Product Updates

Product Updates

Most Recent Updates

Past Updates: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018

November 2021 Updates

END USER UPDATES

New Quote File Save Process

With this update, all Quote Files must now be saved via the new Save button on the menu toolbar
rather than saving Quote Files via Excel’s save functions. Quote Files can also be saved via the Files/Docs
submenu. We’ve made this change to address an Excel bug that sometimes does not allow SDA to
intercept Excel’s save functions so that it can properly perform its auto-saving functions.

Updated Approvals Process

The approvals process has been substantially updated so that it’s easier, more secure and more
manageable. Approvals are now driven from the browser-accessed Dashboard, meaning that approval
levels can be set up in the Dashboard by your administrator and associated with the appropriate users.

In addition, required approvals are visible in the Dashboard in the Approval Required column for
various views including the Documents view, which you can sort and filter by required approval levels
and save custom views with these sorts and filters.

When a user approves a Quote File, the user’s approval level is applied to the Quote File instantly – a
password is no longer required – based on how the user has registered as an SDA user on their
machine. Previously, passwords were required to approve a quote, which was not only more
cumbersome but also less secure since any user could enter another user’s password if they somehow
knew the password.

Users are prompted to submit a Quote File for approval when saving a Quote File and NeedsApprovalBy
(a named range programmed by the administrator) contains a value AND there are no issues in the
Quote File that limit outputs to draft-watermarked PDF-only outputs. Users can also manually submit a
Quote File for approval – even with output issues – via the Submit Quote File for approval menu option
under Files/Docs >> Approvals. Users will also be prompted to send an email notification for any Quote
Files that have been submitted for approval.

Quote Files can be approved by opening them up and selecting Files/Docs >> Approvals >> Approve
Quote, at which point the user can select whether to LOCK the Quote File. By default, Lock Quote File is
checked, but you can change this default via Settings >> User setup >> Advanced Options. Select
Files/Docs >> Approvals >> Show approvals history to show approvals history for a Quote File.

Dashboard Enhancements

For clients using the Dashboard to manage projects and files, we’ve made several enhancements (see
below for other enhancements we’ve made in recent months). If today your company isn’t using the
Dashboard to manage your projects and files, you should be!

Update Close Date has been added to the Actions menu for the Opportunities view. Users can select
one or more opportunities then set the new Close Date for the selected items. Administrators should
note that you can set up SDA to automatically update past due Close Dates to today in the Account
Settings view in the Admin section of the Dashboard.

Prior to today has been added to the Close Date/Stage Type filter dialog in the Opportunities view, and
defaults to checked when “This Month” or “This Quarter” are checked.

Show in Documents view hyperlinks have been added to opportunity and quote pop-outs in the
Opportunities view. The opportunity pop-out is accessed by clicking the ID hyperlink in an opportunity
row in the Opportunities view. The quote pop-out is accessed by expanding an opportunity row to show
the related quote “child” rows, then clicking the Quote ID hyperlink.

Modified Date has been changed and now shows the date and time when you hover over the date in
the Modified column of any view.

New “Send doc content via Outlook” Function

We’ve added a Send doc content via Outlook option under the Files/Docs menu in Word. What’s really
cool about this feature is that you can generate any document from SDA – or open any document on
your PC – then immediately send it as the content in an Outlook email. This means you can use SDA to
generate the content for your sales emails.

This new feature lends itself well to the outline-driven approach for generating content from SDA
whereby your administrator creates tabs pre-populated with references to content that you can pull
from your SDA library, the RFP Builder Content Library, or content located in your shared file location
(SharePoint, network or hosted by CorsPro in AWS). Users can then select the content to include in their
Word output, which can then immediately be sent to Outlook via Send doc content via Outlook.

If you subscribe to the RFP Response Builder module, this feature becomes even more powerful
because users can quickly and easily access the Content Library for email content. For example, your
administrator might categorize content into a “Sales emails” category, perhaps also setting up various
solution types as subcategories for the email content in your Content Library. Your administrator can
even create output options (in the Outputs menu) to show users a list of content from which to choose,
based on category and/or subcategory. In the example below, the dialog shows the user all content
contained within the “Sales Letters” category.

 

ADMINISTRATOR UPDATES

Updated Approvals Process

The approvals process has been substantially updated so that it’s easier, more secure and more
manageable. End user changes and the revised approvals process are fully detailed in the What’s New
End-User Version.

From an administrator perspective, there’s a brand-new Approval Levels view in the Admin section of
the Dashboard. Even if your company does not use the Dashboard to manage projects and files,
approval levels must be managed via the Approval Levels view in the Admin section of the Dashboard.

Approval levels are associated with users via company roles, which are set in the Company Roles view of
the Admin section of the Dashboard. For example, let’s say a company has 10 sales engineers, split into
“Sales Engineer East” and “Sales Engineer West” groups. In this scenario, the administrator would add
“Sales Engineer” as an approval level, then add company roles for “Sales Engineer East” and “Sales
Engineer West” and associate the “Sales Engineer” approval level with those two company roles.
Finally, the administrator would associate one of these two company roles with each of the 10 sales
engineers in the Users view of the Dashboard’s Admin section.

Allow Dashboard Approval. When adding/updating approval levels, administrators can allow users
associated with a particular approval level to approve Quote Files directly from the Dashboard (i.e., via
any browser) without needing to open the Quote File itself by setting “Allow Dashboard Approval” to
“Yes”. This might be appropriate for approval levels such as upper management where detailed review
of the Quote File itself is not required.

For users associated with approval levels with “Allow Dashboard Approval” set to Yes, required approval
levels will be hyperlinked, enabling these users to click an “Approval Required” link and approve the
Quote File from the Dashboard. Once they do so, “Pending Quote File update” will be displayed in the
Dashboard, meaning that someone (perhaps the person who submitted the approval) must open the
Quote File to incorporate the approval into the Quote File.

Outline-Driven Content

We’d like to remind you about the power, ease-of-use and ease-of-implementation of using outlines to
drive content in your outputs. Outlines can also be used to ask users discovery questions and then
generate content from the outline based on their answers. This month, we’ve added a new Send doc
content via Outlook menu option in the Word menu under Files/Docs, and in the end-user version of
What’s New, we describe (and show a screenshot of) how you can use outlines so that users can select
content to include in emails. We strongly encourage you to take a look at using outlines for your
proposals, SOWs, sales emails and other sales content. Here are some links for you to explore…

Recent What’s New updates, including…

  • New Insert Options for Outline-Driven Word Outputs
  • Ability to Output Outline-Only Content
  • Easily create/update pre-populated Dynamic Content Creator outlines
  • Updated Insert Menu
  • Chart Content Type Added to Outlines

Online help content:

Webinars and videos:

Below is a screenshot of the various content that can be inserted into outlines, either by end users in live
Quote Files, or when you (as the administrator) create outline templates with pre-populated content that end
users can bring into their Quote Files. As you can see, there are lots of different types of content that you can
add to an outline. If today your company isn’t using Outlines, you should be!