remove at any time to delete it.
• Scores come from the model and can be wrong. Read the notice before acting.

5. Plans and services

• Free desk ($0): Ten working calculators for your trade, in the browser and as an Excel workbook; A signals list you fill yourself (up to 25 kept); Score signals with your own Gemini, Groq or OpenRouter key, 10 at a time; Tender desk: open tenders from all 13 sources for one region, your own country first, up to 10 new a day; Award Radar: who won public contracts in your country in the last 30 days, at what price, against how many bidders.
• DeskOS Pro ($19 a month): Everything in the free desk, with up to 200 signals kept; Tender desk: every region you choose, the sources you choose and your keywords, up to 40 new a day; Award Radar for 18 countries and a full year: sector search, the price range of the evaluated bids, and the subcontract radar (foreign firms that just won in your country); Cost to bid on the notice where the portal publishes it (bid security, fee), and Kenya's AGPO reserved tenders as a keyword; The Tender Readiness Pack included: compliance matrix, submission planner, key-expert CV template, technical proposal skeleton; Automatic daily scoring of new signals with your own AI key; A daily email when new matching notices arrive; CSV export of your signals.
• Bid Desk ($69 a month): DeskOS Pro included for as long as Bid Desk runs (Award Radar, the Pack, every region); One Bid / No-Bid Memo a month on the tender you choose ($29 on its own); One Bid Check a month: a person checks your bid pack before you submit ($39 on its own); The subcontract radar for your countries: foreign firms that just won and will need local partners; A monthly win/loss report for your sector and countries: who won, at what prices, and why other bids fell. When: Intake form at once; your first report within 5 working days; each memo within 3 and each Bid Check within 2 working days of a complete request.
• Bid / No-Bid Memo ($29 once): A written memo (1 to 2 pages) on one tender you send us: any public or donor-funded tender with documents; What the client really asks for, in plain words; Eligibility and qualification check against what you tell us about your firm; How proposals will be scored, the effort it will take, the risks, and a clear bid / no-bid with reasons; What similar contracts in that country went for, and how many firms bid, from the award notices. When: Within 3 working days of a complete intake form.
• Bid Check ($39 once): A person reads your bid pack against the tender's own instructions and data sheet; Completeness and eligibility: every form, certificate, power of attorney and signature the tender asks for; Bid security and validity: amount, wording, issuer and dates against what the tender requires; Key-expert CVs against the funder's format and the terms of reference, and the methodology against what will be scored; A written list of what to fix, most serious first. When: Within 2 working days of a complete intake form (send it at least 3 working days before the deadline).
• Desk Setup ($39 once): A 45-minute video or WhatsApp call at a time you choose; Your desk, keywords, assets and AI key set up with you; The calculators and Excel workbook walked through with your own numbers; A written summary of what we set and what to do next. When: Call within 5 working days of your intake form.
• Tender Readiness Pack ($9 once): Compliance matrix workbook: every requirement, owner and status in one place; Submission planner: works backwards from your deadline, with a clarifications log; Key expert CV template with an adequacy-for-the-assignment table; Technical proposal skeleton with prompts for every section. When: Download links by email the moment Whop confirms payment.

Pro is bought on Whop. Use the same email address as your desk so it upgrades automatically; DeskOS also emails you a licence key you can paste in the Plan tab. If Pro checkout is not open yet, the Plan tab says so.

6. Your data

• DeskOS stores your firm name, email, country, the signals in your desk, your assets and keywords, and (if you add one) your AI key, encrypted.
• Ask for deletion at any time and your desk and everything in it is deleted.

7. Help

Questions or problems: email deskos@atomicmail.io.