Too broad
The digest becomes a reading list. Remove a generic term, split the market or add a relevant CPV, buyer or stage.
Winston IntelligenceTender alert guide
A tender alert is a saved test, not a guarantee.
An alert reruns criteria against new published activity and tells you about matches. Its value depends on the search, source coverage, timing and the review routine around it.
- Published
- Updated
- Next review
- 1Criteria
Words, CPVs, buyer, stage, deadlines, value and industry.
- 2New activity
Published records are tested against the saved criteria.
- 3Notification
Matches become a prompt to review, not an automated qualification.
- 4Official check
The current notice, documents and response route decide what to do.
Scout today
Saved searches feed one daily digest.
Scout Free currently allows five saved searches in a one-seat workspace. Saving and digest delivery require a signed-in account.
- Cadence
- When new matches exist, Scout sends each recipient at most one digest in a day. It is not an instant alert service.
- Combined activity
- New saved-search matches and followed-buyer activity can appear in the same digest.
- Free background work
- Background matching and the digest do not consume a deliberate-search allowance or credit.
- Workspace action
- A saved search belongs to the workspace and can be seen by its members; Scout Free currently includes one seat.
Criteria that stay useful
Save the market, not a moment in time.
Run the search first and inspect its matches. Scout retains the repeatable criteria, not a fixed publication-date window.
- Keywords
- Use a small family of buyer terms for the work or outcome. Split unrelated services into separate searches so one noisy term does not hide the rest.
- CPV and industry
- Add the classification routes buyers may use, but keep a keyword version too. Classification quality varies between notices.
- Buyer
- Use a named buyer when the relationship matters more than the whole market. Follow the buyer as well if you want activity outside one set of criteria.
- Stage and deadline
- Separate early engagement, live tenders and awards. A deadline range can focus a working queue; a publication-date filter is not retained in a Scout saved search.
- Value
- Use a range only when it genuinely changes delivery or qualification. Missing or estimated values can exclude a relevant notice.
Tune from evidence
Diagnose the failure before adding another alert.
Too narrow
No email can distinguish a quiet market from criteria that missed the buyer's wording. Re-run the search and inspect near misses.
Duplicate
Several saved searches may match the same notice. Name each search by its purpose and consolidate overlapping criteria.
Out of scope
An alert cannot find activity outside its service coverage, private tender workspace, invitation route or unpublished buyer plan.
The coverage limit
One alert does not cover every UK portal.
Scout alerts match its directly ingested Find a Tender, Contracts Finder and Public Contracts Scotland records. Scout has no independent Sell2Wales or eTendersNI adapter, so suppliers working in Wales or Northern Ireland still need the relevant official search and alert routes.
Choose the official services for your geographyA ten-minute digest routine
Triage, verify and improve.
- 1
Open the likely matches.
Dismiss obvious mismatches, but note the words or CPVs that caused them.
- 2
Check the official source.
Confirm the live deadline, amendments, lots, documents and response route before qualification.
- 3
Separate timing.
Route early activity into preparation, live tenders into qualification and awards into learning.
- 4
Adjust deliberately.
Change one criterion only when reviewed results show a repeated miss or repeated noise.
Primary sources
Official alert behaviour checked at source.
Winston checked these official pages on 31 August 2026. Each official service controls its current account and notification behaviour.