# Follow-ups and declines

> AI-drafted chase emails after you submit, approved in one click, plus polite decline emails when you pass on a bid.

Source: https://automatedconstruction.io/tidy/docs/features/follow-ups
Section: Features

After you submit a bid, someone has to keep asking the client for the result. Tidy's follow-up agent drafts those emails for you on a schedule. Each draft waits for approval, and nothing leaves until a person sends it.

## Where drafts show up

- **Hub > Main > Pending Follow-Ups**: your drafts. Click one to edit, then **Preview & send**.
- **Follow-Up Approvals**: a full page for approving drafts quickly. Open it from the **Approve draft emails** button in the weekly follow-up email, or go to `/follow-ups`.
- A bid's **Messages** tab, under **Draft Follow-Ups**.

You see drafts on bids where you are the lead or on the team.

## Approve drafts

1. Click a draft to open it beside the list.
2. Change the recipients, subject, body or attachments if you want. Edits save as you type.
3. Click **Approve & send**, or **Preview & send** to see the email first, or **Delete** to throw it away.
4. With two or more drafts, **Approve all** sends them one after another.

Sending sets the bid's follow-up status to **Awaiting Reply** and schedules the next follow-up.

## How drafts are made

- **On a schedule**: twice a day (6 AM and 6 PM, company time), Tidy drafts for every bid that is Submitted, has no result yet and whose next follow-up date has arrived.
- **On demand**: on a bid's **Messages** tab, click **New Message** then **Generate follow-up with AI**, or right-click a bid and choose **Generate follow-up**.
- **For everyone at once**: an admin clicks **Run now** on the **Bid Follow-ups** plugin.

The drafts learn from your follow-ups that got replies. They ask only for the bid result.

RFI chasers use the same queue and carry an "RFI follow-up" tag. See [RFIs](https://automatedconstruction.io/tidy/docs/features/rfis).

## Settings (admins)

In Agent mode, **Skills & Plugins > Plugins > Bid Follow-ups**:

- **Master** and **Background** switches. Turn off Background to stop scheduled drafting.
- **Cadence**: days between follow-ups on a bid. The default is 21.

When a bid is lost, declined or archived, its unsent drafts are deleted.

## Declining a bid

When you pass on an opportunity, click **Decline**. The decline dialog lets you:

- Write your own note, or click an AI draft: **No Capacity**, **Scope Too Small** or **Out of Area**.
- **Send Notification** to email the client and decline.
- **Decline Without Notifying** to decline with no email.

The bid moves to **Closed**. The AI buttons need the **Bid Declines** plugin.

## What the agent can do

The agent can list your pending drafts, run the follow-up agent, and open a pre-filled follow-up or decline for you to send. It never sends these emails itself.

> [!agent]
> Tools: `list_pending_follow_up_drafts`, `run_follow_up_agent`, `draft_follow_up`, `draft_decline_email`. Over MCP: `n8n_trigger` with slug `run-follow-up-agent`.

## Limits

Generating a follow-up counts toward the daily AI limit (**Run now** counts as 10). Sending counts toward the daily email limit.

## Related

- [Follow up on bids](https://automatedconstruction.io/tidy/docs/guides/follow-up-on-bids)
- [Decline a bid](https://automatedconstruction.io/tidy/docs/guides/decline-a-bid)
- [Weekly reports](https://automatedconstruction.io/tidy/docs/features/reports)