Working with Claude: what to ask

This guide is for the people who use Claude every day. Whoever connects it should start with Connect Claude or the walkthrough Setting up Claude with ProcDuck. You do not need special prompts. Ask the way you would ask a colleague, name the thing you mean, and say what you want back.

How to ask

Three habits make any request better.

• Name the thing. A tender number in any spelling, a NUPCO code, a quotation number or a product name.
• Say the result you want. A priced bid, a draft quotation, a list of gaps, a summary you can read in a minute.
• Say what you want checked. Ask where each number came from, and which items Claude could not do.

Find tenders

Describe what you are looking for in your own words.

• “Which open NUPCO tenders have items that match my catalog?” Claude searches inside the line items, not only the titles, and tells you what it found.
• “Summarise tender NDP0591/26 and group its items into product families.” You get the summary and the families, so you can see in a minute whether the tender is yours.
• “Which tenders close this week, and which of them have items we sell?” A short list, soonest deadline first.
• “Create a keyword alert for nitrile gloves.” From then on ProcDuck tells you when a new tender matches.

Price

Pricing is where Claude saves the most time, because every price should come with its history.

• “Price the items we selected on NDP0591/26 from last year's awards and our supplier quotes. Leave out anything with no source.” Claude pulls the award history for each NUPCO code and your suppliers' replies, sets the bid prices, and lists the items it left empty.
• “Which of our prices on this tender are below the last award for the same code?” A quick check before you submit.
• “Show every supplier quote we have for this product, newest first.” Quotes recorded from your RFQs, with the supplier and the date.

Quote

• “Draft one quotation per item for the items we priced on NDP0591/26.” Each one carries your logo, terms and salesperson, and starts as a draft.
• “Draft a single quotation with all the priced items.” One document for tenders that ask for a combined offer.
• “Which quotations on this tender are still drafts?” A status check without opening the list.

Source from suppliers

• “Create an RFQ for the items on NDP0591/26 that have no price, and prepare the Excel for the supplier.” RFQs are on the Pro and Enterprise plans.
• “Record the prices in this attached reply as a quote from our supplier.” Attach the supplier's PDF or paste the email. Claude reads it, records the lines and tells you any it could not match.
• “Compare the replies we have for this RFQ.” Every supplier and every line side by side.

Orders

• “Create a sales order for the tender we won: the customer, the lines and the prices from the approved quotations.” A sales order in ProcDuck, numbered and ready to be fulfilled by deliveries.
• “Create a purchase order for these three items with our manufacturer.” A draft purchase order with its lines. Purchase orders show supplier costs, so they are open to the roles that may see costs.
• “Record the arrival of 120 units against PO-000118.” The receipt is added to the line, and the order moves to partly received or received by itself.
• “What is late? Show open orders and deliveries past their due date.” One answer instead of three screens.

Sales and purchase orders are on the Pro and Enterprise plans. For the details, see Orders.

Files and letters

• “Write the cover letter for tender NPT0071/26 from the approved quotations.” An Arabic cover letter whose total matches the price file.
• “Build the NUPCO attachments file for the approved quotations. The RFx response number is …” The text file and every PDF it cites, named the way the file cites them.

The NUPCO files and the cover letter are on the Pro and Enterprise plans, and they read prices from the bid, so price and approve first.

The NUPCO files take the catalogue number, packing, country of origin and attached catalogs from your products. To complete the products themselves (NUPCO codes, packing, photos and datasheets), use the Claude skills for your catalog.

Standing instructions worth having

Write these once in your Claude project's instructions or your personal preferences, and change the examples to yours.

• The default salesperson is Sara A. Quotations stay valid for 30 days.
• Round prices up to 0.05 and never go below a 12% margin.
• Say where every number came from: an award, a supplier quote or one of our past quotes.
• List the items you could not do, and why, instead of guessing.
• Ask me before you send an email, an RFQ or anything to a portal.
• Never approve quotations. I do that after I read them.

Before you approve

• Every number has a source you recognise.
• The items left empty are the ones you expected.
• Quantities and units match the tender, not a similar item.
• The customer, the salesperson and the validity on each quotation are right.
• For a portal: the filled form matches the product record, and you are the one who submits.

When Claude cannot do something

• It says it is not allowed (403). ProcDuck refused the action because of your role, your plan or the connection's permissions. Ask an admin, or do it in the app.
• It says your plan does not include it. Claude connects only on Pro and Enterprise, and on Starter every request is refused. See Pricing.
• It says the day's allowance is used up (402). Every request Claude makes counts against your organization's daily allowance of API calls: 1,000 on Pro, unlimited on Enterprise. Your colleagues and the WhatsApp assistant share it. A long tender can use many.
• It cannot find a tender or a product. An empty result means the search found nothing. Try another spelling, the NUPCO code, or the tender number in a different form.
• It says your plan allows one connection per user. On Pro each user may hold one API key or MCP connection, and you already have one. Ask an owner or admin to revoke the old one under Settings → Integrations, then connect again. Connecting the same Claude again does not count as a second connection.

Want your whole team working this way? We set Claude up and train them: Claude for your team.