A Bidding Plan is a controlled collection of defined auctions. Once implemented, a Bidding Plan will only allow one of its contained auctions to be active at any one time for any one bidder. The intent is to allow many similar auctions to be listed together in a single Bidding Plan and allow conditions to dictate which of the plan’s auctions will be shown to the current bidder. Listing auctions together under a single plan also allows a method of global activation by setting a condition on the Bidding Plan itself. An active Bidding Plan (as determined by its condition) will display its active auction; an inactive plan will effectively not exist and will display nothing.
Assembling auctions together in a single plan is required. An auction cannot be used, viewed, or bid in without it first being listed in a Bidding Plan because the main auctions interface window only displays auctions contained in active Bidding Plans.
Besides providing global control, assembling auctions together under a single plan also provides Rules a method for linking the auctions together. For example, a rule could target whether or not a bidder has won an item in any auction under a shared parent plan.