TrustRadius Insights for Privia (discontinued) are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Pros
Easy Customization: Reviewers have praised Privia for its easy customization of workflow process design, allowing users to configure properties and track demanding procedures with real-time reports on their status. Several users have mentioned that this feature enhances their ability to adapt the software to their specific needs.
Powerful Reporting Capability: Many users have highlighted Privia's powerful reporting capability, which enables them to customize their view of data by selecting fields and adding filters to generate selected exportable data. This functionality has been particularly useful in generating insightful reports tailored to different project requirements.
Commenting Feature: The commenting feature in Privia has been consistently described as unique and highly useful by reviewers. It allows frequent reviews with extended project teams to be done concurrently, significantly improving efficiency and enabling more users to fully participate in the review process.
Privia provides a basis for real-time interface with colleagues and or clients with a document or project. I have found it suitable for a document that must undergo many stages of development among and between different types and groups of users and contributors. It is optimal for consistency of document-management standards between and within organizations.
Pros
Ease of use--Privia has a broadly accessible array of functions, geared toward maximizing utility for disparate contexts and users. Its design is streamlined sufficiently to offer neophytes and experts alike the opportunity to contribute and review.
Real-time editing and change management--As an editor, change management with document processing is capitally important. Privia affords me the opportunity to assess changes as they happen.
Privia's ability to house documents (in a centralized repository) is an outright boon to assuring version control and appropriate safeguarding/protection of content/data.
Cons
My issues with Privia have more to do with public perception than with the product itself. While I have experienced NO FUNCTIONAL PROBLEMS with Privia, I have seen non-users feel intimidated by the software in advance of using it. That's all I've got.
Likelihood to Recommend
As an editor (i.e., not a manager, vendor, lead, etc.), I have found Privia to be most effective when reconciling different bodies of input.
It was used for Proposal development. It was used across the whole organization. It addressed the need for Corporate to take all requirements into consideration. I truly loved working with the Privia and would recommend it for other high-level proposal writing. We had a great Proposal/Privia manager, Linda Davies. She was an independent contractor hired by the company.
Pros
I liked the structure of breaking down the RFP.
I liked the way it allows comment bubbles.
I liked the security of locking it down so that certain portions were kept internal while others could be released externally.
Cons
None that I know of.
Likelihood to Recommend
Well suited for high-level government proposal writing.
We use Privia as a collaboration tool for approximately 500 users in developing responses to Request for Proposals for Federal, State, and Local Government systems. It allows us to provide centralized access to documents for users working throughout the world. It allows our version control, specific security as needed, and collaborative input and commenting on the documents.
Pros
The commenting feature in Privia is a unique feature that allows us to do frequent reviews with extended project teams to do reviews concurrently and quite successfully. It allowed us to be much more efficient and have more users to more fully participate in the review process.
The version control feature works quite well for us, allowing us to completely avoid the common issues of over writing documents and loss of content.
The delegate feature allows us to provide multiple users with control over the workspace. This allows us to be much more efficient with scheduling and control.
Cons
There can be occasional lag time when working on the Web Client.
If you are copying workspaces off line for archival purposes, Privia will allow non-standard Windows file names. These files will then have to be renamed to copy them off the system.
If you copy a folder off line, if you do not have at least view access to the file, it will simply not download without any error indicated.
Likelihood to Recommend
It is VERY important to make sure you think through the map for how your system should be configured. Time spent carefully determining exactly how you want it laid out and how you will use the system will make your implementation and roll out much more successful. You should understand how your process currently works and determine any preferred process changes before your implementation.
Privia is fantastic for maintaining version control, linking to other programs and keeping everybody in check on the team. I would love to be able to burn files to a CD directly from Privia. That would be my only complaint.
Pros
Version control
Graphics preview with mouse hover
Linking to other sites and programs
Cons
Burn to CD directly from Privia
Being able to do a "save as" from the web version to save on my desktop
Search functionality
Email directly from Privia if Outlook is not used
Likelihood to Recommend
Bid and proposal departments will love this if they have several different writers. Version control is huge and it's user friendly.
The previous company I worked for uses Privia as the primary tool to support all Federal Government Bids & Proposals worth $300K or more. Privia is specifically used by the Corporate Strategic Proposal Support Team to track the proposal from start to finish. Specific users included, but were not limited to, the following: Proposal Managers, Proposal Coordinators, Proposal Writers (Technical, Management, Resumes, etc.), Capture Team (VPs & Contracted SMEs), Proposal Editors, Financial Team, Subcontractors, etc. All users associated with the specific bid / proposal were added to the Privia Workspace with various permissions, trained, and set loose on the proposal. The Proposal Manager maintained control over the entire workspace throughout the life of the proposal, added various review team members when necessary, and removed permissions as applicable. During review teams, each review team member was able to actively comment and suggest edits to the document in live mode, and the document lead locked the document for editing upon closure of the review team to ensure no overwrites were made. Overall, Privia proved to be a highly successful tool in storing all Bid / Proposal documents while maintaining control over the ever-evolving Proposal itself. I highly recommend Privia to any company looking to standardize their proposal process.
Pros
Document Repository with standardized Folder Structures: Privia has the ability to create customized & standardized Privia workspaces with set training documents and folder structures as a foundation for each project. This helps assure that the process remains intact without jeopardizing quality throughout the lifecycle of each project / proposal.
Customized Workspace Permissions: Privia allows the Workspace owner to maintain control over who is able to view, edit, add / remove documents, add / remove additional users, etc. This is particularly helpful when dealing with classified information such as financial data, as well as ensuring that corporate strategies are protected when it comes to subcontractors. There are many instances where subcontractors would like to share certain information with the prime, but would like to keep their data separate from other subcontractors also working on the same project / proposal.
Commenting / Editing and Lock Feature Tools: Privia has the ability to allow multiple users to comment and edit upon the same document simultaneously. This is highly useful when it comes to proposal review teams. At the end of each review team, the comments are consolidated and the document lead can lock the document for editing so that no changes may be made while the comments are taken into consideration, accepted, or rejected.
Cons
Limited Licenses: Privia sells licenses by the bundle. However, the licenses can get extremely pricey. To help mitigate this issue, the company administrators do a sweep of the user licenses every 3 weeks to ensure that all licenses are being maximized. This process is very time-consuming, considering that we have hundreds of proposals going on at the same time. There have been many instances where various users have had to be deactivated because their license had not been used within the last 2 months, and then reactivated a few days later because they are working on a new proposal. Our administrators are also part of the Corporate Strategic Proposal Support Team, so this can be inconvenient if all administrators are working on multiple proposals. Time management and cross-training is key to balancing the number of active licenses.
Likelihood to Recommend
Privia is well-suited for project / proposal management in terms of working on a live proposal or massive document of sorts. However, it is not ideal from a business analytics standpoint. If you are looking for graphical representations and/or snapshots of your project / proposal at a glance, Privia is not for you.
Privia is used across the organization for collaboration and proposal preparation. Privia solved version control problems, provided the opportunity for remote collaboration, and enabled multiple reviewers to comment on documents at the same time.
Pros
Use as a review tool (Privia's 'comment' feature). Privia allows multiple users to make comments on a single document at the same time. Unlike Word's track changes, the Privia comment tool allows users to make in-line or general comments on a document. No merging of comments required!
Permissions at the user, file, folder, and workspace levels. With the click of a mouse, it's easy to restrict users' ability to edit, or even view, specific files and file folders. Workspace-level permissions allow administrators to restrict user access to only those projects they are working on.
Compatibility and pipeline management. Privia's web interface provides pipeline management capabilities, and interfaces with sites like GovWin, allowing users to import opportunity data with the click of a mouse button. That same opportunity data can then be used to launch an opportunity-specific workspace for document management and proposal development.
Privia's 'behind the scenes' process designer capabilities allow administrators to build workflows complete with decision points, rollback points, and the ability to assign users to tasks.
Cons
When using the pure web version of Privia (that is, without installing the thick client on a PC), the comment feature is null and void. This is because without the thick client installed, the pure web platform cannot interact with MS Office products. This creates hassles during reviews when users show up with a laptop and don't have permissions to install software.
Likelihood to Recommend
Privia is built for proposal management. The features and functionality of the tool lend themselves to collaborative, iterative document review cycles. The version control and permissions abilities further facilitate this process. Privia is capable of, but not best suited for, simple document management. The tool is far more robust and would not be utilized to its fullest potential if used only as a document repository for version control.
We use Privia across the organization for the entire opportunity management process from business development leads through post-proposal submission. The main problem it addresses is configuration management of the myriad aspects of opportunity processes and procedures from the time a business development executive sees a lead twinkling in the eye of a customer to the herding of a large partnership team members involved in the many-hued review stage of the Shipley proposal process (or any other process you care to design in Privia's customizable workflow tool). Along the way, like the customizable workflow process, Privia gives the manager enormous flexibility in role assignments, role level security, internal and external user accessibility, automation and standardization of repeatable procedures, customization of data fields, and metadata search potential. I must add that it is not all things to all people and there are limits to this customization, but if you get that far you will be an appreciative user.
Pros
Easy to customize workflow process design with accountable and acceptor assignments, among other configurable properties, that can track the most demanding procedures and provide real-time reports on their status.
Built-in browser toolbar that automates the capture of volumes of information on government (and private sector) opportunity postings on FBO, GovWinIQ, and others.
Although there are some limitations, it has a powerful reporting capability that allows you to customize your view of the data by selecting fields and adding filtering to generate selected exportable data.
Cons
As mentioned in strengths, there are limitations to reporting in that some fields are not available or only available in one of the four report "types" when you'd like that field in another report type. Some fields are not selectable at all it would seem. My understanding is the Privia can accommodate further customization for each customer at a price, so even this limitation can be overcome.
Privia has a great version control and commenting capability that includes commenting on graphics files, but the check-out and in process are not always intuitive to many of our users and require some hand-holding. In addition, the commenting capability, which supports concurrent users, produces an export to Word with comment fields but doesn't mark up the document itself - whether that is a blessing or a curse is really up to your team and editing style.
Likelihood to Recommend
The only hesitation I have is that Privia, while powerful, is a complex tool to learn and a change management challenge for most organizations (I've been in a few and it would have been a challenge to implement in all of them except my own brief partnership, well maybe not even then). So I don't want to recommend it without the caveat that you should be prepared to support its adoption at the highest level of your company - if you aren't the CEO, make sure you have their complete buy-in. I also want to add that Privia has the best customer support of all the vendors that I'm currently dealing with and many I have dealt with in the past. Their Tier 1 support is very responsive and knowledgeable and resolved our issues 100% of the time. The management is very open to input from its customers and they are a pleasure to deal with.
