Document RFP responses

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What are Document responses?

Realm supports two kinds of RFP responses:

• Questionnaires: spreadsheet-style RFPs where Realm fills answers into rows and columns. See Completing an RFP.
• Document responses: narrative RFPs that you answer with a written document rather than a grid of answers.

Choose a Document response when the buyer expects prose: a proposal, a technical approach, a methodology section, or a written security response. Realm reads the RFP, proposes an outline, drafts the document from your company knowledge, and gives your team a collaborative editor to finish it.

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Creating a Document response

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Drafting a document the buyer asked for

A tender usually names the documents it expects: a method statement, a quality plan, a list of references. Realm reads the project’s files and collects the ones nobody has drafted yet under Suggested files, a band on the project’s Files tab, above its supporting files. Each suggestion quotes the sentence that asked for it and names the file that sentence came from. Choose Show to open that file at the passage, so you can read the demand in the buyer’s own words first. Hover the row, open Create, and choose Generate to draft it. Realm asks a few questions about the parts only you can decide. At the bottom of the dialog, you can adjust the document’s tone, language, and length. Realm then works out an outline and opens the document in the editor on it. Read it, edit it here, or ask Realm to change it. When it says what you want, choose Draft the document and Realm writes the full draft from it, in the tone, language, and length you chose. Not every suggestion needs Realm to draft it. The same Create menu also offers Upload files, Create document, and Existing document. Create document opens its dialog with that suggestion already chosen under Linked to, so whatever you start there is linked to the suggestion. To link a file that is already in the project, open the options menu on the file’s row and choose Link to a suggested file; the suggestion is then marked done and opens the file in the preview. A suggestion you do not plan to produce can be removed from the options menu on its row. Once a suggestion is drafted it is no longer a suggestion: it leaves the band and joins the project’s documents in the list above.

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Adding a document the buyer did not ask for

A bid often includes documents no part of the tender demands: a training plan, a reference list, a method statement offered on your own initiative. From a project, choose Add document on the Files tab (it sits on the Suggested files band while there are suggestions, and closes the list of the bid’s documents when there are none), or Create document in the header’s Add menu. The dialog is the same prompt bar as the Documents page: type what the document should say and Realm drafts it in the editor, or pick Start from document or Start from template first, or choose Blank document to start writing yourself. Beneath the prompt, Role files the document as a Deliverable of the bid or as a Supporting file, and Linked to links a deliverable to one of the suggested files. To add files instead, choose Upload files in the header’s Add menu, on the deliverables band, or in the options menu on a suggested file’s row (which links the first document you add to that suggestion; the rest are added unlinked). One drop zone takes every file, and Realm sorts each by type: a spreadsheet is sorted into Questionnaires to fill, and anything else into Supporting files from the header’s menu or Documents to respond to from the deliverables band. Once there are files, drag one or use the arrows on its row to move it into a different group, and use Linked to on a file under Documents to respond to to link it to a suggested file. The dialog starts empty each time you open it, and when you add a single questionnaire, Realm opens it as soon as it is parsed. Opened from the Add menu on the supporting files band instead, the dialog is titled Upload supporting files and every file becomes a supporting file. Either way, uploads keep running after you close the dialog. A buyer’s file can be answered in two ways, and the options menu on its row offers both, whether the file is a deliverable or a supporting file. Choose Fill as questionnaire to have Realm parse it into a questionnaire to fill. Choose Respond in the editor to answer it with a written response: the Create document dialog opens with that file already chosen under Start from document. A document created this way behaves like any other in the bid: it appears with the project’s files, it is approved the same way, and it is included when you choose Download documents from the project’s Download files menu. An uploaded or existing file added as a deliverable is already final: it needs no approval, a suggestion it answers is marked done, and it is downloaded with the project’s files through Download all files rather than Download documents, which bundles the documents written in Realm. Realm does not read a deliverable as part of the buyer’s material.

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Moving files between deliverables and supporting material

The options menu on any file or document row can change its standing. Move to deliverables and Move to supporting files switch a file between the bid’s own deliverables and the material it draws on. Link to a suggested file opens a searchable list of the project’s suggestions, so a file or document can be linked to one, or to a different one than it is now; Unlink from the suggested file takes the link away and leaves it as a deliverable nobody asked for.

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Approving a document

Each document in the bid is accepted by someone before the bid goes out. In the project’s Files tab, open the options menu on the document’s row and choose Approve. The document is then marked as done. Choose Reopen on the same menu to put it back into progress. Editing an approved document also reopens it. If a document has named reviewers, only one of them can approve it. A document with no reviewer is approved by anyone who can edit the project.

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Grounding in your questionnaire answers

This applies to the documents Realm drafts for a project: the ones a tender demanded, and the ones you add yourself. A bid’s questionnaire answers are what it has already told the buyer. Before writing each section, Realm reads the questionnaire rows that relate to it and searches your knowledge base, and it will not write anything a questionnaire answer contradicts. Approved answers outrank unapproved ones. A questionnaire row Realm reads in full is cited back to the question it answers, so you can open it and check the claim. Realm shows how many answers and documents each document cites, or that it cites none.

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Reviewing the outline

Realm analyzes the RFP and generates an outline of the response. The outline opens in Plan mode, where you review the proposed structure before any drafting happens. Refine the outline through Embedded Chat, which you open from the editor header. Ask it to add or remove sections, reorder them, merge overlapping topics, or change the emphasis of a section. Iterate until the structure matches how you want to respond.

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Drafting the document

When the outline is right, click Draft the document. Realm attaches the uploaded RFP to the drafting request and writes the full response draft, following the outline and drawing on the RFP, your company knowledge, and your answer library. Drafting follows the response language you picked when creating the response.

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Collaborating in the editor

The response opens in a real-time collaborative editor, so several people can write in the same document at once.

• Embedded Chat: Open Embedded Chat from the editor header to ask questions about the RFP, rewrite a section, or expand a thin answer. The panel knows which document and version you have open, and keeps that document’s conversations together. See Embedded Chat.
• Suggested edits: The assistant can propose inline edits. Review each one and accept or reject it.
• Comments: Start comment threads on any part of the document and assign them to a teammate. Assigned threads show up as tasks in the RFP list under My tasks, and threads you are waiting on appear under Waiting on.
• Version history: Browse earlier versions of the document to see how it changed and recover previous wording.
• Citations: Drafted content links back to the sources it came from, so reviewers can verify claims.
• Status: A response moves from Drafting to Completed, and can be Archived when it is no longer active.
• Deadlines and tags: Set a deadline to keep the team on track, and add tags to organize responses.

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Publishing a link

Publishing a document gives it a link anyone can open, inside or outside your organization. The published page always shows the document’s current content, so edits made after publishing are visible right away. Use Unpublish in the editor header to take the link down.

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Document responses in projects

When the RFP belongs to a project, the response document is part of the project:

• It appears in the project Files tab, where you can open it in the editor.
• It counts toward the project Progress dashboard.
• The source RFP feeds the project Summary and Go/No-Go analysis.

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Reusing completed responses

You can add a finished Document response to your answer library so future work can reuse it. In the editor header, next to the status badge, click the book icon to opt the response in. Realm indexes the response into the answer library once the response is marked Completed. After that, questionnaire fills and chats can reuse its content the same way they use the rest of your company knowledge.

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Exporting

Export the document currently shown in the editor in any of these formats. If you have selected an earlier version in Version history, the export uses that historical version; otherwise it uses the document’s current live content:

• PDF
• Word (.docx)
• Markdown
• Google Docs

For Word, PDF, and Google Docs exports, choose what the response should look like under Match formatting of: one of your organization’s saved layouts, a Word document from your knowledge base, or a .docx file you upload. Realm renders the response through that layout, so the export matches your company’s branding and formatting. A selected and saved layout can also produce a Word, PDF, or Google Docs export when the document body is blank. Choose No layout to export with Realm’s default styling. Choose Use as document layout to keep the choice on the document. Later exports use it, and the editor’s Preview tab shows the Word document the export produces.