Egnyte’s Proposal Coordinator significantly accelerates the RFP response process, helping organizations win more projects. It achieves this by analyzing a Request for Proposal (RFP) and automatically generating a complete response based on the historical proposal data. Furthermore, the tool ensures completeness and accuracy by validating the generated proposal against the specific RFP requirements.
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Getting Started
Uploading a RFP
Past Proposals
Outline Generation
Editing Proposal
Locking a section
RFP Requirements
Marking as final
Proposal History
Proposals Coordinator Dashboard
Agent Settings
Known Limitations or Issues
Getting Started
Users can immediately begin working with Egnyte's Proposal Coordinator because it is pre-configured.
Start by navigating to the AI module -> Agents in the navigation bar and select the Proposal Coordinator tile.
Alternatively, select the AI icon anywhere it is available throughout Egnyte and select the Proposal Coordinator option under Agents. It will redirect users to the Proposal Coordinator dashboard.
The first time the users land on the Proposal Coordinator Dashboard, the dashboard will be empty. Select New proposal to get started.
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Uploading a RFP
After creating a new proposal instance, the first step is to upload the RFP document. Click the Select File option and choose from 2 options:
- Add from Egnyte
- Upload files
To add a file from Egnyte, navigate the folder structure to locate the desired RFP. Check the box next to the file, then click Select to proceed.
To upload a file from the computer, select the location to save the file. Then, use the Select files option to browse and choose a file from the computer to upload.
Once the RFP is chosen, the system automatically generates the Proposal name. This is done by appending the suffix - Proposal draft - [yyyymmdd] to the name of the uploaded file. Users have the option to change the Proposal name whenever necessary.
The next step is to populate mandatory metadata associated with the RFP including Market sector, Client name, and Project location. These fields will be saved as tags on the RFP file and will be taken into consideration in the next step when identifying similar historical data.
Users can select a previously used value by clicking in the field, or they can enter a new value and choose the Create tag option.
After all mandatory fields are populated, select the Past Proposals option to continue.
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Past Proposals
The past proposal step allows users to leverage historical data to generate an initial draft of the proposal response.
Egnyte's AI analyzes various factors and suggests similar proposal documents to the RFP. These recommendations, which are stored within the Egnyte instance, can be found on the AI Recommended tab.
Users will see the recommended files sorted initially by their Match percentage. However, sorting and filtering options are available using the various columns displayed.
If additional files are required, or the AI Recommended files are not applicable, users can toggle to the Manual Selection tab and Add from Egnyte or Upload files from their computer.
Users may select a maximum of 5 files total, combining the choices from the AI Recommended tab and the Manual Selection tab.
Once at least 1 file is selected, users can proceed by selecting the Generate Outline button.
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Outline Generation
Once users select Generate Outline, a thinking screen will appear while the system generates the corresponding proposal sections.
Once proposal sections are generated, users can access the content by clicking on the respective section. However, immediately after generation, clicking a section may initially display a loading or thinking screen while the content is finalized.
Users can begin refining their proposal response as soon as any single section's content is generated, without having to wait for the content of every section to be complete.
If additional sections need to be added, or automatically created sections need to be deleted, users can select the More button (3 vertical dots) adjacent to a section and select the Add new section or Delete section option respectively.
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Editing Proposal
Using AI Prompts
One of the quickest and easiest ways to improve the AI generated content for a respective section is to provide a detailed prompt. Select the input field for the respective section and provide a detailed explanation of what needs to be improved.
Users can select from the following options in the lower right hand corner of the input field:
- Improve prompt: Egnyte will suggest ways to improve the prompt, making it more detailed and often resulting in better results
- View prompt: Select from prompt library to insert and use the prompt
- Select sources: Select files to use as sources for the prompt
- Voice command: Use microphone to verbalize a prompt rather than typing it
The prompt that was used to generate the respective section will be visible at the top of the section content. Hover over the pill to view the full prompt via a tooltip.
Submitting the prompt will result in a new version of the content for the respective section. Users can toggle through the full version history at the top of each section.
Manually Editing
Rather than regenerating an entire section, users may want to make small tweaks or changes to the section content. Users can manually edit the AI generated content by selecting the Edit option.
Clicking Edit opens a modal where users can access rich text editing features to modify the content of their section or apply their preferred formatting. Users can also edit the Section name from here if they prefer.
Saving the changes by selecting Save will create a new version of the section content.
Inserting Boilerplate Content
The final method for editing the proposal section is by using boilerplate content. This content consists of standard responses that the firm can reuse across multiple proposals because the information remains consistent.
Select the Boilerplate option and then Replace with boilerplate content to insert saved content from the Boilerplate library.
Inserting new content via the Replace with boilerplate content option will result in a new version of the section content.
To learn how to add entries to the Boilerplate library, visit the Agent Settings section later in the document.
Each time content is edited that results in a new version of a section, Egnyte will automatically verify the section content against the RFP requirements. Learn more about how RFP requirements work below.
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Locking a section
Assembling a proposal response is often a multi-user endeavor. Egnyte’s Proposal Coordinator allows users to lock sections for editing to avoid accidentally overwriting each other’s changes. To lock a section, select the More button (3 vertical dots) adjacent to the respective section, and then Lock section to edit.
When a section is locked only the user that locked the respective section will be able to make edits.
Locked sections are easily discoverable via the lock icon adjacent to the respective section.
To unlock a section, again select the More button adjacent to the respective section and then Unlock section.
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RFP Requirements
Egnyte’s Proposal Coordinator streamlines the compliance process by automatically extracting and presenting RFP requirements in an easily digestible format. This provides users with clarity on outstanding requirements and confidence that their proposal response is complete.
To view the requirements for a respective section, select the Requirements button.
This will open a collapsable panel that identifies all items that need to be addressed as part of the proposal response.
Within the section content, the green in-line citations are used to link the content directly to the corresponding RFP requirements. This helps users quickly see which part of the content addresses which requirement.
If one of the requirements is not addressed in the section content, it will be shown via a white circle on the Requirements panel.
Each time a new version of a section is created either via AI, manual edits, or by inserting boilerplate content, Egnyte will automatically verify which requirements are met.
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Marking as final
When section content is complete and no longer requires changes, users should mark the corresponding section as final via the Final version toggle.
This will place the respective section in a read only mode, where actions such as AI prompts, editing, or replacing with Boilerplate content are disabled. A green checkmark will be shown in the Outline column indicating that the section is complete.
If additional edits are required, users can continue editing by toggling the Final version off.
In the event a section is marked as final but one or more RFP requirements has not been addressed, the user will be asked if they want to continue. Select Back to editing to address the missing requirement or Mark final to proceed anyway.
Once all sections have been marked as final, the Generate Draft button will become enabled.
Selecting the Generate Draft button will convert the proposal outline to a Microsoft Word document that is automatically saved in the same location as the RFP file.
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Proposal Draft
After selecting Generate Draft a consumable Microsoft Word file will be available for review. Select Share to generate a link to the proposal draft, Download to save a copy of the Word file locally, or Go to Folder to view the Egnyte folder in which the proposal draft is saved.
If additional edits are required, users can select the Back button to revert to the Outline stage, or open the Word file in its native application to make changes.
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Proposal History
Selecting the History icon in the upper right hand corner will open a list of all past proposal instances.
These proposal instances will be sorted by Last Modified date, with the most recent proposal instance appearing at the top. Clicking on an instance will take the user to the most advanced step the proposal reached in that specific instance.
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Proposals Coordinator Dashboard
Users can navigate to AI -> Agents -> Proposal Coordinator. They will be able to access the Proposal Coordinator dashboard with all the proposals listed.
Users can filter the view by Proposal Name, Market sector, Client name, Status, and Created by. They can also sort the view by any of the columns and choose to Hide filters.
Users can also click on the delete icon to delete a particular proposal.
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Agent Settings
From the AI module -> Agents, users can select the More button on the Proposal Coordinator tile to access the Agent Settings.
When the user selects Settings, they will be directed to the Details tab, which is set to read-only mode. Users can view the Agent description as well as the instructions given to the agent that detail its thinking.
Select the Boilerplate Library tab to begin adding standard proposal responses that can be repurposed from RFP to RFP.
A Section title, Market Sector, and Section content are required for each entry in the Boilerplate Library.
To save a new entry in the Boilerplate Library, the combination of the Section title and Market Sector must be unique. Users cannot save an entry if both the Section title and Market Sector are the same as an existing entry. At least one of these two values must be different.
To add additional sections to the Boilerplate library, select the Add section button. Once Boilerplate Library entry is complete, select the Save button to add it to the library.
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Known Limitations or Issues
- After uploading an RFP, Power Users are currently unable to create new tags when populating the Market Sector, Location, and Client name. This is currently limited to admins but will be addressed soon. After the fix is provided, admins will still need to create the first proposal instance via the agent so that the “Proposal tags” namespace is available for users to save the Market Sector, Location, and Client name into. This is a one-time action and will not need to be repeated.
- Selecting the Back button after generating the proposal draft currently redirects a user to the Proposal dashboard. This will be addressed to redirect the user to the previous Outline step.
- After generating the Outline, users are currently unable to scope their AI prompts to specific files or folders and are limited to the previously selected past proposals. This will be addressed by providing users with a file picker where they can select any files to which they have access.
- After marking a section as Final, the Requirements button is currently disabled. This will be enabled so that users can still view section requirements despite the section being placed in a read-only mode.
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