Pro Radar Filters and Advanced Search: Finding the Exact Tenders You Need

The AI matching engine does the heavy lifting of surfacing relevant tenders, but even the best-matching feed benefits from refinement. Pro Radar's advanced filtering system gives you granular control over your personalised radar feed, letting you zero in on the exact opportunities that match your current bidding capacity, strategic priorities, and deadline constraints.

Why Filtering Matters on Top of AI Matching

AI matching is a broad discovery tool — it surfaces every tender that aligns with your company profile. But your bidding capacity is finite. You can only prepare a competitive proposal for a limited number of tenders at any given time. Filtering lets you narrow the field from "every match that fits my profile" to "the matches I should actually bid on this week."

The filtering layer sits on top of the AI matching layer. This means every tender in your filtered view has already passed the relevance test — you are not filtering through noise. You are refining a set of opportunities that are already known to be relevant to your business.

Available Filter Dimensions

Pro Radar provides the following filter dimensions, which can be used individually or in combination:

1. Category and Industry Filters

Filter your radar feed by specific industry categories to focus on the sectors where you want to bid at any given time. If your business operates across multiple categories — for example, a construction company that also does facilities management — you can filter to see only construction tenders this week and facilities tenders next week.

Available categories include all 50+ industry classifications on Tenders SA, from general building and civil engineering to IT services, security, healthcare, cleaning, consulting, and more. Each category can be selected individually or combined in logical groups.

2. Province and Location Filters

Your company profile specifies your provinces of operation, but you can further refine by province in your radar view. This is particularly useful for businesses that operate nationally but want to focus on a specific region for a period — for example, prioritising Gauteng tenders because you have capacity in that region this quarter.

Province filters cover all nine South African provinces as well as national tenders that span multiple provinces or the entire country.

3. Estimated Value Range

Filter by estimated tender value to match your current capacity and appetite. The value filter is especially useful for:

• Small businesses that want to see only tenders under R1 million (RFQ-level opportunities with lower competition).
• Medium contractors looking for the R1 million to R10 million sweet spot where they are most competitive.
• Large firms filtering for mega-projects over R100 million that match their capacity.

Value estimates are generated by the Tenders SA Tender Value Estimator, which uses historical data, document analysis, and benchmark comparisons to provide a reliable estimate range for each tender. Estimated values include min/median/max figures with confidence scores.

4. Closing Date Range

Filter by remaining time until the closing date to match your team's current workload:

• Urgent (7 days or less): Tenders closing soon. Only bid if you have capacity and the opportunity is a high-priority match.
• Short-term (8-21 days): Standard bidding window. Most competitive proposals are prepared within this timeframe.
• Medium-term (22-45 days): Extended deadlines. Good for complex tenders that require detailed proposals, joint ventures, or specialised documentation.
• Long-term (45+ days): Ample preparation time. Ideal for strategic opportunities that require careful pricing or capacity planning.

5. Match Score Threshold

Set a minimum match score to ensure you only see tenders that meet your quality threshold. Common configurations include:

• 70% minimum (Highly Qualified only): For teams with limited bidding capacity that want to focus only on their strongest matches.
• 50% minimum (Highly Qualified + Potential): A balanced view that includes good-potential opportunities while filtering out near misses.
• No minimum (all matches): For a comprehensive view of all opportunities, including near misses that might be fixable.

6. Publication Date

Filter by when the tender was published to track fresh opportunities:

• Last 24 hours: See only the most recently published tenders.
• Last 7 days: A broader view of recent additions.
• Last 30 days: All reasonably fresh opportunities.
• Custom date range: For specific time-bound analysis.

Combining Filters for Precision

The real power of Pro Radar filters comes from combining multiple dimensions. Here are practical examples of combined filter configurations:

Saved Filters and Reusable Search Configurations

Pro Radar allows you to save your most-used filter combinations as reusable templates. This is particularly valuable for businesses that regularly search with the same criteria — for example, a construction company that always starts by filtering for general building tenders in Gauteng and the Western Cape with values between R1 million and R20 million.

Saved filters appear as one-click options in your radar dashboard, letting you switch between different views of your feed instantly:

• A "Quick Wins" saved filter for small, fast-turnaround opportunities.
• A "Major Bids" saved filter for large, strategic tenders.
• A "New Markets" saved filter for opportunities in provinces or categories where you are expanding.
• A "Weekly Review" saved filter for your regular Monday morning bid review.

Sorting Options for Your Radar Feed

In addition to filtering, Pro Radar offers multiple sorting options to arrange your feed based on your priorities:

• By match score (highest first): The default view. See your best matches at the top.
• By closing date (soonest first): Prioritise urgent deadlines so you don't miss closing windows.
• By publication date (newest first): See fresh additions to the database before anyone else.
• By estimated value (highest first): Surface the largest opportunities first for strategic review.
• By radar freshness: A composite sort that balances publication date, match calculation time, and closing date urgency.

Radar Counts: At-a-Glance Feed Overview

The top of your radar dashboard displays radar counts — summary statistics that give you an instant overview of your feed:

These counts update in real time as new tenders are published, matches are recalculated, and tenders reach their closing dates. They serve as a daily dashboard for your bidding capacity planning.

Dismissing Irrelevant Matches

Even with AI matching and filters, you may encounter tenders that are technically relevant but not right for your business right now. Pro Radar allows you to dismiss individual matches, removing them from your feed. Dismissed matches are recorded and will not reappear, ensuring your feed continuously improves as you train it on your preferences.

Dismissed matches can be reviewed and restored if needed, making this a low-risk way to curate your feed without worrying about permanently losing sight of an opportunity.

Best Practices for Using Pro Radar Filters

To get the most from Pro Radar's filtering capabilities:

• Start broad, then narrow. Review your unfiltered feed weekly to spot emerging categories or provinces you might be overlooking. Then apply filters for daily work.
• Use saved filters for recurring reviews. Set up a "Monday Morning" filter that shows all matches from the past week, sorted by score, for your weekly bid review meeting.
• Combine value and deadline filters for capacity planning. For example, filter for tenders under R5 million closing in 14+ days to identify quick-turnaround opportunities that won't strain your resources.
• Review your dismissed matches quarterly. Preferences change, and a category you dismissed months ago might be relevant again as your business capabilities grow.
• Match filter intensity to your team size. A solo bidder should filter more aggressively (70%+ score minimum, narrow categories) than a full bid team that can evaluate more opportunities.

Conclusion

Pro Radar's advanced filtering system completes the tender discovery pipeline. AI matching surfaces relevant opportunities; filtering refines them to match your current capacity and priorities. Together, they create a discovery workflow that is both comprehensive and precise — surfacing every opportunity you might want and letting you focus on the ones you should pursue right now.

For Professional and Enterprise subscribers, the combination of unlimited AI-matched discovery and granular filtering represents the most efficient way to manage government tender discovery at scale.