Creating Proactive Proposals with Proposal Builder

Overview

Responsive’s Proposal Builder provides a way to proactively create structured documentation using building blocks of catalogs, section templates, and response templates.

Note: This article refers to Responsive’s proposal builder feature within the application. For the Salesforce version, refer to Working with Salesforce Proposal Builder.

Use Cases

• Use pre-built content commonly included in multiple proposals
• Create an unsolicited document for selling to customers
• Generate a Statement of Work (SOW) based on a set of requirements

Note: Please reach out to your Account Manager to enable this feature and for inquiries regarding professional services with your specific use case.

Creating a Proposal Builder Project Type

To get started, a new project type must be created. To create a new project type:

1. Click your avatar in the bottom left corner and select Organization Settings.
   
   
   
   
2. Under Project, select Type, then click Add New.
   
   
   
   
3. Fill out the Project Type details. For the Type, enter something like “Proposal Builder”. Under Project Format, select the Proposal Builder radio button. Make sure the Status is set to Active, and choose a background and foreground color. Click Save.
   
   

Creating Section Templates

Section templates are pre-written sections and content that can be re-used in proposals. To create a section template, refer to Working with Section Templates.

Catalog merge tags (see Creating a Catalog Structure below) can also be used within section template content. For example, you can create a section template for “Products Offered”. Enter intro content, then type a left bracket and select from the list of merge tags (e.g. [catalog#pp#ProductDesc]). See the example below:

The merge tag will be automatically populated with appropriate content upon generating a proposal.

Creating Response Templates

Response templates are needed to define styles and formatting for the finished proposal. To create a response template, refer to Working with Response Templates.

Creating a Catalog Structure (Optional)

Catalogs can be used to group products and services. In order to create catalogs, a catalog structure needs to be created first. A catalog allows you to reduce the overall number of section templates when your section templates have variations based on different factors (e.g. products and services, industries/verticals, segments, etc.)

Note: Catalogs are not required to use Proposal Builder.

To create a catalog structure:

1. Click your avatar in the bottom left corner and select Organization Settings.
   
   
   
   
2. Under Proposals, select Catalog Structure. Click Create New.
   
   
   
   
3. Enter a Name for the catalog structure, then define the Catalog Merge Tags under Structure Elements. Structure elements give you the flexibility to set your own fields that are included in catalogs (e.g. product description, product cost, etc.)
   
   Enter the Tag Name and select a Type for each element (i.e. Rich Text, Text, Numeric, Formula). The Display Name will automatically populate based on the Tag Name.
   
   For more information, refer to Creating and Managing Catalogs.
   
   When finished, click Create.
   
   

Creating Catalogs (Optional)

With the catalog structure built, a new catalog can be created. To create a catalog:

1. From the main navigation menu, select Catalogs. Then, click Create New.
   
   
   
   
2. Select the catalog structure created earlier, and then fill out the fields. Enter a Catalog Name (the Display Name will automatically populate based on this field).
   
   If enabled, select Business Units. Also, add Owners and Tags as needed.
   
   Then, fill out the rest of the fields based on the elements created while building the catalog structure. When finished, click Create.
   
   
   
   
3. Create catalogs for each of your company’s products and services as needed.

Creating Proposal Groups (Optional)

Once your templated content has been created, you can group them together using proposal groups. To create a proposal group:

1. Click your avatar in the bottom left corner and select Organization Settings.
   
   
   
   
2. Under Proposals, select Proposal Group. Click Create New.
   
   
   
   
3. Enter a name for the proposal group. Then, under each corresponding section, select the catalog(s), section template(s), and response template(s) to associate with the proposal group. To automatically include content while generating a proposal, pre-select items by clicking on the star icons.
   
   
   
   
4. When finished, click Create.
   
   

Generating a Proposal

Lastly, generate a proposal with all the items you created earlier. To generate a proposal:

1. Select the Projects navigation menu icon, and click New Project.
   
   
   
   
2. Under Project Type, select the type created earlier.
   
   
   
   
3. Under Proposal Template, select the group created earlier. This can be used to automatically include catalogs, section templates, and response templates that are part of the group.
   
   
   
   Otherwise, under each corresponding section, select catalog(s), section template(s), and response template(s) to include. Sections can be rearranged under the Table of Contents.
   
   
   
   
4. When finished, click Generate Proposal.
   
   
   
   
5. A preview screen will appear. Review the proposal, then click Generate.

Downloading the Final Proposal

To download the final proposal, from the Export Responses page, click Download.