A tender is a defined document, not an email thread. This walkthrough takes you from an empty dashboard to a published tender that reaches every matching service provider: the way every tender on MBN begins.
Build a tender and publish it so matching service providers can bid.
An approved vessel organization. Having your Equipment library (and Parts library, for goods) set up first makes this faster: see those lessons.
About 10–15 minutes.
Reflects app v1.5.9
From your dashboard open Tenders and choose Create tender. First decision: the type: Service (labor/work), Goods Procurement (ordering parts), or Service & Goods (both). This shapes the whole form, and it's locked once you publish, so choose deliberately.
The tender-type choice: Service, Goods Procurement, Service & Goods.
Standard means a bidding window of up to 7 days. Shipyard Preparation allows up to 30 days but requires an estimated start date. These caps are enforced: MBN won't let you publish a window longer than the type allows.
The urgency choice: Standard (≤7-day window) vs Shipyard Preparation (≤30-day).
Here's where it gets easy: describe what you need in plain words, and the Tender Helper drafts your scope summary and details for you, and the title too, if you haven't written one. It's a starting point you refine, not a black box. Then pick the engineering category that matches the work, that's how MBN routes your tender to the right providers. The only thing that stays private is your internal budget; everything else in the scope is what bidders read (your vessel's identity is handled separately: see step 6). You're set as the tender's contact automatically, your email, which you can change, plus an optional phone, since you're the one running its communications.
The scope panel with the Tender Helper drafting the summary and details from a plain-language description.
Attach the installed equipment the job concerns as 'Equipment in scope': context so bidders know exactly which machinery they're working on. It rides along on any tender type and it is NOT a priced line (parts are, that's the next step). Pull it from your Equipment library, or create the equipment right here while you draft, it's saved to your library at the same time.
The 'Equipment in scope' section, picking equipment from the library or creating a new item inline.
On a Goods or Service & Goods tender, choose how the parts are specified. 'List the exact parts' turns your parts into line items (brand, description, quantity): pull them from your Parts library, or type them in here and save them straight to your library as you go, so you only ever define a part once. 'Describe what I need' lets you write it in prose instead and each provider's uploaded quote defines its own lines. Pure Service tenders skip this entirely.
The line-items table: parts pulled from the library, or typed in and saved back to it.
Vessel particulars control whether bidders see which specific vessel this is for. Default is 'Share with bidders'; you can also choose 'Show on request' (they ask via a clarification) or 'Do not show': useful when you'd rather stay low-profile while still tendering the work.
The vessel-particulars visibility options: share, on request, do not show.
Decide the documents every bidder has to include. Labor warranty terms, parts warranty terms, and an insurance certificate are required by default: untick any that don't apply. They adapt to your tender type: a Service job asks for labor warranty, a Goods job for parts warranty, Service & Goods for both. You can also require a license or certification and describe exactly what to upload: say, a class-approved welding cert. A bidder can't submit without what you've marked required.
The bid-requirements section: labor/parts warranty, insurance, and optional license toggles.
Pick the service regions to target, this matters: no regions, no recipients. Then set the bidding open and close times. MBN matches providers by engineering category AND region, so between the category and the regions you decide exactly who this reaches.
The regions multi-select and the bidding window (opens/closes) fields.
The button reads 'Create draft tender', it saves a draft and drops you on the tender's page. Review everything, then Publish. The moment you publish, MBN emails every service provider whose category and region match, no vendor list to maintain, no one to chase.
The 'Create draft tender' button, then the Publish action on the tender detail page.
Once it's live, you can invite specific companies to bid, your trusted registered providers (Preferred Market) or outside companies as free guests, answer clarifications, schedule site visits, and finally award. Those are the next lessons in this section.
Log in and create your first tender. New to MBN? Request free access, and once an MBN officer approves it, the dashboard is live for you immediately.