eForms Business Terms (BT Fields)

Business Terms, known universally in the eForms ecosystem as BT fields, are the atomic building blocks of every eForms notice. Each BT field has a numeric identifier prefixed with "BT-" (for example, BT-01, BT-09, BT-300), a human-readable label, a specific data type, and rules governing when it must or may appear in a given notice type.

What are eForms Business Terms (BT Fields)?

The eForms SDK defines several hundred individual BT fields, covering every piece of information that may appear in a procurement notice from the legal basis of the procedure through to the name of the winning tenderer. Each field is categorised by its usage status in each notice type: mandatory (M), optional (O), conditional (C, meaning it becomes mandatory or forbidden depending on other field values), or not applicable (N/A).

BT fields are organised into groups reflecting the logical structure of a procurement notice. Procedure-level fields capture information about the overall contracting authority and procedure type. Lot-level fields capture information specific to individual lots within a larger contract. Organisation fields capture buyer and winner details. Result fields capture award outcomes. Because lots are a first-class concept in eForms, a single notice can contain multiple sets of lot-level BT fields, each describing a distinct part of the procurement.

Some BT fields draw their values from controlled vocabularies, meaning only pre-approved codes are accepted. For example, procedure type fields accept codes from the EU's procurement procedure vocabulary (open, restricted, competitive with negotiation, and so on). Others are free-text fields with character limits. Still others are numeric, date, or Boolean fields. The data type is defined in the SDK and enforced by schematron validation before a notice is published on TED.

A specific example is BT-01 (Legal Basis), which records which EU Directive or national transposition law governs the procedure. This single field determines many downstream validation rules, because different directives (2014/24/EU for general public contracts, 2014/25/EU for utilities, 2014/23/EU for concessions, and 2009/81/EC for defence) have different rules about which notice types, procedure types, and thresholds apply.

Why BT fields matter for bidders

BT fields are what make European procurement data genuinely comparable at scale. Because the same field, say the estimated contract value or the deadline for receipt of tenders, always appears in the same BT-coded slot across all notices of a given type, procurement platforms can aggregate and filter this data with high reliability. Bidders benefit from consistent, structured market intelligence rather than having to parse inconsistent free-text notices.

BT fields also enforce transparency obligations that previously varied by member state interpretation. When a field is mandatory in the SDK, every contracting authority across the EU must complete it. This means that suppliers can, for the first time, make reliable cross-border comparisons on fields like award criteria weights, subcontracting requirements, and framework agreement duration.

Example

A Spanish contracting authority publishes a Contract Award Notice using eForms. The notice includes BT-720 (Tender Value), BT-539 (Award Criteria), BT-113 (Framework Duration), and dozens of other BT fields. A bidder's procurement intelligence platform parses these fields automatically, populating a structured record that can be filtered, compared with similar contracts, and used to benchmark future bid pricing.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many BT fields are there?

The exact count varies with SDK version, but the eForms SDK defines several hundred distinct BT fields across all notice types. Not all fields appear in every notice; the set applicable to any given notice is determined by the notice subtype and the values of conditional fields.

Can a contracting authority add fields beyond the BT definitions?

No. The eForms format is fixed by regulation. Contracting authorities cannot add proprietary fields to a TED notice. Additional information (such as full tender documents) is provided via links to the buyer's own e-procurement portal, not embedded in the eForms notice itself.

Where do I find a list of all BT fields?

The complete field list is published in the eForms SDK repository maintained by the Publications Office of the EU. Procurement platforms typically surface a user-readable version of the most commercially relevant fields.