Sofon Proposal Organizer vs. XaitPorter

In my opinion, the most valuable characteristic of SPO is that by answering simple questions a very complex product can be configured; therefore the scope of delivery is defined very well. In addition, SPO has great flexibility to manage prices and costs. However, SPO is configurator of parts that allows incorporating basic design rules for their selection. SPO is not a optimised for developing complicated engineering design rules.

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

• Sofware works correctly with no crashes
• Sofon's support is quick and efficient
• User-friendly interface
• Easy maintenability
• Wide range of Sofon products allows for expanding the software scope

• 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

• Give us an easier way to configure from an admin point of view
• More reporting possibilities

• 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

Generally speaking the company is satisfied with SPO; knowledge on how to use SPO and on how to code in the product have been developed, and has led to good results. In addition, customer service provided by Sofon is efficient and quick. Finally, SPO guarantees that product -specific knowledge stays in-house, reducing the risk of 'knowledge leakage to competitors.

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

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

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

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

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

I was really satisfied with the implementation

Incentivized

The previous product we used was developed by ourselves so my experience is very limited. I can say that having a software like SPO we can configure the product without any programming experience and this makes things faster and better. Moreover, I can say that MS Office compatibility is a strong point.

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

• Fast lead conversion
• Increased sales representatives effort

• 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