This is the companion to our DDC core profile, "DDC's $43 Billion Book." That piece tells you where the money is. This one is the six things that get a bid thrown out or never submitted — in the order they'll hurt you.

1. Enroll in PASSPort, all the way. Every DDC solicitation, bid document, PQL application and award runs through the City's PASSPort procurement portal now. Create the vendor account and finish it — disclosures included. An incomplete enrollment blocks submission on bid day, and bid day is the wrong time to find that out.

“The portal is the truth; the notice is a tip.”

2. Search by EPIN, not by name. DDC's City Record notices give you the EPIN (format 85027B0007) and tell you to search it in PASSPort's keyword field. Do that. And do not rely on the City Record date — we've caught DDC notices printing long-superseded due dates while PASSPort carried the live one. Southern Boulevard moved from 5/27 to 8/19 to 9/16. Safe Routes Queens has two PASSPort RFx records, and only one of them is live. The portal is the truth; the notice is a tip.

3. Check whether the job is PQL. The notices say the public PASSPort link "is only for NON-PQL projects" — prequalified-list jobs go only to firms already on the list. So if a category you bid is PQL-restricted, apply to the list before the solicitation, not after. PQL applications are PASSPort records in their own right (example: PQL000172 for the Bergen Basin trunk sewer).

4. Prevailing wage and registration. DDC work is public work under Labor Law Article 8 and, for City contracts, Local Law 220; the NYS DOL contractor registry applies. Price it that way from the first line.

5. Bid security and bonding are set in each solicitation's front-end documents — read them on every job, because they aren't the same on every job. Where DDC publishes an agency estimate, it's in PASSPort (Southern Boulevard: $14.33 million; Safe Routes Queens: $22.54 million).

6. Watch the openings live. DDC posts bid openings on its public video channel and preliminary results on its site. Those results say "apparent low bidder." That is not an award — it's who was low in the room before anybody checked the paperwork.

Get those six right and you're bidding. Get any one wrong and you're watching somebody else do it. Download the official documents from PASSPort and read every addendum before you price a thing.