# How filters work in Tender Navigator

Source: Tender Navigator Knowledge Base, https://tendernavigator.com/knowledge-base/how-filters-work (canonical HTML). Category: Filters. Published 2026-09-08, last updated 2026-09-08.

> A filter in Tender Navigator is a saved tender search with an AI prompt and an email schedule. While it is active, Tender Navigator checks new tenders against its keywords, countries, classification codes and budget rule every day, evaluates each matching tender with AI against the prompt, and delivers the verdicts to the Results page and a digest email.

## A filter is a saved search that keeps running

The Filters page defines it in one sentence: a filter is a saved tender search that keeps running. Where the [Pre-search tool](/knowledge-base/pre-search-tool) answers one question once, a filter asks the same question of every new tender, every day, and adds a judgement: for each tender it picks up, an AI model reads the notice against the filter's prompt and records **Matched** or **Unmatched** with a written reasoning.

## What a filter contains

| Part | Role |
| --- | --- |
| **Name** | How the filter appears in lists, on results and in email subjects. |
| **Keywords, countries, CPV / NAICS / UNSPSC codes** | The search criteria. They decide which tenders the filter picks up. Same semantics as the Pre-search tool: each list widens the search. |
| **Deadline offset** | Only include tenders whose deadline is at least this many days away. |
| **Translate keywords** | Optionally translate your keywords into the languages of the selected countries. |
| **Tender budget** | An optional range and a rule for tenders that publish no budget. See [Filtering tenders by budget](/knowledge-base/budget-filter). |
| **AI prompt** and **LLM model** | What every picked-up tender is judged against, and which model does the judging. |
| **Notifications & schedule** | Email subject, daily or weekly frequency, day of week, and time. |
| **Status** | Active or paused. |

Full field-by-field guidance is in [Creating and editing a filter](/knowledge-base/creating-a-filter).

## What a filter produces

- **Results.** Every evaluated tender becomes a row on the Results page with the verdict, the reasoning, the tender's details and a snapshot of the filter as it was at evaluation time. See [Understanding Matched and Unmatched results](/knowledge-base/understanding-evaluation-results).
- **Digest emails.** On the filter's schedule, an email with the recent results. See [How filter digest emails work](/knowledge-base/email-digests).
- **Usage counters.** Evaluations performed and stuck tenders this month, shown on the filter and on the Filters page. See [Filter usage and limits](/knowledge-base/filter-usage-and-limits).

## Active and paused

Only an **active** filter searches and evaluates. A **paused** filter is stored, editable and free, and does nothing else. New filters start paused whether you create them by hand, from a search or from the Business Profile. Each plan allows a number of active filters at a time; pausing one frees a slot. See [Activating, pausing, duplicating and deleting filters](/knowledge-base/activating-and-pausing-filters).

## What happens each day

1. Tender Navigator takes the new tenders ingested since the last run.
2. For each active filter, it keeps the tenders that satisfy the filter's keywords, countries, codes, deadline offset and budget rule.
3. Each kept tender is sent to the filter's AI model with the filter's prompt. The model returns a verdict and a reasoning.
4. The verdict is stored as a result and counted against the plan's evaluations for the cycle. When the cycle's evaluations, or the filter's own evaluation limit, are used up, further tenders are recorded as **stuck** and not evaluated.
5. On the filter's schedule, the digest email goes out.

Filtering and evaluation happen daily on every plan; the schedule only decides when the email is sent.

## Where to manage filters

**Filters** in the dashboard sidebar lists every filter, grouped as Active and Paused, with the number of evaluations performed, tenders stuck and the evaluation limit. From there you can open, activate, pause, duplicate or delete a filter, search by name and sort by status, name or evaluations. **Filters** is available only with an active plan.