Qvidian RFP & Proposal Automation vs. XaitPorter

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.

XaitPorter is ideal when a large document, containing many (preferably independent) sections is being created by more than five writers across different office locations and is subject to review by multiple reviewers and requires formal approval. It is particularly suited for external documents which are to be delivered as a non-editable PDF file.

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.

• Enables several writers to write in the same document at the same time, which means that it is always possible to get the latest version printed and see the current state.
• Because we are limited in the template to a few styles we don't use a lot of time after completion checking up on which style the writers has been using. This saves us a lot of editing.
• Before we got XaitPorter the drawing team didn't get the figures to quality control until the final stages of the process, but now the figures are received as soon as the writer uploads them. This also saves a lot of overtime, because the drawing team is involved earlier on.

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.

• The dashboard is complex and not easily understood. Since we only worked on a few documents at a time, we went straight into the document and never spent time on the dashboard.
• Being cloud based, the time taken to move from one section of the document to another becomes painful.
• The word import function could be improved.
• There are some functionalities in Word that are not available in XaitPorter. For example you can insert pictures within a table in Word but you cant do that in XaitPorter.

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.

It's very basic. More features would be better.

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 find it to be intuitive to use with a simple menu and right-click based functionality in place.

Incentivized

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

XaitPorter is always there even though we have issues with outages (suddenly the network does not work, but that is internal issue)

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)

Our reports/Tenders complete in a reasonable time frame, actually faster than Word. We have not integrated with other systems or softwares.

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

They have a clear method for reporting any issues and work hard to get a resolution, keeping me informed of progress.

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.

He was really good. He came from Xait and trained us for several days. He got all involved and answered the questions asked. He was a professional trainee

Incentivized

Online training is limited in my opinion.

The online training was really good. They know the way of getting people involved and they answered all questions asked. They were there for us.

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

I was really satisfied with the implementation

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.

We looked at every major product and some newer ones. We liked Xait's general robustness and handling of images (despite the issue about the internal library), as well as the output quality in PDF. Also, we're a Mac shop so we could not be chained to a Windows editor.

Incentivized

I just love the system

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.

• We have seen reduced overtime costs for tender support staff who used to spend a lot of time managing and dealing with version control issues, formatting issues, layout issues and printing issues
• We have experienced that Porter has allowed us to handle more work without increasing our staffing.
• The quality of our submissions has improved both by the switch to Porter, and further by the increased proficiency of both our administrators and writers.

Incentivized