PandaDoc vs. Qvidian RFP & Proposal Automation

As an alternative to other electronic signature mechanisms, I can't recommend PandaDoc more highly. It works, plain and simple. It is less costly - by a lot - than most alternatives, stores signed documents online for easy access, is simple to use by both our staff and our clients, and makes our lives far easier.

Incentivized

Functionality and support are my two main areas. I want to be able to speak to someone when I have an issue. To Quvidian's defense, my company didn't see the value in sending someone to NH for the training. I'd used an RFP machine before so they thought that was sufficient. It was a poor decision on the company's part because although it was similar, it was not the same.

• PandaDoc allows our team to create and send detailed sales proposals and quotes with the use of their templates.
• The use of collaborative editing is also beneficial because our team is able to have multiple users edit and comment on documents simultaneously.
• Document tracking is useful because we are able to receive real-time notifications and updates on the proposal process.

Incentivized

• The search function ranks information based upon usage and is adaptive, learning/improving rankings with every search. This makes finding the right piece of information quick and easy.
• The tool offers flexibility to build various types of sales documents (proposals, presentations, case studies). This drastically reduces the time it takes to put together a client-facing document.
• The content management functionality allows for various content formats and related content can be connected. This simplifies tracking content updates by knowing which other pieces of information may also need review and update when a change is made outside the normal update cycle.

• I would like to see the ability to LOCK a field instead of locking an entire block or document.
• I would like to see more standard features that need to be part of the service instead of add-ons.
• Would like to see an option to allow different levels of users than just the two standard options.

Incentivized

• This is a weird one but when adding content to the 'Q' the tab in word sometimes disappears. Not sure why that happens and we haven't really tried to trouble shoot yet. My solution at the moment is just closing it and re-opening it. Sometimes it works and sometimes I have to do it a few times.
• While being a great place to keep content for our team to access, there is always the thought of whether the information is still accurate. Especially when comes to statistics and facts. We at times get so used to just using what is in our boilerplate that we forget to question whether information is accurate or not. This is more of an observation for users rather than an issue with 'Q' however the information is only as good as it's accuracy.

We have been using it for a few years now and find it vital to getting our bids out quickly and accurately to our customers. We can get a request for information from a customer and once we have their basic parameters create a professional bid in minutes. It's actually usually harder to find out what the customer wants than to use PandaDoc and create a document with it

Incentivized

We've already renewed our contract with Qvidian and plan on using it for the foreseeable future. Apart from the fact that Qvidian has all the features we need to respond to RFPs and maintain a large informational database, the time that would need to be spent researching and testing out a different piece of software just wouldn't be worth it. All of our users are well learned in Qvidian, and it's easy to teach to new users. Having to learn a brand new application when the current one works great is pointless. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" applies here.

Once you get the hang of it, it's very easy to use. There can be a slightly steep learning curve to get fully in on the system. The new editor v2 has really improved usability and allows us to collaborate on documents simultaneously. Once the templates and library items are set up, a new document, whether it be a sales or HR document, takes very little time to complete.

Incentivized

The shift they made in architecting documents from content to outline, is now reversed allowing outline creation first, then content which is more natural. But, due to the fact that we went through a migration of content to get to the new version, it feels less optimized than if we would have re-implemented.

End users having to configure settings more often than desired

We haven't had any real issues regarding downtime as of yet.

Incentivized

Qvidian system maintenance is performed on weekends, usually at odd hours, and advanced notice is given so that teams can plan accordingly.

As I mentioned earlier - performance is near perfect as I can create, send, adjust my documents. I love the tracking feature as well as I can tell when my documents have been seen and by whom. The only issue I have run into is with saving and formatting - occasionally the file document does not save with the newly assigned name or the content of the document does not stay formatted nicely.

Incentivized

Remote or VPN employees seem to have somewhat slower access time. Server maintenance has improved performance.

Finding occasional recurring prompts to update settings in Microsoft (Explorer, Word, Excel, Powerpoint)

Recently I could not upload a pdf to a contract - support was very responsive and easy to work with. They got back to me the next day with an apparent fix - however when I opened the document nothing had changed. I then could not respond to the rep who was helping me because it was a "no-reply address", the problem still has not been solved and we had to make alternate arrangements to get this to the client. Never had it happen before and was only with this one contract.

Incentivized

They are very much in support of great customer service. They respond quickly with emails and in some cases phone calls to resolve any issues and often times user questions in the past when I could not figure something out.

Incentivized

Live instructor training is expensive, though we have had instructors come to our offices for a ‘refresher’ before. The refresher was more of a “let us fix that for you” than a training on how to do it ourselves.

Online training is limited in my opinion.

Implementation was before the time I was here at Riafox, however, support has been great in assisting to merge spaces and upgrade to 2.0 Editor.

Incentivized

IT works great. UPgrades are handled automatically. I was not involved in setup but I know they are there when we need them

Incentivized

PandaDoc is a more polished, professional, and 'legitimate' software site than other solutions, since PandaDoc really specializes in creating professional proposals, quotes and invoices. The eSignature capacity and pricing table capacity embedded in the documents as well as fillable fields, pre-made, customizable and reusable templates also make PandaDoc stand out.

Incentivized

Of the competitive vendor demos I have reviewed over the years, each may have its own strength. Some may be set up to drive compelling differentiators or solutions (E.g., propLIBRARY.com). Some may be built on existing CRMs (E.g., Qorus). Some may have tablet-friendly interfaces (E.g., SAVO). Others focus on collaboration (E.g., XaitPorter). There is nothing wrong with any of these models. You will just have to perform your own gap analysis and see what best addresses your needs. For Blackboard Inc., none of the aforementioned competition offered a holistic and robust replacement for our current PA tool. We have senior writers to craft compelling differentiators. We use SFDC, not SharePoint as our EA CRM. While our strategic writing and architectural needs outweigh having the slickest tablet-friendly user interface, we still have an interface and user experience that is geared toward usability and performance while being cognizant of adoption. New collaborative tools are a big draw, especially when responding to private sector proposals with a 10-to-20 day turnaround. However, not only has this not been a pain point for us (we currently have a versioning process in place) but the conversion and adoption hurdles just for one feature where there is already a workaround in place does not justify the migration.

I agree. We have created folders for multiple departments and have been successful with the usage.

Incentivized

• We have greatly increased the efficiency in which we can get signatures from individuals for documents and increase productivity.
• We have been able to find older documents very easily.
• W-9 have been very difficult due to Section 3, but this was addressed with conditional logic

Incentivized

• Our experience has been largely positive. It's allowed our RFP team to quickly and efficiently produce very professional documents. This has lead to more time being able to speak to the clients needs specifically. We've received lots of positive feedback from clients saying that the RFP looked tailored to them, and not just some content dumped in a binder. That was our goal.