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Importing a bid file is how you get your customer’s lane data into BidRight. You’ll upload the Excel spreadsheet your shipper sent you, map the columns to BidRight fields, and let BidRight standardize the data.

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When to use this

  • You just received an RFP or bid file from a shipper.
  • You need to get lane data into BidRight so your team can start pricing.
  • You’re importing a Round 2 or updated bid file for an existing customer.

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How to import a bid

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Step 1: Navigate to your customer's bid

Go to the customer in BidRight and open (or create) the bid you want to import into.If the bid does not exist yet, create it first. You need a bid record before you can import lanes.
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Step 2: Start the import

Click the import button on the bid detail page and upload an Excel file (.xlsx or .xls).Use the raw file your shipper sent you. BidRight handles the cleanup.
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Step 3: Map your columns

BidRight attempts to automatically match columns in your file to the fields it needs, including Origin City, Origin State, Origin ZIP, Destination City, Destination State, Destination ZIP, and Customer Lane ID.
Review the suggested mappings. If BidRight guessed wrong on a column, right now you need to re-open the spreadsheet and rename the column header to what it should be.
For example, if the shipper named a column Railroad and that column is really Trailer Type, rename the header to Trailer and re-import.Manually correcting mappings is coming soon to BidRight.
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Step 4: Review and confirm

Before the import runs, review the preview of how BidRight interpreted your data. This is your chance to catch wrong mappings, unexpected blanks, or formatting issues.Once everything looks right, confirm the import. BidRight processes the file in the background.
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Step 5: Review the results

After import, review lanes in the bid detail grid:
  • Are origin and destination cities correct?
  • Are miles calculated?
  • Did any lanes get flagged with errors?
If something looks off, check the import summary for error details.

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Location normalization

BidRight standardizes city, state, and zip combinations to a consistent internal format during import. For example, “St. Louis, MO” and “Saint Louis, Missouri” resolve to the same location. This prevents duplicate lanes caused by minor formatting differences in the customer’s file. Zip codes are always accepted as an alternative when a city/state combination is ambiguous.
BidRight auto-detects columns whose headers match common patterns. For example, a column named Origin City or O_City is likely to be mapped automatically. Review auto-detected mappings before you confirm.

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What to watch for

  • Customer Lane IDs must be unique.
  • Large files with lots of historical data from your TMS process in the background. You do not need to wait on the import screen. BidRight will process the file and notify you when it is ready.
  • You can re-import. If you need to start over or import an updated file, you can. The new import replaces the previous lane data for that bid.

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