Getting Started

Learn the basics of Cothon and get up and running in minutes

Updated 2026-03-3013 min read

Welcome to Cothon! This comprehensive guide will help you get started with our AI-powered procurement intelligence platform and transform how you discover, analyze, and win government contracts.

What is Cothon?

Cothon is an end-to-end procurement intelligence platform designed specifically for government contractors, procurement professionals, and business development teams. We combine advanced AI technology with deep procurement domain expertise to help you work smarter, not harder.

Core Capabilities

Discover Opportunities Browse and filter government tenders from multiple Canadian sources including CanadaBuys, PWGSC/TPSGC, SEAO, and Open Canada. Our automated collection system updates opportunities multiple times daily, ensuring you never miss a relevant tender.

Analyze Bids with AI Upload RFP documents and let our advanced AI extract every requirement, categorize them by type and priority, and match them against your company's capabilities. Get instant insights on compliance gaps, risks, and opportunities.

Generate Winning Proposals Transform your bid analysis into complete proposal drafts with one click. Our AI generates 18 specialized sections including executive summary, technical approach, management plan, past performance, and more—all tailored to the specific opportunity.

Track Vendor Intelligence Research competitors and partners using comprehensive vendor analytics. See contract history, win rates, agency relationships, joint venture partnerships, and procurement trends across the entire Canadian government marketplace.

Collaborate in Real-Time Work seamlessly with your team through shared analyses, live document editing, comments and annotations, status tracking, and workflow management. Everyone stays aligned throughout the bid lifecycle.

Who Should Use Cothon?

Cothon is built for professionals involved in government procurement:

Capture Managers & Business Development

Monitor opportunities across multiple agencies
Evaluate win probability and strategic fit
Track competitor activity and teaming opportunities
Build pipeline and forecast revenue

Proposal Managers & Writers

Quickly understand RFP requirements
Generate compliant proposal drafts
Manage requirement-to-response mapping
Collaborate with subject matter experts

Executives & Decision Makers

Make informed bid/no-bid decisions
Monitor team productivity and win rates
Access market intelligence and trends
Optimize resource allocation

Government Relations & Consultants

Research agency procurement patterns
Identify teaming opportunities
Track set-aside opportunities
Monitor competitor positioning

How Cothon Works

Cothon's workflow is designed around the natural bid lifecycle:

1. Discovery Phase

Find the right opportunities

Start your day by browsing fresh opportunities in the Opportunities module. Our smart filters help you narrow down thousands of tenders to the ones that match your capabilities, size, and strategic focus.

Save your search criteria to create custom feeds. Set up notifications so you're alerted immediately when matching opportunities appear. Track closing deadlines with calendar integration.

Example Workflow:

Filter for IT Services opportunities from DND valued at 500K-5M
Save this search as "DND IT Opportunities"
Enable Slack notifications for new matches
Review 5-10 highly relevant opportunities instead of 500 irrelevant ones

2. Evaluation Phase

Decide which opportunities to pursue

For each opportunity, access AI-powered intelligence including strategic fit score, win probability assessment, competitive landscape analysis, and resource requirements.

Link opportunities to your CRM to track through your sales pipeline. Research the issuing agency's procurement history and identify potential teaming partners.

Example Workflow:

Review opportunity intelligence for a PSPC cloud services RFP
See that you've won 3 similar contracts from PSPC
Notice a requirement for bilingual support (a gap in your capabilities)
Identify potential partners with strong French-language capabilities
Make informed bid/no-bid decision in 15 minutes instead of 2 hours

3. Analysis Phase

Understand requirements deeply

Upload the full RFP document to Bid Analysis. Our multi-stage AI pipeline extracts every "shall", "must", and "required" statement, identifies hidden requirements buried in evaluation criteria, categorizes requirements by type (technical, functional, compliance, operational), and assigns priority and complexity scores.

Review requirements in your preferred view mode: List View for detailed analysis, Grid View for quick scanning, or Table View for export and manipulation.

Example Workflow:

Upload 250-page DoD RFP
AI extracts 147 requirements in 60 seconds
Identify 12 high-priority technical requirements
Flag 3 compliance gaps requiring subcontractor support
Export requirement matrix to Excel for team review

4. Matching Phase

Assess your capability alignment

Cothon automatically matches each requirement against your company profile. See instant capability assessment for every requirement, gap analysis with specific capability recommendations, confidence scores based on past performance, and risk flagging for challenging requirements.

Update your company capabilities to improve matching accuracy over time. The AI learns from your updates and gets smarter with each use.

Example Workflow:

Review 147 matched requirements
See 95 "Fully Meets", 38 "Partially Meets", 14 "Cannot Meet"
Drill into "Partially Meets" to understand gaps
Realize you have the capability but haven't documented it
Update company profile to improve future matches

5. Proposal Phase

Generate winning content

Generate a complete proposal draft with one click. Our AI creates tailored content for 18 sections including executive summary, technical approach, management plan, staffing plan, past performance, pricing strategy, and more.

Each section is customized using your company profile, specific RFP requirements, past performance examples, and industry best practices.

Edit and refine the generated content using our rich text editor with collaborative editing, version history, template library, and export to Word/PDF.

Example Workflow:

Generate proposal draft from analyzed RFP
Review and refine AI-generated executive summary
Add subject matter expert input to technical approach
Insert past performance examples from your company database
Export polished proposal draft to Word for final formatting
Total time: 3 hours instead of 3 days

6. Collaboration Phase

Work seamlessly with your team

Share analyses and proposals via secure public links. Team members can add comments and annotations, track requirement status changes, assign tasks and responsibilities, and monitor overall progress.

Real-time collaboration means everyone works on the latest version. No more emailing files back and forth or dealing with version conflicts.

Example Workflow:

Share bid analysis link with technical lead
Technical lead reviews requirements and adds capability assessments
Proposal writer receives notification and starts drafting
Pricing lead adds cost estimates to relevant sections
Team completes bid in coordinated workflow instead of chaotic email chains

Quick Start Guide

Get up and running with Cothon in under 30 minutes:

Understanding the Platform Architecture

Cothon uses a modern three-panel layout optimized for procurement workflows:

Left Panel: Navigation & Context The navigation sidebar provides access to all major modules and quick actions. It remains accessible across the platform for easy navigation.

Center Panel: Primary Workspace The main content area is where you do your work—browsing opportunities, reviewing analyses, editing proposals, and viewing analytics.

Right Panel: Contextual Information The contextual panel shows relevant details and AI assistance based on what you're viewing. When analyzing a requirement, see capability matching details. When viewing an opportunity, see related analyses and intelligence.

This three-panel design minimizes context switching and keeps related information together. You can collapse panels to maximize workspace when needed.

Key Concepts and Terminology

Understanding these core concepts will help you get the most from Cothon:

Opportunities (Tenders) Government procurement opportunities sourced from official channels. Each opportunity includes metadata like department, value, closing date, location, and the full solicitation document.

Bid Analysis The process of extracting and categorizing requirements from an RFP. Cothon's AI performs multi-stage analysis including text extraction, requirement identification, categorization and prioritization, and capability matching.

Requirements Individual "shall", "must", or "required" statements extracted from RFPs. Requirements are categorized as technical, functional, compliance, operational, or administrative, and rated by priority (high/medium/low) and complexity (1-5 scale).

Capability Matching Comparing RFP requirements against your company's documented capabilities. Match statuses include Fully Meets (complete alignment), Partially Meets (some gaps), and Cannot Meet (significant gaps).

Proposals Generated documents responding to RFP requirements. Cothon creates proposals with 18 specialized sections tailored to each opportunity.

Vendor Analytics Intelligence on companies doing business with the government. Track contract history, win rates, agency relationships, and joint ventures.

Organizations Multi-tenant workspaces for companies. Organizations include team members with role-based access, shared company profile and capabilities, centralized document storage, and team collaboration features.

Sharing & Collaboration Public link sharing for analyses and proposals, real-time collaborative editing, comments and annotations, and status tracking across team members.

Learning Paths by Role

Choose your learning path based on your role:

For Capture Managers

Browse Opportunities - Find relevant tenders
Opportunity Intelligence - Evaluate strategic fit
Vendor Analytics - Research competitors
Similar Opportunities - Find related tenders
CRM Integration - Sync with your pipeline

For Proposal Managers

Your First Analysis - Analyze an RFP
Understanding Requirements - Deep dive on extraction
Capability Matching - Configure capabilities
Generate Proposals - Create proposal drafts
Collaboration Features - Work with your team

For Business Development Executives

Dashboard Overview - Monitor key metrics
Opportunity Pipeline - Track opportunities
Win Rate Analytics - Measure performance
Market Intelligence - Understand trends
Team Management - Manage users and roles

For Technical Contributors

Quick Wins - Get immediate value
Requirement Review - Assess technical requirements
Adding Comments - Provide input
Keyboard Shortcuts - Work faster
Mobile Access - Work on the go

Getting Help

Documentation Browse our comprehensive documentation at docs.cothon.ca. Use the search function (Cmd/Ctrl + K) to find specific topics quickly.

In-App Help Click the help icon (?) in the top navigation or press Shift + ? to open contextual help for the current page.

AI Assistant Press Cmd/Ctrl + / to open the AI assistant. Ask questions about how to use features, get guidance on best practices, and receive personalized recommendations.

Support Email support@cothon.ca for technical assistance. Enterprise customers have access to priority support with guaranteed response times.

Community Join the Cothon Community forum to connect with other users, share best practices, and request features.

What's New Check the changelog at cothon.ca/changelog for the latest features, improvements, and bug fixes.