ProcureData Chat: Natural-Language Federal Procurement Search

ProcureData Chat is a natural-language interface to the ProcureData procurement database. Type a question; the tool selects the appropriate database function and returns matched tenders, contracts, vendor profiles, or spending trends. There is no general-knowledge component: every answer comes from a live database query at the time you ask.

Supported queries

The tool has eight database functions:

Function	Use for
search_tenders	Finding active or historical solicitations. Full-text search across tender titles and descriptions. Filters: department, status (open/closed).
search_contracts	Finding awarded contracts. Filters: department, vendor name, minimum contract value. Returns contract details including value, dates, and award method.
get_stats	Aggregate contracts by vendor, department, or commodity category. Use for "who wins contracts for X", "which departments buy X", "breakdown by category."
get_top_vendors	Vendors who most frequently win contracts in a specific area. Useful for mapping the competitive landscape before bidding.
get_department_spend	Year-over-year contract spend for a specific department. Returns a timeline chart in the UI.
get_renewals	Contracts expiring within a configurable time window. Useful for identifying upcoming renewal opportunities.
get_vendor_profile	Summary for a specific vendor: total contracts, total value, top departments, category breakdown.
get_bid_intel	Competitive intelligence for a specific opportunity: who typically wins, historical contract value range (p25/median/p75), sole-source rate, unique winner count.

Example questions that work well:

• What cybersecurity tenders are open right now from Shared Services Canada?
• Who are the top vendors for IT services at DND?
• Show me IBM's vendor profile — total contracts and department breakdown.
• How has National Defence's contract spend changed since 2018?
• Which contracts at PSPC are expiring in the next 90 days?
• How competitive is the cloud hosting space at Treasury Board — who wins, what's the typical contract size?

Coverage

• 2.1M+ records: contracts (proactive disclosure), tenders, and awards from CanadaBuys / buyandsell.gc.ca
• Federal scope only — provincial and municipal procurement are not included
• Contracts date from 2004 (proactive disclosure launch); tenders from ~2010
• Refresh: contracts and awards weekly (Monday), tenders daily
• Department names normalized from ~90 raw variants to ~20 canonical forms for consistent filtering

Limitations

• Provincial and municipal procurement not covered — use source portals (SEAO, BC Bid, etc.) or check the Tenders page
• The chat does not expose raw procurement lifecycle links within a conversation — use get_procurement_lifecycle via the API for that
• Sole-source rate in get_bid_intel is already a percentage on a 0–100 scale (e.g., 0.6 means 0.6%, not 60%)
• Vendor name matching is partial — try shorter name fragments if an exact name returns no results

API access

For programmatic access or queries outside the chat's scope, use the REST API via RapidAPI. The full OpenAPI 3.0.3 spec is at procuredata.ca/openapi.json.

Free tier: 25 requests/day. Pro: 1,000 requests/day at $49/month.