Platform Migration Planned for RFP Response Management

For the last couple of years, we have been using the RFP360 platform to manage our response process for all client questionnaires, including RFPs, RFIs, and risk assessments for due diligence. This platform has contributed greatly to our recent success in increasing our organizational win rate, particularly its centralized content library capabilities. Having a tool that allows us to rely on past responses which we know contain accurate information and position us as the experts we are helps us avoid having to demand too much time and effort from our SMEs.

While RFP360 has taken us leaps and bounds ahead of where we were several years ago, our team has also had our share of frustrations with some of its limitations. That’s why we are so excited to finally make the migration over to the new and improved RFPIO platform.

RFP360 will be sunsetted later this year, but we still have plenty of time to get our RFP response team familiar with the new platform before then.

What’s the difference between RFPIO and RFP360?

The team at RFPIO have made some major updates to the functionality of RFP360. Our processes will largely remain the same, but the updates and completely new tools they’ve added will help make each step more efficient and user-friendly.

Input Automations: the initial steps will move much faster for the RFP admin uploading a list of questions into the platform. RFPIO can auto-detect similarities between question stylings to apply classifications to a template in bulk, rather than having to individually click every individual question or answer.
Intuitive Tasks Dashboard: many users found the old RFP360 list of open tasks confusing and hard to discern what exactly they were responsible for. In RFPIO, your “My Work” dashboard will neatly group tasks by project, type, and due date, so you can better understand what is due from you and when.
More Powerful Content Recommendations: new metadata options for each of our Q&A pairs will allow us to help the RFPIO recommendation engine identify which of our responses are most likely to be relevant. A five-star rating system will rank our preferred answers higher in the list of suggested answers than those that were more likely used in unique outlier cases. Individual users can also mark their favorite answers for an extra layer of quality filtering.
Easier Collaboration: engage the rest of the team in a discussion with more robust comment threads. Chat functions can help multiple response authors come to a consensus on how a question should be answered, and now they can even include attachments with their messages.
Streamlined Review Process: we can now add a workflow of multiple reviewers, so once authors have completed their drafted answer, we can establish multiple quality checks. For example, we could have one reviewer for accuracy, one for alignment with the positioning of the rest of the response, and one for final polishes. This will help us clearly establish who is responsible for approving the response and when they should step into the process to begin their review.
Centralized Document Storage: the new platform will allow us to save all of our branded supporting attachments in the same place where we draft our response. Once everything is ready to export, the final zip file package includes everything we need to submit to the client.
Scheduled Content Audits: maintaining the content library will be easier than ever with owners assigned to each Q&A pair and the option to define how often the content should be reviewed. Our team will be able to update our answers with any changes in processes, capacity, or other variables on a regular basis, so we know everything in the library is as relevant and accurate as possible.

These are just a few of the impressive updates that will help us keep the RFP response process running smoothly.

What should we expect from the migration process?

We are currently in the stage of onboarding where admin users receive training from our RFPIO contact, with a target completion date of mid-June. Our Venture Solutions admin, Claire Henderson, will soon be sending out a training session invitation for all our team members we rely on as subject matter experts.

This training session will be recorded for anyone who cannot attend or who will be invited to the platform in the future. We will cover:

How RFPIO fits into our response management process
How you will use RFPIO to respond to questions that are assigned to you
How we will leverage RFPIO’s features to continuously improve our responses and process
Any questions users have about the platform or our response process

Once we have held the training session, all users who have been sent an RFPIO user invite will need to verify their accounts on the platform to receive their question assignments for future RFPs. We are targeting July 3 to have fully migrated our RFP response process over to the new RFPIO platform.

Until then, RFPIO has an extensive help center with how-to guides covering the author response process for anyone curious about digging into the new platform and its capabilities:

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to Claire.Henderson@venturesolutions.com.

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