How to use Calau, from day one

What to do in the first half hour, before preparing your first proposal.

1. 1Create the account at calau.app and confirm your e-mail address. The organisation starts with the trial period active, with no card and no commitment.
2. 2In the second step of sign-up, set the organisation’s country and currency. That decides the currency of your budgets and the prices you see under Plan and usage.
3. 3Open the Dashboard. Everything starts here: what is in progress, what is waiting on a decision, and how much you have used this month.
4. 4Go to Settings · Document layout and pick a graphic template, or upload your organisation’s logo and colours. Everything you export from then on comes out that way.
5. 5Under Settings · Budget defaults, set the name and percentage of the tax your organisation applies. It saves repeating it in every budget.

Screenshot still to be added.

Worth knowing: Do this before the first proposal. Changing the layout later means exporting again, and changing the tax does not fix budgets already closed.

The fastest route, and the one made for people with no time to open the platform. Send the tender, get the draft back.

1. 1Go to Settings · E-mail channel and press Create. Your organisation gets a secret address of its own.
2. 2Send the terms of reference to that address as an attachment. In the same e-mail you can add your consultants’ CVs, the company profile, the description of your services, past work and the fee table.
3. 3If you have no written profile, say in the body of the e-mail what your company does and what it has done. It is kept in the library and serves the next proposals too.
4. 4Write your guidance in the body: what to highlight, constraints, deadlines. Everything you write guides the writing of every section.
5. 5You get two replies: one immediately acknowledging receipt, and another minutes later with the Word file, the PDF and the budget spreadsheet attached, plus the list of points left flagged.

Screenshot still to be added.

Worth knowing: The address is a password. It only accepts messages from members of the organisation, and the content is used to write and nothing else: it does not approve, submit or change settings. If you give it away by mistake, rotate it on the same screen.

When you prefer to follow step by step, or when the tender came from the Radar.

1. 1Under Opportunities, create a new one and fill in the title, the contracting entity, the country, the currency, the language and the deadline.
2. 2Pick the document type. There are eight, each with its own section structure and writing guidance.
3. 3Under Documents, upload the terms of reference and send them for analysis. It accepts PDF, Word, Excel and plain text.
4. 4Wait for the analysis. When it finishes, the Compliance Matrix is filled with the requirements found, each with its source page.
5. 5Under Guidance, write what you want the writing to highlight. It is the equivalent of the e-mail body and applies to every section.

Screenshot still to be added.

Worth knowing: If you prefer a guided route, use the Proposal wizard: it takes the seven steps in the right order and will not let you move on without the essentials.

The list of what the tender requires and what your proposal answers. This is where you see what is missing.

1. 1Open the Compliance Matrix. Each row is a requirement pulled from the terms of reference, with type, obligation, source and risk.
2. 2Confirm the rows the AI extracted. Those you have not confirmed are counted at the top.
3. 3Add by hand whatever is missing. A tender does not always say everything in one place, and what the AI did not see does not stop existing.
4. 4For each requirement, say which section answers it and what the evidence is. That link is what lets the platform warn you about an unanswered requirement before you export.

Screenshot still to be added.

Worth knowing: A mandatory requirement with no answer blocks the export. It is not stubbornness: it is the difference between a proposal that competes and one that is dropped at screening.

What your organisation knows about itself. The more is in there, the better Calau writes.

1. 1Open the Library and upload the institutional profile, the description of services, previous proposals, case studies, client references, policies and certificates.
2. 2Give each document a title and a category. The category decides where it is looked for when the writing needs a source.
3. 3Wait for indexing. An indexed document can be cited, and the Indexing column tells you where it stands.
4. 4Use the search at the top to confirm that what you uploaded is found by the words you expect.

Screenshot still to be added.

Worth knowing: A scan with no text cannot be indexed. When a document ends up with indexing failed, it is almost always a PDF that is a photograph of paper.

CVs go in once and serve every proposal.

1. 1Under Consultants and CVs, upload each person’s CV. Calau extracts education, dated experience, languages, sectors and countries.
2. 2Review the extracted profile and correct whatever needs it. You can ask for a fresh extraction if you upload a better version of the CV.
3. 3With permission to see fees, set each consultant’s daily rate. The budget uses it before falling back to the country estimate.
4. 4In the opportunity, open Team and let Calau propose who fits the roles the tender requires. The recommendation comes explained, criterion by criterion.

Screenshot still to be added.

Worth knowing: Full CVs always go attached to the proposal, because many tenders score them. They are not cut down to one line.

Calau writes, whoever signs decides.

1. 1Open the Proposal editor. The sections already follow the structure of the document type you chose.
2. 2Generate the empty sections. Each is written from the matrix requirements, the library sources and your guidance.
3. 3Read what was flagged. Calau marks what it could not ground rather than inventing it, and those points are counted at the top.
4. 4Edit directly in the editor. A section you open is locked to others for thirty minutes, so two people do not write over each other.
5. 5Under Methodology, compare two to four approaches and pick the one you will use, or combine them.

Screenshot still to be added.

Worth knowing: Flagged points are data the request did not carry. If you do not correct them they go out as they are, which is why the export counts them before letting you through.

Auditable arithmetic, with the origin of every rate in plain sight.

1. 1Open the Budget and ask for the suggestion. The AI proposes the lines, the quantities and the rationale, and never the prices.
2. 2Check every line. Those using the country’s indicative rate are marked, and that note carries into the financial annex.
3. 3Add or correct lines by hand. The total, the tax and the rounding are calculated by the platform and not by the AI.
4. 4If the tender requires the financial proposal as a separate document, set the template under Settings · Financial proposal, with cover, letter, company details and bank details.

Screenshot still to be added.

Worth knowing: The budget currency has to be the one the tender requires. If they differ, the export warns instead of letting it pass in silence.

The last step before submitting, and the only one Calau does not do for you.

1. 1Under Approvals, go through the review stages. The summary separates what blocks from what only warns.
2. 2Clear the blockers: empty sections, mandatory requirements with no answer, AI fields left unconfirmed, a currency different from the one required.
3. 3Approve the version. It is recorded, with who approved it and when.
4. 4Under Export, pick the layout and generate. You get the Word file and the PDF, and the budget spreadsheet when the document type carries one.
5. 5Submit to the recipient. Calau exports; the one who submits is always your organisation.

Screenshot still to be added.

Worth knowing: Every export stays in the history with its version. If you need to go back, the previous file is still there.

Published tenders, gathered every day, so you do not find a notice on the day it closes.

1. 1Open the Radar and filter by country and sector.
2. 2Open whatever interests you. Each card carries the contracting entity, the deadline and the link to the original notice.
3. 3Create the opportunity from the card: the title, the entity and the deadline come filled in.
4. 4In the organisation settings, turn on the daily e-mail alerts and pick the countries you want to follow.

Screenshot still to be added.

Worth knowing: Only tenders whose deadline has not passed are shown. Those that closed are kept, so they are not proposed again, but they stop taking up the list.

How much you have used, what the plan includes and how to change it.

1. 1Open Plan and usage. It shows the documents produced this month, the AI units and the users, each with its limit.
2. 2From 80% onwards a warning appears, so there is time to react before the limit stops you.
3. 3To change plan, pick the one you want in the comparison and pay right there. By card the change is immediate, the adjustment is proportional to the time remaining and the renewal date does not move.
4. 4In Mozambique you can pay by mobile wallet. Each period is a separate purchase, with no automatic debit: to renew, you pay again.
5. 5If you need more documents in a month, buy single documents. They add to what the plan includes and do not expire at the end of the month.

Screenshot still to be added.

Worth knowing: On the trial, proposals come out cut in half and without the financial part. It is there to judge the quality of the writing, not to send to a client.