Working with Response Templates

Response Templates are Word Documents with defined styles and can be customized with your corporate branding. You can add images, boilerplate text, and branding accents to the template to give it a tailored look and feel. The application reads the style guides you select for sections, questions, and answers. You can use the default styles or create your own. This article outlines how to set up a Response Template within Word and how to import into RFPIO.

 

Creating a Custom Template

Begin by creating your styles in Word. You can customize these styles for sections, questions, answers, tables, TOC, lists, etc.

To modify an existing style, right click on a style in the style gallery, then click Modify.

You can modify any attributes of the style: color, size, weight, line height, spacing, padding, etc.

Note: While using images with Response Templates, when specifying a line height for your answer style, use Line spacing: Multiple to ensure the image displays fully upon export. Specifying an exact line spacing will truncate part of the image in the exported file.

 

 

To create a new style that will appear in the style gallery, click the down arrow on the right side of the style gallery.

 

Once you've created the style, save the new style to the style gallery

 

The style name will display a preview of the assigned style will show in the style bar.

 

Similarly, you can customize styles for questions and sub-questions

 

Answer style will default to Normal style. You can modify the Normal Style by right clicking the mouse button and select Modify or create a new style.

 

Modify the style attributes to match your preferred format. Click Ok to save the changes.

 

Creating a Table Style

You can also customize your own table style. To do that, click the Insert menu. Open the Table drop down and select the table size you want.

 

Right click and choose New Table Style

 

Customize your table style: you can change the style name, border color, font style and more. Click OK to save your changes.

 

Your table style is now saved in the style gallery

 

! Important: After defining and creating your table style, delete the table in your document.

Note: A table style applies the defined style to all of the content within a section, and to tables in an individual response. The table style can be enabled on at the export screen as shown in the following image by checking the box on the sections you want in a table. Your content will then export in your defined table style.

 

Creating a List Style

You are able to create a style for how lists are handled from bulleted to numerical/alphabetical as well as mixed combinations. In the following section, the method of creating a custom bullet list style will be demonstrated. To begin to assemble a custom bullet style, navigate to the define new bullet interface, which presents you an option to customize the bullet shape, its starting indentation and more.

 

Once your bullet customization is complete, you are ready to apply that bullet to text and use that foundation to create a new paragraph style via interaction with the style window.

 

Repeat this process to capture the needed bullet sequence and to account for the different levels of content organization needed for your template. Ultimately, you should see a similar arrangement as shown below before moving back into RFPIO to synchronize your style choices. 

 

Once back inside the template upload interface, you can then mirror this same arrangement as shown below.

 

Once the upload of a template is complete, all your bulleted lists existing in your answer fields will follow the template upon export and properly adhere to the specified levels accordingly.

 

Creating a Table of Contents 

You can also include a table of contents or any other content pages within your template. Title the table of contents as you wish (Contents, Table of Contents, etc.). You can customize the font size, color, weight, etc, or choose a pre-built format from the TOC style gallery.

 

To include a TOC, go to References and click Table of Contents drop down. Click Custom Table of Contents.

 

Specify what you want to appear in the table of contents. Click options to customize.

 

Delete the pre-set numbering and customize it. Provide numbers to the styles as 1,2,3... 

 

If you only want the Section names to appear in the table of contents, add a 1 in the box to the right of Section in the list of Available styles. Click OK to save the changes.

 

You can preview the print and web view of the TOC

 

Refresh your TOC: Right click on the table of contents and click Update Field. If there are entries, they will be listed in the contents, otherwise it will show as no table of content entries found. 

Note: When you export a project you will need to right click and hit update field in order for the table of contents to populate. 

 

Defining Where Sections Export

By default the sections from your RFPIO will print at the end of your template. If you want your sections to export into a specific place in your template, enter <<Sections Goes Here>> where you want the sections to print.  The <<sections goes here>> text will be replaced with your section content from the RFP.

 

Save the template to your computer so you can upload the file into RFPIO

 

Importing the Template into RFPIO

Go to Templates page and click NEW TEMPLATE.

 

Enter the template name, select the project type, and upload your response template file.

 

Note: By default, ALL Project Type will be selected, you can remove it and add the required project types.

Map your styles with the elements of the RFP. Mapping styles:

• Section Style: Level 1 = Section; Level 2 = Subsection; Level 3 = Sub-subsection (sub-subsections can be created manually)
• Question Style: Level 1 = Question; Level 2 = Sub-question; Level 3 = Sub-subquestion (sub-subquestions can be created manually)
• Answer Style: applies to all answers
• Answer List Style: Level 1 = first level of bulleted list; Level 2 = second level of multi-level bulleted list
• Response Prefix: Add text that appears before each response (optional)

 

Choose, Use Template Font Family and Size, if you wish to export the responses in template style you have defined.

 

Users can also add response prefix

 

Response Template will be saved and accessible on the Templates page

 

Updating the Template in RFPIO

If the time comes to update any portion of your response template, it is a simple process to do so. If only your static elements (i.e. title page graphics, appendices, etc.) change then you simply need to upload the revised template using the update file button within your template edit menu.

If any of the styles fully changed, then simply utilizing the drop-down menus to select the new correct styles after updating the file will complete the process. You are then ready to export a project using the updated template.