Start with the contract, not the lowest cell.
A bid tabulation compares proposals for a particular contract. Record the agency, contract ID, opening date and applicable specifications first. A low unit price on one line does not tell you which contractor submitted the lowest total bid.
Read the unit and quantity together.
The pay quantity is the agency’s estimated quantity at bidding. Multiply it by the unit price to check the extended line amount. For example, an explicitly educational line of 500 short tons at $120 per short ton extends to $60,000. The arithmetic does not tell you whether binder, placement, hauling or traffic control is included; the pay-item definition does.
Preserve every bidder’s context.
Overall bid rank describes the whole proposal, not the rank of a price on one line. Oregon’s annual files provide overall ranks but do not name bidders or publish contract line IDs. Caltrans supplies bid identifiers in its cost-data results. Missing fields remain unknown in this reference.
Follow the record back to the source.
Each observation links to its source file or page. Workbook records carry a sheet and row number. Verify the work description, unit, quantity, date and price before using a comparison. Check special provisions for differences that a short description cannot capture.
What to do next
Open an item page, read its comparability note and inspect the eligible observations. Use the worksheet only after confirming the definition and edition that apply to your project.
Primary reference: ODOT bid item data and field descriptions ↗